ABSTRACT
Recent media attention, such as the lawsuits and admissions within the Catholic Church, school teachers found having sex with their students, revelations by Hollywood members such as Oprah Winfrey, Teri Hatcher and Carlos Santana (to name a few) regarding their own experiences of victimization as well as a new wave of predators via the Internet and on-line chat rooms, all serve as reminders to the public that childhood sexual abuse (CSA) continues to be epidemic in the United States. CSA remains a serious issue that impacts all children, regardless of race, ethnicity, age or socioeconomic status (SES) (Sapp & Vandeven, 2005). CSA victims often go untreated for years due to a lack of disclosure and then present for therapy or to medical doctors as adults for a variety of problems associated with psychological, physical and relational difficulties (Berman, Berman, Bruck, Pawar & Goldstein, 2001). Recurring CSA reports also serve as a reminder to the legal, medical and mental health communities that more efforts are needed to treat current victims, to advocate for their needs and to prevent future victimizations from occurring.
