https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014521341830084X
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180329190842.htm
The economic burden of child sexual abuse in the United States
Researchers measured the economic costs of child sexual abuse by calculating health care costs, productivity losses, child welfare costs, violence/crime costs, special education costs and suicide death costs.
They estimated the total lifetime economic burden of child sexual abuse in the United States to be $9.3 billion, based on child sexual abuse data from 2015. For nonfatal cases of child sexual abuse, the estimated lifetime cost is $282,734 per female victim. There was insufficient information on productivity losses for male victims, which contributed to a lower estimated lifetime cost of $74,691. The findings are published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.
"This study reveals that the economic burden of child sexual abuse is substantial and signifies recognition that reducing children's vulnerability will positively and directly impact the nation's economic and social well-being and development," said Dr. Xiangming Fang, associate professor of health management and policy in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. "We hope our research will bring attention to the need for increased prevention efforts for child sexual abuse."
Child sexual abuse includes commercial sexual exploitation and the use of children in pornographic performance and materials. The estimated prevalence rates of exposure to child sexual abuse by 18 years old are 26.6 percent for U.S. girls and 5.1 percent for U.S. boys. International rates of exposure are often higher in low- and middle-income countries. The effects of child sexual abuse include increased risk for development of severe mental, physical and behavioral health disorders; sexually transmitted diseases; self-inflicted injury, substance abuse and violence; and subsequent victimization and criminal offending.
The researchers examined data from 20 new cases of fatal child sexual abuse and 40,387 new cases of nonfatal child sexual abuse that occurred in 2015. The data were obtained from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System of the Children's Bureau and child maltreatment reports issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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think- ago
What I find interesting is that there seems to be a relation between having been suffered from sexual abuse as a child and developing cancer later in life - cancer rates of survivors are clearly higher than among people who say there were not abused when young.
There are different studies that show this connection.
The explanation seems to be that the amygdala of children who were abused (part of the brain that changes when someone is traumatized and makes the brain switch to 'hyper-alert' and induces flashbacks) causes inflammatory processes in the body, which may influence developing cancer and other diseases.
Vindicator ago
Yes...there is a direct connection between the autonomic nervous system fight-or-flight response and rewiring of the brain in PTSD. Interestingly, they are finding it is possible to use that link to rewire the messed up system via the rest-and-digest opposite response via breathing and eye movements.
think- ago
from the article you linked:
I think it has something to do with connecting the memories with body movements (in this case eye movements), so that the brain will stop pushing these memories endlessly to the foreground, and they will 'fall back' into the memory stream, becomming 'normalized' memories.
EMDR seems to work especially well when people have a mono trauma (a single event that caused the trauma), and it seems to be important that patients will be stable enough before the treatment begins, so that they won't be flooded with memories and get re-traumatized.
I think it's adamant that therapists have a good overview of possible treatments, that they are aware that negative effects can occur, and that they stop a treatment immediately if negative side-effects show.
When therapists know more than one possible treatment for PTSD, chances are higher they don't push a specific one, even if it is not suitable for certain patients, but will try to find out which one might work best for which person.
Vindicator ago
I agree. We know from neurolinguistic programming, that where you look with your eyes corresponds to the different faculties of the brain: memory, imagination, sensation. My understanding is that EMDR uses eye movements in conjunction with tiptoeing into traumatic memories + deliberate deep, relaxed breathing to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The combination retrains the brain to overwrite the triggering aspect of the memory. You can use "intermediate" memories to work your way up to it...like imagining you are approaching the place that the traumatic event happened and doing it until you can get the relaxation response. Then imagining you are in the place the traumatic event happened BY YOURSELF, and then getting the relaxation response. Only once you have reclaimed all of that territory do you venture into the traumatic memory itself. You can even devise additional steps, like imagining a painting of the person who hurt you in the place, and then getting the relaxation response. 80% of our brains are devoted to visual perception, so the EMDR stuff is a large factor in deprogramming. It's all basically a clever way of hacking your own nervous system and taking control back, away from whatever situation or sonofabitch fucked it up for you. :-)