False Accusations of Physical and Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Child sexual abuse is sometimes mistakenly over-reported. This discussion of seven cases focuses on one potential area which can generate a substantial segment of false positives: conflicted domestic relations litigation situation.

Such situations generate striking, regressive affect and behavior especially when issues of child custody or visitation erupt. Parental regression has been discussed in the literature, but children regress too: behavioral symptoms erupt with vegetative and social disruption, and instinctual material regarding both sex and anger is more accessible to consciousness than is age-appropriate.

Heightened instinctual forces in children and regressive loosening of pre-litigation character defenses in adults, both in the context of stressful family breakdown, combine to generate genuine perceptions of abuse but invalid reports.