The field of multicultural counseling stresses the impacts of ethnic culture and oppression on clients, counselors, and counseling situations, while writings on child sex abuse have largely neglected these issues. This dissertation provides a theoretical integration of basic concepts from multicultural counseling with issues in the prevention, understanding and treatment of child sex abuse. This dissertation also includes a study of the impact of culture and oppression in therapy for child sex abuse for members of a specific ethnic group--low-income Puerto Ricans in the United States. For the study, psychotherapists who have experience working with low-income Puerto Ricans on issues of child sex abuse, and Puerto Rican women who were sexually abused as children were interviewed about the therapy in which they have participated. The report focuses on impediments to disclosing sexual abuse for Puerto Rican children and their families. Factors related to Puerto Ricans' status as an oppressed minority in the mainland United States, including discrimination, poverty and lack of bilingual services, are identified as making it difficult for Puerto Rican children to disclose. In addition, aspects of Puerto Rican culture including the widespread use of corporal punishment, the high value placed on virginity, and taboos around discussing sexuality are identified as further hindering disclosures. Suggestions for facilitating disclosures in this population include increasing the number of well-trained bilingual people in education, medicine, and social services; increasing the quality and availability of sex education in the schools; and providing training on child sex abuse prevention and detection to members of Puerto Rican communities. The implications of considering culture and oppression in our understanding of child sex abuse are outlined for theory, research and psychotherapy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8438 |
| Date | 01 January 1992 |
| Creators | Fontes, Lisa A |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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