Abstract

DEL BIANCO, Omar Moreira  and  TOSTA, Rosa Maria. Child sexual abuse, trauma and depression in adulthood: a case study. Gerais, Rev. Interinst. Psicol. [online]. 2021, vol.14, n.2, pp. 1-25. ISSN 1983-8220.  http://dx.doi.org/10.36298/gerais202114e16251.

This work aims to verify and analyze the association between traumatic events in childhood - especially sexual abuse - and depressive disorder. It is based mainly on the psychoanalytic assumptions of Winnicott, Ferenczi and Masud Khan. This is a case study of a sixty-two-year-old woman who presented, in the psychotherapeutic process, a marked depression and severe unconscious feelings of guilt. The clinical reflections derived from the theoretical and practical questions brought by the patient's care and the improvement of her symptoms with psychotherapy motivated the elaboration of this article. The results indicate that the multiple and chronic intra-family traumas that occurred in childhood were important factors for the patient's depression, leading to believe that the trauma resulting from sexual abuse may be decisive for the future outbreak of this pathology.

Keywords : Depression; Child sexual abuse; Trauma; D.W. Winnicott.

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