Breaking the silence: Learning why, when and how to ask about trauma, and how to respond to disclosures

The relationship between adverse life events and the probability of using mental health services is now established beyond reasonable contention. In 2004 a review of forty studies of female inpatients and samples of predominantly psychotic female outpatients between 1984 and 2003 (N = 2396) calculated that 50 per cent had been subjected to childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and 48 per cent to childhood physical abuse (CPA). The majority (69 per cent) had been subjected to either CSA or CPA. The figures for men were CSA 28 per cent, CPA 51 per cent, CSA or CPA 60 per cent (Read et al. 2004a).