Rep36 Understanding Personality Disorder

2.2.3e Gender and childhood maltreatment
Girls are at a higher risk of intra-familial sexual
abuse whereas boys are more likely to be sexually
molested by strangers or to be physically abused
(Rogers & Terry, 1984). Community survey
estimates of unwanted sexual contact with adults
for boys and girls before the age of 18 vary from
38 per cent (Russell, 1983) to 59 per cent
(Wyatt, 1985). Another indication of childhood
sexual victimisation comes from lifetime
prevalence studies of rape using the
retrospective accounts of female adult victims.
One study found that 21.6 per cent of first rapes
occurred when the victim was less than 12 years
of age and 32.4 per cent when the victim was 12
to 17 years (Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). The
gender ratio of victims of sexual assault in
childhood has been estimated to be between 1.5
and 3 females to every one male (Katz &
Watkins, 1998). Therefore, there are gender
differences in the probability of different types of
childhood maltreatment. This is likely to
predispose men and women to different sorts of
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personal dysfunction in the context of male and
female identities developing differentially in
society as a whole
2.2.4 Resilience to psychopathology
There is evidence to suggest that 25 per cent of
individuals traumatised during childhood later
developed significant psychopathology as adults
(Werner & Smith, 1992). As the majority did not,
this would indicate that some individuals are
more resilient to the development of
psychological distress. It may be that adaptive
personality traits protect certain individuals
against psychopathology. This resilience to
distress may also be based upon an ability to
buffer themselves from more negative life
experiences and that some individuals need to
experience more negative life events before their
coping abilities are overwhelmed (Rutter, 1987)
or the development of active coping styles in
seeking social support (Runtz & Schallow, 1997).
Social mechanisms may explain the relative lack
of vulnerability of some children. These children
would appear to recognise early on in their lives
that their parent’s behaviour is pathological and
look elsewhere for attachment and behavioural
models (Werner & Smith, 1992). It has been
noted that positive experiences outside the
family, and particularly positive school
experiences, may protect children by providing
children with experiences of competence or a
positive bond with a particular teacher (Rutter &
Rutter, 1993). Schools and other social
structures, such as athletics and social clubs may,
therefore, reduce the risk of delinquency (Rutter
& Rutter, 1993).