Interpersonal Dependency among Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse in Therapy

Author(s)

Erica L. Hill, Harvard University
Steven N. Gold, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Robert F. Bornstein, Gettysburg College

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse

ISSN

1053-8712

Publication Date

9-1-2000

Abstract

This study investigated dependency in survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). The Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI) was administered at intake to 24 men and 85 women seen in therapy at a university-based community mental health clinic. In contrast to findings from earlier studies, no significant gender differences were obtained for IDI whole-scale or subscale scores. Analyses comparing CSA IDI scores with the IDI scores of previously studied groups indicated that among women, CSA survivors obtained higher dependency scores than non-CSA psychiatric patients, community adults, and college students. Findings for men were less consistent. Follow-up analyses revealed that commonly investigated CSA characteristics were unrelated to survivors' dependency scores. Implications of these findings for future research and clinical practice are explored.

DOI

10.1300/J070v09n02_05

Volume

9

Issue

2

First Page

71

Last Page

86

NSUWorks Citation

Hill, E. L., Gold, S. N., Bornstein, R. F. (2000). Interpersonal Dependency among Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse in Therapy. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 9(2), 71-86.
Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_facarticles/648