Trauma-focused CBT for reducing the behavior problems of adolescents abused sexually during childhood

Pages:429-433
Shubhdip Kaur and Damanjit Sandhu (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala)

India has the world’s largest number of sexually abused children. Child sexual abuse is the involvement of a child in a sexual activity that he or she does not comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or for which the child is not developmentally prepared and cannot give consent, or that violates the laws or social taboos of society. Childhood sexual abuse carries long-term behavioral consequences for the victim such as post-traumatic stress, conduct problems, anxiety, withdrawal, fear, sexual behavior, poor physical and mental health, greater substance abuse, poorer parental relationships, and various cognitive distortions. These consequences make the psychological adjustment of victim harder during adolescence. Still, these adolescents can be made to come out of past trauma for getting better adjusted psychologically in future, with the use of effective interventions. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one such intervention, which has been proved to be effective in reducing the psychological distress and thus, behavioral problems of the sexually abused victims, in the course of this study.