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Childhood Sexual Abuse and Psychopathology

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Emotional, Physical and Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been associated with a range of different psychopathological conditions, including personality disorders, anxiety and mood disorders, eating disorders, dissociative symptoms, and suicide attempts. Methodological issues contribute to heterogeneity within studies, and only longitudinal prospective research can definitively establish the required causal relationship between traumatic life events in childhood and psychopathological outcomes. The commonly recognized multifactorial models for mental illness are based on the assumption that almost all psychiatric conditions are caused by a sequence or combination of risk factors rather than a single influence. Therefore, CSA may combine with certain other risk factors to result in a specific diagnosis, while combining with others can lead to other psychopathological outcomes. In other words, different moderators and mediators may affect the extent and nature of the relationship between CSA and psychopathology. Moderators represent those factors that may make the development of one disorder versus another more likely: age of abuse, gender, social context, and gene–environment interactions represent potential moderators for the relationship between CSA and psychopathology. Mediators explain the generative mechanism through which CSA is able to influence the development of later psychopathology. They included neuroticism, impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, body image, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. From a clinical perspective, it has been demonstrated that CSA survivors represent a subpopulation of patients with specific maintaining factors of their symptoms, which are not efficaciously challenged by standard treatment interventions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental, Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini, 6, Florence, 50134, Italy

    Giovanni Castellini & Mario Maggi

  2. Department of Neuropsychiatric Sciences, University of Florence, Largo Brambilla 3, Florence, 50134, Italy

    Giovanni Castellini & Valdo Ricca

Authors
  1. Giovanni Castellini
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  2. Mario Maggi
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  3. Valdo Ricca
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Correspondence to Valdo Ricca .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Department; Endocrinology Unit, Maggiore-Bellaria Hospital, Azienda-Usl Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Giovanni Corona

  2. Department of System Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

    Emmanuele A. Jannini

  3. Sexual Medicine and Andrology Unit, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Mario Maggi

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Castellini, G., Maggi, M., Ricca, V. (2014). Childhood Sexual Abuse and Psychopathology. In: Corona, G., Jannini, E., Maggi, M. (eds) Emotional, Physical and Sexual Abuse. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06787-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06787-2_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-06786-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-06787-2

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