Children Speak For Themselves: Using The Kempe Interactional Assessment To Evaluate Allegations Of Parent- child sexual abuse [Hardcover]

Clare Haynes-Seman (Author), David Baumgarten (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0876307454 | ISBN-13: 978-0876307458 | Publication Date: November 1, 1994 | Edition: 1

Mental health and legal professionals struggle daily with complex challenges presented by allegations that a parent has sexually abused a child. The majority of these cases involve children who cannot or will not verbally disclose the abuse. This pioneering volume describes a technique that has proven highly effective for evaluation and clarification in such difficult, emotionally laden cases of child sexual abuse. This technique, the Kempe Interactional Assessment for Parent-Child Sexual Abuse, facilitates the emergence of reliable data without the pressure of directly questioning the child. Children Speak for Themselves About Sexual Abuse examines the history, rationale, protocol, and theoretical bases for Interactional Assessment and describes in detail the skills that are required and tasks that must be completed by the clinician in order to use International Assessment accurately and effectively. Firmly rooted in attachment theory, Interactional Assessment is based on the fact that even preverbal and nonverbal children do "speak" for themselves about experiences with important people in their lives. By accurately recognizing, understanding, and translating children's communication, this method makes available for clinical and legal professionals crucial, firsthand information that might otherwise be ignored. In this book, you'll learn how Interactional Assessment is comprised of three parts: a clinical interview with each parent in the presence of the child, videotaped observations of parent-child interactions, and an individual play interview with the child. Children Speak for Themselves About Sexual Abuse presents highly detailed case illustrations that demonstrate the various ways that children communicate their experiences of sexual abuse and provide insight into how sexually abusing relationships develop and are maintained within a family system. These case studies also clearly illustrate the value of Interactional Assessment where other techniques may not be effective particularly when allegations involve young children, children caught up in an acrimonious divorce, or when the "outcry" is filtered through untreated survivors. The volume also examines how Interactional Assessment can provide crucial clinical data about the qualities and dynamics of a family relationship that can reliably distinguish between sexually and non-sexually abusive relationships. Finally, the book addresses evidentiary and practical considerations for court presentations of utmost importance since professionals must not only offer evidence that is clinically reliable, but must be prepared to meet and withstand the rigors of increasingly adversarial legal proceedings. This volume will provide clinicians, attorneys, and other professionals involved in decision-making with a reliable clinical procedure that can not only easily reveal available data but can also help to uncover more covert information and verify whether abuse has occurred and by whom.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876307454
• ISBN-13: 978-0876307458
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #622,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another Reviewer, April 22, 2002

By 

A Victim of Clare Haynes-Seman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Children Speak For Themselves: Using The Kempe Interactional Assessment To Evaluate Allegations Of Parent- child sexual abuse (Hardcover)

Children Speak for Themselves: Using the Kempe Interactional Assessment to Evaluate Allegations of Parent-Child Sexual Abuse
Authors: Clare Haynes-Seman and David Baumgarten

The authors of this 192-page book use attachment theory to support their claim that all parties involved in a sexual abuse allegation should be interviewed by skilled, experienced workers who know and use the Kempe Interactional Assessment (KIA). The authors believe that sexual abuse allegations cannot be properly evaluated without interviewing both parents, separately in cases of divorce and together in intact families. The child is present during the interview with the parents, and prior to the interview there is an unstructured play period with the parents. Observation of these interactions is seen as the key to understanding the family relationships. The authors stress that the interactions should all be videotaped and shared with the defense counsel and they point out that the assessment must not only be clinically reliable but must withstand the adversarial legal procedures. They maintain that "validation of the abuse does not depend on the verbal disclosure of the child, confession of the perpetrator, or the conviction of the other parent that abuse has occurred. It depends on gathering and sifting through information from multiple sources" (pp. 33-34).

Despite the admirable goals of the KIA, there are serious difficulties with it. The biggest problem is the assumption that behavior cues can be used to determine whether abuse happened. The authors state, "If abuse has occurred, the child will give subtle signs of anxiety that might be missed without the videotape. If the child has been drawn into making false statements, the child's anxiety will be expressed differently . . . " (p. 22). But there is no empirical support for this claim nor for their assumption that "symbolic play themes" can be used to draw conclusions about abuse. Techniques such as anatomical dolls and drawings are recommended, although there is no scientific evidence that such techniques are helpful. In fact, the book reproduces several drawings and interprets "signs," such as missing ears, the absence of feet, and phallic shapes. Although numerous case histories are presented, several are vague and subject to different interpretations. The references at the end of the book are limited and dated.

This book is only recommended to clinicians who know the literature well enough to learn something from the suggestions about interviewing the whole family while also understanding the book's serious limitations.

Reviewed by LeRoy G. Schultz, Emeritus Professor, West Virginia University.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous and unscientific, July 30, 2009

By 

Eric G. Mart (Manchester, NH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Children Speak For Themselves: Using The Kempe Interactional Assessment To Evaluate Allegations Of Parent- child sexual abuse (Hardcover)

This book posits that mental health professionals can, merely by observing the verbal and non-verbal interactions between a child and a parent suspected of sexually abusing the child, arrive at an accurate conclusion regarding the presence or absence of abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth, and there is nothing in the scientific literature to suggest that such a thing is possible. The fact that a reputable organization such as the Kempe Institute would lend its name to this book and the protocol it suggests is disturbing to say the least. There is not a shred of statistical or empirical evidence to back up these claims and I shudder to think of the amount of harm to families this book caused. Pseudo science like this creates a situation in which the guilty go unpunished, and the innocent have their families destroyed.