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Rorschach Assessment of Object Relations Development in Sexually Abused Children (open access)

Rorschach Assessment of Object Relations Development in Sexually Abused Children

Sexual abuse of children has profound negative effects on psychological development. This study examined the effects of sexual abuse on object relations functioning by using the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (MAS, Urist, 1977) to score Rorschach protocols of 63 abused children and 60 non-abused clinical controls. The hypothesis that abused children would have less developed object relations than their non-abused counterparts was not supported. Neither was the hypothesis that children who experienced greater severity of sexual abuse would exhibit more malevolent object relations. The hypothesis that mean and modal MAS scores would be highly intercorrelated and interchangeable as research variables was supported. Comparisons of this sample to a normative sample are discussed.
Date: December 1992
Creator: Isler, Diane E. (Diane Evelyn)
System: The UNT Digital Library