The Trauma Myth: By Susan A. Clancy. Basic Books, New York, 2009, 236 pp., $25.00

Arch Sex Behav (2010) 39:12051206 DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9643-y

BOOK REVIEW

The Trauma Myth

By Susan A. Clancy. Basic Books, New York, 2009, 236 pp., $25.00

Richard Green

Published online: 22 June 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

The headline, press release, book title message trumpeted here is: Most children who experience sexual contact with adults are not traumatized at the time of the experience. Breaking news? Non-traumatic childadult sexuality has been previously reported by International Academy of Sex Research members Gagnon (1965), Sandfort (1984), Okami (1991), and Rind (Rind, Tromovitch, & Bauserman, 1998). Here, however, Clancy presents it in italicized, bold, upper case 26 font.

Nevertheless, Clancy repeatedly reminds us how evil this non-traumatic (at the time) experience actually is. This moral mantra is identied as the catalyst of later trauma:It is the act of sexual abuse and not the damage it causes that makes it wrong (p. 185), the act is inherently vile (p. 186), why sexualabuse damages victims probably has little to do with the actual abuse and a lot to do with what happens in its aftermath(p. 113), andSexual abuse is very wrong, regardless of how it affects victims(p. 185), etc.

Thus, it is this aura of evil in the adult world that energizes the social construction of trauma that attaches to experience that was not traumatic. Contact morphs to abuse. This is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) without the T.

Clancy stresses how this insight should shape therapy with traumatized adults. But, is Clancy, when broadcasting the trauma myth while invokingthe moral mantra, contributingto the problem or the solution? Might her nding be an argument to dilute societal condemnation so that delayed trauma would be diminished? If non-pedophile adults became less exercised about adultchild sexual contact that was not aggressive/

violent, as with adultadult-sexuality that is not aggressive/ violent, could this reduce the nascent trauma?

Not condemning adultchild sex is not endorsing it. But, it has been around a long time. And, it is not going to go away, no matter what code number is attached in DSM-5 or how long the prison sentences that attach. As Clancy dispassionately observes:There are always opportunities for molesters to nd ways to tarnish the lives of young children.

To effect a social reappraisal of some childadult sexualized contact, parents need not enrol their children on a North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) website in the U.S. or sign them up for summer camp at a Christian Brothers facility in Ireland. But, if parents become aware of an interaction unwanted by the child they can intervene to have it terminated and, if it is not, there are laws to prevent unwanted pursuits. Currently, they are invoked with adultadult interactions with stalker laws or sexual harassment laws and restraining orders or prison for non-compliance. Were aggressive/violent behavior evident, there are laws to be invoked similar to those involving aggressive/ violent adultadult sexual conduct.

Of course, there is a power/authority imbalance between adults and children. Children are directed into manyactivities promoted by adults: passive cigarette smoking, spanking, Hebrew school, Sunday church, bed time, vegetarianism. Why must sex be so different?

Would this hypothetical social reappraisal enhance the prevalence of childadult sexualized contact? Perhaps. But, if societal attitudes change in the direction of accommodating non-aggressive contact doubles the prevalence rate and is usually non-traumatic in childhood and later, is that to be preferred over half the prevalence rate where most children will later experience trauma?

The penal system could also consider whether the extent of punishment that awaits conviction for child sexual contact

R. Green (&)

Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College, London W6 8RN, UKe-mail: [email protected]

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necessarily serves the child. If conviction for contact can carry incarceration fordecades, isthere incentive to eliminate the witness when punishment for that crime may not be much greater? Genital caressing of a child can invoke substantially more prison time than beating a child over the rest of its body.

Some annoyances in this slim volume that are less central to whither trauma: Here and there I wondered whether Clancy was up for tenure at Harvard when writing this book.As the head of Harvards Department of Psychology explains in his beautifully written book Harvards Judith Herman is described as afamous psychiatrist,but there is no adjective for Jean Piaget, John Bowlby, D. W. Winnicott, or Harry Harlow. Herman is also the author of awildly popular book published by Harvard University Press (Father-Daughter Incest).

Clancy forays briey into recovered memories. She turns that now debunked myth on its head by correctly stating that traumatic events will always be remembered but adds that non-traumatic ones may berecovered.Therefore,the victims should probably be believed.Even if not a victim?

The reader is force fed the status of some child abuse centers. The New Hampshire Center directed by Finkelhor is tremendously inuential on p. 61, although losing some esteem two pages later where it is merelyinuential.

I wondered when some chapters were written. As the inuential psychiatrist Roland Summit recently explained The explanation was published 22 years earlier.

Some research projects came to mind when reading this volume. In contemporary cultures where childadult sexuality is less condemned, are the sequelae reduced? What are the longer term consequences when children were not sexually abused but were led to believe that they were. Adults who were convinced that they were abused as little children in the McMartin Pre-School asco in California decades ago would provide an interesting doctoral dissertation.

So, what do we see here in this book and this review? Sighted readers will see different parts of the childadult sex elephant. Those invested in the immediacy of the trauma, depicted here as myth, may be incensed for political, moral, or religious reasons. Further, they mayseea threat to their livelihood in providing therapy for the children. Many who read Clancys words that do not underscore the immediate harm to the child will mistakenly see her report as propedophile. Parents who I have suggested might effect a cultural repositioning on some adultchild sexuality, a repositioning that I see as potentially helpful to children, might chant the moral mantra and shout me down. They willsee my position as condoning violation of the childs trust as well as its body. If the cultural repositioning is effected, some therapists who survive nancially by treating adult survivorsof abuse willseethemselves taking another hit, following their now extinctrecovered memorypractice. And pedophiles may see me as an honorary member of NAMBLA. Characterizing the elephant is not only challenging for the blind.

References

Gagnon, J. (1965). Female child victims of sex offenses. SocialProblems, 13, 176192.

Okami, P. (1991). Self-reports of positive childhood and adolescent sexual contacts with older persons. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20, 437457.

Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, E. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 2253.

Sandfort, T. (1984). Sex in pedophiliac relationships: an empirical investigation among a nonrepresentative group of boys. Journal of Sex Research, 20, 123142.

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