ABSTRACT
The hypothesis of sexual trauma as a precursor or causative factor in mental illness has had a long battle for acceptance. When Freud postulated sexual abuse as the cause of hysteria in 1896, the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society refused to publish a summary of the presentation (Masson, 1984; Strachey, 1953). Freud eventually turned to the Oedipal theory, which postulated that such sexual experiences and desires on the part of the child are fantasy. When Freud's friend and colleague, Ferenczi, asserted in 1932 that similar trauma was the result of sexual abuse, his work was dismissed as the ravings of a failing scientific mind
