By Tamara King, Staff Reporter MENTAL HEALTH practitioners are battling with an increase in the number of women and children who are turning up with many post-traumatic stress disorders as a result of sexual abuse.
Dr. Orlean Brown, child psychologist and family therapist in Mandeville, said that there is a definite increase in the number of persons, particularly children, accessing her services. Since the start of the year, she said she has received many referrals from the Victim Support Unit and other agencies, especially for children who have been traumatised as a result of carnal abuse.
"This is my busiest year yet," she said.
Statistics from the police show that carnal abuse has risen from a total of 82 between January and March last year to 96 for the corresponding period this year. The figure for rape stands at 240 while the comparative period last year was 246.
The figure could be even more says Sergeant Samuel Taylor of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, as research has shown that 75 per cent of sexual offences are not reported to the police.
Superintendent Ray Palmer, commanding officer for the St. Ann's Bay police, noted that while the rape figure for his parish has declined from 10 to eight between January and March, when compared with the same period last year, carnal abuse has jumped from two to eight. Carnal abuse is committed on a more frequent basis than shootings and murder in that parish.
Meanwhile, Beryl Weir of the Women's Centre Foundation which caters to the needs of pregnant teenagers, noted that the organisation is not usually told when a girl becomes pregnant as a result of rape or carnal abuse. Nevertheless, she has discovered several cases of rape over the years.
FEAR KEEPS THEM SILENT
According to Ms. Weir, the fear driven into many victims by perpetrators of sexual offences is enough to keep them silent. She recalled a case 10 years ago when a girl who was raped by her stepfather attended the centre. The rape was never disclosed, however, and later it was discovered that her mother had known about it but told the child to keep quiet. The child simmered in her grief until she almost killed the stepfather because he was doing the same thing to her younger sister.
Dr. Kay Morgan, a psychologist in the Outpatient Psychiatric Department at the University Hospital, noted that since she started at the hospital a year-and-a-half ago, she has treated a large number of women who have been sexually abused. These women are usually referred to her on the basis that they suffer from depression or anxiety. However, after completing the patient's case history, 90 per cent of the time she finds that there is an underlying history of sexual abuse.
It is this widespread sexual abuse that is worrying mental health doctors with whom The Sunday Gleaner spoke with last week.
"There is a category of personality disorders that results from those kinds of abuse. They (victims) have pervasive problems in the way they deal with relationship problems or life. These persons have mal-adaptive ways of dealing with the stress of life in general or people," Dr. Morgan said.
ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOURS
She added that victims of sexual abuse oftentimes exhibit anti-social behaviours and have difficulty forming meaningful friendships since "there is an absence of the representations or internal models of what constitute a good relationship."
Dr. Morgan said that constructing a profile of a rapist is difficult but men who perceive women as weaker or inferior while seeing themselves as macho are prone to commit sexual violence against women. Other issues of control, and the fact that many men faced overwhelming helplessness in many areas of their lives may lead some men to commit rape or carnal abuse, Dr. Morgan said. For these men, overpowering and raping a woman or child is a means of asserting themselves and controlling a particular situation while they lack control in other areas, she told The Sunday Gleaner.
