Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome1

Summit (1983) conceptualized the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation

Syndrome as what he believes to be the most common syndrome of child sexual
abuse victims. This CSAAS, for brevitys sake is divided into five stages two of
which are preconditions to the occurrence of sexual abuse. The remaining three
categories are sequential contingencies which take on increasing variability and
complexity. While it can be shown that each category reflects a compelling reality
for the victim, each category represents also a contradiction to the most common
assumptions of adults. The five categories of the syndrome are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Secrecy
Helplessness
Entrapment and accommodation
Delayed, conflicted and unconvincing disclosure
Retraction

Secrecy
A child sexual abuse victim is often compelled to secrecy. After the abuse he
or she would normally thrown with words by the offender, such as: This is our
secret; nobody else will understand. Dont tell anybody. Nobody will believe
you. Dont tell your mother. This creates the impression in the mind of the child,
no matter how gentle or menacing the intimidation that what happened is
something bad and dangerous. The secrecy is both the source of fear and the
promise of safety: Everything will be all right if you just dont tell.
However, according to Summit, there lies a contradiction here: if the child
tries to tell of this secret she would be dismissed by the adult, saying that the
abusive act would be impossible to occur Yet adult expectation dominates the
judgment applied to disclosures of sexual abuse.
When the child does not
immediately complain, it is painfully apparent to any child that there is no second
chance. Why didnt you tell me? xxx
Unless the victim can find some permission and power to share the secret
and unless there is the possibility of an engaging, non-punitive response to
disclosure, the child is likely to spend a lifetime in what comes to be a self-imposed
exile from intimacy, trust and self-validation.

Helplessness
Corollary to the above preceding paragraph thats says of the adults unrealistic and
contradictory expectation that a child would immediately disclose an abuse is the
failure to realize that subordination of the child in the authoritarian relationship with
adult abuser. Unfortunately a silent child is sometimes unfairly seen as a consenting
child, prejudicing him or her in a court of law. This power relationship is created by
1 Summit, R. C. (1983). The child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome. Child
Abuse and Neglect, 7, 177-193.

the fact that most child sexual abuses happen not in a playground setting where
the abuser is likewise a child but in what would normally be expected to be the
safety of his or her home. The unprecedented, relentlessly progressive intrusion of
sexual acts by an overpowering adult in a one-sided victim-perpetrator relationship.
The fact that the perpetrator is often in a trusted and apparently loving position only
increases the imbalance of power and underscores the helplessness of the child.
Again in the helplessness stage, there lies a contradiction on how to adult
would respond to it: Adults tend to despise helplessness and to condemn anyone
who submits too easily to intimidation. A victim will be judged as a willing
accomplice unless compliance was achieved through overwhelming force or threat
of violence. Adults must be reminded that the wordless action or gesture of a
parent is an absolutely compelling force for a dependent child and the threat of loss
of love or loss of family security is more frightening to the child than any threat of
violence.

Entrapment and Accommodation

Summit posits child sexual abuse is not a one-deal affair. A compulsive,
addictive pattern tends to develop which continues either until the child achieves
autonomy or until discovery and forcible prohibition overpower the secret. If the
child did not seek or did not receive immediate protective intervention, there is no
further option to stop the abuse.
In this stage, Summit argues that there is a reversal of roles: the child now
how the burden of keeping the family together by lying. By lying about the sexual
abuse, the child has the burden of keeping the family together.
There is a difference between the reactions of male and female sexual abuse
victims.
1. For the girl this often leads to self-destruction and reinforcement of self-hate;
self-mutilation, suicidal behavior, promiscuous sexual activity and repeated
runaways are typical. She may learn to exploit the father for privileges,
favors and material rewards, reinforcing her self-punishing image as whore
in the process.
2. The male victim of sexual abuse is more likely to turn his rage outward in
aggressive and antisocial behavior. He is even more intolerant of his
helplessness than the female victim and more likely to rationalize that he is
exploiting the relationship for his own benefit
In both cases, drug reliance becomes an attractive escape for the child sexual
abuse victim.

Delayed, Conflicted and Unconvincing Disclosure

Summit claims that most ongoing sexual abuse is never disclosed, at least
not outside the child sexual abuse victims immediate family. These victims of
incestuous abuse, Summit argues, tend to remain silent until he or she is capable of
demanding a more separate lifeand challenging he authority of her parents.
Proving the sexual abuse in court, based on the bare testimony of the child
abused (who is, of course, normally the only witness, as in rape cases) are difficult,
especially if the goal is to sustain a conviction of the parent-offender. Police
investigators and protective service workers are likely to give credence to the
complaint, in which case all the children may be removed immediately into
protective custody pending hearing of a dependency petition. In the continuing
paradox of a divided judicial system, the juvenile court judge is likely to sustain outof-home placement in the preponderance of the evidence that the child is in
danger, while no charges are even filed in the adult court which would consider the
fathers criminal responsibility. Attorneys know that the uncorroborated testimony
of a child will not convict a respectable adult. The test in criminal court requires
specific proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and every reasonable adult juror will
have reason to doubt the childs fantastic claims.
In essence, a child would be dismissed as fantasizing. The best he can do is
to secure a probable cause of danger to his life in order to remove himself or herself
from the parental guise of the parent-offender. Securing a conviction which requires
proof beyond reasonable doubt is a different matter altogether.
Retraction
As the sexual abuse allegations by the child is likely to challenge the existing
and more ideal dynamics of a family pre-abuse or at least pre-knowledge or
revelation of the abuse, the child would be pressured to retract her statements. She
would be forced by the circumstances to take back what she said and admit that
she made up the fantastic story of the abuse. Whatever a child says about the
sexual abuse, she is likely to reverse it. Beneath the anger of impulsive disclosure
remains the ambivalence of guilt and the martyred obligation to preserve the
family. To prevent her family from fragmenting, she must retract what she says.
The scenario is similar to that of the third stage where the child is given the rile of
the mother of keeping the family together.
Unless there is special support for the child and immediate intervention to
force responsibility on the father, the girl will follow the normal course and retract
her complaint.