Molestation, Incest and Rape in African American Families

What I can tell you from experience, and consulting other professional therapists, is that females
who are victims of father-daughter incest rarely escape their traumatic experience without the
development of some form of trauma-related subsequent psychopathology. In fact, these women
are often significantly confused, depressed and consistently engaged in self-harming behaviors,
including promiscuity, cutting themselves, illicit drug use and more.
What troubles me is the fact that the textbooks that were printed in the 1980s into the early 90s
did everything short of endorsing incest, offering an explanation that incestuous behavior worked
to diminish the subject's chance of psychosis and created the ability for the victim to better adjust
to their external world (Henderson, 1974). Unfortunately, since these books were originally
published, a wealth of empirical and pragmatic evidence has been produced that reveals that
incest has caused extremely devastating effects on the well-being of women.
What we know now is that women who are survivors of incest experience many of the same
symptoms of soldiers who develop post-traumatic stress disorder. They have flashbacks of the
traumatic event(s). They develop a higher risk of frequent nightmares. Another pronounced
effect of incest is the capriciousness as far as emotional well-being is concerned, with these
women often vacillating between explosive rage and completely shutting down. Additionally,
incest survivors have difficulty getting along with others, and they struggle in the area of
maintaining meaningful relationships (Kolk B. V., 2014)
Although PTSD was a psychological diagnosis that was largely developed based on the behavior
of post-war veterans, it should be understood that people who experience many other forms of
trauma display the same symptoms (Kolk B. V., 2014). It is also important to understand the
prevalence of trauma is greater among the private sector than it is among soldiers, based solely
on the number of people being traumatized. In fact, more accurate reporting shows that more
than 12 million women in the United States have been raped, and to exacerbate the matter, more
than half of female victims of rape are below the age of 15 (Kilpatrick & Saunders, 1997). What
we know is that each year in the United States, three million cases of child abuse are reported,
and a minimum of one million of these cases are serious and credible enough to warrant action
by child protective services and the courts (Services, 2007, 2009).
While the topic of child victimization is broad and filled with an exorbitant number of
intricacies, I would like to focus on the devastating force of incest, the manner in which it is
often concealed by family members, the impact it has on the victims and ways that we can
effectively confront this plague.
Problem Statement
Prior to 20 years ago, incest among black families was rarely reported in correspondence to the
prevalence of incestuous activity within the black community. Simply put, the incestuous activity
within the black community was much higher than anyone was willing to admit. Since slavery,
incest has been a substantial issue that has been swept under the rug, it has consistently played
the role of the elephant in the room. While a constant narrative has been written in which
pedophiles have been portrayed as the clean cut white, middle-aged man, or a member of the
catholic clergy, the truth is that many black children don’t have to venture out of their homes to