Sexual revictimization: the impact of attachment anxiety, accumulated trauma, and response to childhood sexual abuse disclosure

Violence and Victims
Inbal Brenner, Galit Ben-Amitay

Abstract

It has been proposed that a complexity of personal, interpersonal, and environmental factors is related to sexual revictimization among childhood sexual abuse survivors. In this study, we investigated the relations between attachment dimensions, exposure to accumulated childhood traumas, reaction to childhood sexual abuse disclosure, and adult sexual revictimization. Participants were 60 Israeli women with histories of childhood sexual abuse. Seventy percent of the women reported adult sexual revictimization. Revictimization was related to higher attachment anxiety but not to higher attachment avoidance. Revictimization was also related to emotional and physical child abuse but not to emotional and physical child neglect. Revictimization rates were higher among women who had received negative environmental responses following childhood sexual abuse disclosure than among women who had received supportive reactions and those who had not disclosed childhood sexual abuse at all. Findings were significant even after controlling for severity of childhood sexual abuse. The findings emphasize the role of various contextual-interpersonal factors on revictimization vulnerability among the survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

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Citations

Feb 25, 2017·Violence and Victims·Christina K WilsonKristin W Samuelson
Jan 16, 2018·Trauma, Violence & Abuse·Hannah E WalkerLaura C Wilson
May 26, 2017·Journal of Child Sexual Abuse·Lotem TockerPaz Toren
May 16, 2019·Child Maltreatment·Vincent J Palusci, Marissa Ilardi
Sep 24, 2019·Journal of Interpersonal Violence·Inbal BrennerGalit Ben-Amitay
Aug 15, 2021·Journal of Traumatic Stress·Sara F SteinSandra A Graham-Bermann

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