Another unfortunately common situation I will have to assess for in the families I see (in addition to drug & alcohol abuse, domestic violence and many other things) is sexual or physical abuse. One of my texts (Patterson’s Essential Skills in Family Therapy: From the First Interview to Termination) estimates that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 9 men were sexually abused as kids. My other practicum text, Brock & Barnard’s Procedures in Marriage and Family Therapy, gives this list of indicators of abuse(p. 52):

The presence of an alcoholic parent

The family with poor mother-daughter connections/bonds

A mother who is very dependent either psychologically or physically as the result of illness or accident

A father who appears to be very controlling and possessive of his daughter(s)

An acting-out adolescent girl engaging in sexual promiscuity or suicidal gestures who is a frequent runaway or drug abuser

A child who appears to be very overresponsible and parentified in the family context

[First posted on Nathen’s Miraculous Escape, May 5, 2010.]