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Shame Not The Same For Different Styles Of Blame: Shame As A Mediating Variable For Severity Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And Trauma Symptoms In Three Attribution Of Blame Groups, Tabitha Nicole Webster

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the role of internalized shame in mediating the relationship between severity of childhood sexual abuse and adult symptoms in three groups based on attribution of blame. The random community sample of 318 female survivors completed the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (Briere, 1996), Internalized Shame Scale (Cook, 2001), questions about frequency of abuse, duration, and specific characteristics (no physical contact to vaginal/anal intercourse with force) and the degree to which they blamed self, fate, or perpetrator. It was hypothesized that severity (measured by abuse characteristics, frequency, and duration) would predict symptoms (measured by subscales of dissociation, anxiety, sexual problems, …