The Long Shadow of Sexual Abuse: Developmental Effects across the Life Cycle

The Long Shadow of Sexual Abuse: Developmental Effects across the Life Cycle has one simple purpose-to describe the profound interferences with normal developmental processes that occur in every subsequent developmental phase throughout life as the result of chronic child sexual abuse. Through the presentation of detailed case histories of individuals ranging in age from five to the early sixties, Colarusso convincingly demonstrates that the effects are life long. Sections on normal development for childhood, adolescence, young, and middle adulthood are followed by case histories, arranged chronologically according to the age of the victims at the time they were evaluated. Then the effects of the sexual abuse are traced through subsequent developmental phases to the chronological present. Colarusso illuminates how the passage of time actually increases the pathological effects of chronic child sexual abuse due to interferences with the developmental tasks of adolescence and adulthood.

Calvin A. Colarusso, MD, is clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego and training and supervising analyst in adult and child psychoanalysis at the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute. In the private practice of adult and child psychiatry and psychoanalysis in San Diego since 1973, Colarusso is the author of fifty professional articles and five books on adult and child development. For the past thirty years he has served as an expert witness in civil suits, including approximately one hundred cases related to child sexual abuse.