Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Construction of Identity

This text is an innovative and thought-provoking study examining issues of identity in relation to child sexual abuse. It is inspired by the author's rejection of the growing tendency within some forms of social science to treat "personal experience" as pre-given and foundational. The aim of this study is to show how supposedly "private" or psychological experiences are fundamentally connected to the social and cultural domain.; Using a combination of psychological analysis, feminist theory and discourse analysis, this text addresses the issue through an analysis of first person/autobiographical accounts written by "survivors". The book exemplifies themes and issues that are currently at the top of the agenda in many fields including courses on women's studies, psychiatry and literary theory.