Reporting possible sexual abuse: a qualitative study on children's perspectives and the context for disclosure.

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated the context in which children were able to report their child sexual abuse experiences and the children's views as to what made it difficult to talk about abuse and what helped them in the disclosing process. The aim was to study disclosures as they were occurring in their natural settings. METHOD: Data were obtained from therapeutic sessions and follow-up interviews from 20 families with 22 children. These children had said something that made their caregivers concerned about ongoing child sexual abuse. Qualitative analysis was conducted to capture the children's and caregiver's perspectives of the disclosure process. RESULTS: The children felt it was difficult to find situations containing enough privacy and prompts that they could share their experiences. They also were sensitive to others reactions, and whether their disclosures would be misinterpreted. When the children did disclose they did it in situations where the theme of child sexual abuse was in some form addressed or activated. The results indicate that disclosure is a fundamentally dialogical process that becomes less difficult if the children perceive that there is an opportunity to talk, and a purpose for speaking, and a connection has been established to what they are talking about. CONCLUSIONS: It is difficult for children to initiate a conversation about something secret, confusing and distressful, and where there are few conversational routines in a family for talking about such themes. Children also are sensitive to the needs of their caregivers and fear consequences for their family and offender. Children need a supportive structure or scaffold in order to reveal their experiences of child sexual abuse.

Correspondence between supervisors and trainees in their perception of supervision events.

The focus of this study is on how the participants in 16 supervisory dyads perceive the content and process in a supervisory session, and on the meaning they attach to supervisory events. A central issue is to what degree the participants in each dyad correspond in their perceptions and evaluation of supervisory events. Another question is how lack of correspondence affects the trainees' experience of satisfaction with the supervision. A majority of the dyads were rated low or moderate in correspondence, and it is discussed whether the influence of low correspondence on trainee satisfaction may be related to supervisory intentions and style characteristics. A main point in the discussion is whether role ambiguity may be related to obscure communication and reduced correspondence, and it is suggested that more attention should be paid to negotiating and renegotiating rules for the supervisory relationship.