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Father-daughter incest
Book reviews
253
by Morris which is described as a novel. The books are cathartic for the writers as well as the readers, especially those who were also sexually abused as children.
Executive Director Parents United, Inc. P.O. Box 952 San Jose, California 95108
HENRY GIARRETTO,PH.D.
Father-Daughter Incest. Judith L. Herman (with L. Hirschman). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, England, 1981, 282 pages, $15.95. FATHER-DAUGHTER INCEST synthesizes the information Dr. Judith Herman of the Women's Mental Health Collective gathered during in-depth interviews with women who had been incest victims. She obtained her subject population by asking an informal network of therapists in the Boston area to refer to the study patients in their private practices who had a history of being incestuously victimized by their fathers. Dr. Herman then compared the forty women who consented to be studied (she does not say how many refused) with a group of twenty women in psychotherapy who reported that during their childhood their fathers had been frankly seductive but had never attempted actual incest. Like so many authors who have written about incest in the past, Dr. Herman tells her readers of the sorrow, anger and perplexity both groups of women suffered. Poignant, descriptive excerpts from the interviews are scattered throughout this book's pages and deserve careful reading. The statistical analyses are simpler to share in what must be a short review. Daughters victimized by incest were significantly more prone to adolescent pregnancy, to tolerate extremes of physical abuse in their marriages, and to have a predominantly negative self-image than were daughters in the comparison group. Daughters victimized by incest were more likely to make a runaway attempt, a suicide attempt, to be promiscuous and to abuse alcohol and drugs, but these tendencies were not statistically significant. Both these groups of psychotherapy patients suffered frequent, major depressive symptoms as well as sexual problems. Dr. Herman writes in an exciting, passionate style which aims to persuade her readers of the accuracy of her feminist conclusions that incest is a product of male supremacy and the rearing of children by "subordinate women." What do Dr. Herman's victimized patients report about their parents? Many daughters "described their fathers as gifted, likeable, and intelligent, terms they rarely applied to their mothers." Some daughters viewed their mothers ambivalently, "excusing their weaknesses as best they could . . . Many daughters remembered their mothers only with bitterness and contempt. They described the women who had borne them as selfish, uncaring, and cruel." Incestuous daughters were significantly more likely to report that their fathers had been violent (p ,(.05). They were even more likely to report that their mothers had suffered periods of disabling illness which resulted in frequent hospitalizations or in the mother's living as an invalid at home (p ~.01). Depression, alcoholism, and psychosis were among the most common causes of the mothers' disability. "Over a third (38%) of the daughters had been separated from their mothers for some period during childhood. The separations occurred because their mothers either were hospitalized or felt unable to cope with their child care duties and temporarily placed their daughters in the care of relatives" (p ~.01). Dr. Herman feels that the origin of the mothers' ailments, though obscure in some instances, was only too obvious in others: repeated enforced pregnancies. While Dr. Herman follows many others who have noted that families of incest victims are larger than those in the general population, she presents no evidence to support the idea that in her research sample, or in any other in report in the literature, these pregnancies were "enforced." In Chapter Seven, Dr. Herman ponders the reasons for the seductive fathers' greater self-restraint (whatever their impulses may have been, these fathers did not commit actual incest). She entertains the possibility that these men had "better developed adult personalities and more highly elaborated inner controls," but finds these possibilities impossible to test given her data. More impressive to her in the seductive-father families was the daughters' descriptions of their mothers: These women "appeared to
254
Book refiews
be healthier, more assertive, more competent, more socially active, and less isolated than the mothers in incestuous families." Only one "seduced" daughter (5%) was pressed into service as a deputy mother for her family," compared to 45 percent of incestuous daughters (p ~.01). From this data, Dr. Herman concludes: "As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail." Dr. Herman's solution in her previous articles and in this book is to empower mothers. In some cases, direct supportive counseling for mothers has had a powerful effect in restructuring incestuous families. But is this outcome general? Would the empowerment of depressed, alcoholic, or psychotic women improve their daughters' lives? Would it control the lack of self-restraint in these perverted incestuous fathers? Would these particular mothers, if empowered, be able to nurture their emotionallydeprived and victimized daughters? "When men no longer rule their families, they may learn for the first time what it means to belong to one." We all wish for clear-cut, simple, and definitive solutions to complex problems and tragic human suffering. Each of us must decide, hopefully from the data presented rather than from tendentious presuppositions, whether Dr. Herman has proven her central thesis which she implies crystallized only when she had studied the results of her interviews: "A frankly feminist perspective (understanding male supremacy and female oppression) offers the best explanation of the existing data."
Division of Child Psychiatry and Child Development Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences School of Medicine Stanford University Stanford, California 94305
ALVIN ROSENFELD, M.D.
253
by Morris which is described as a novel. The books are cathartic for the writers as well as the readers, especially those who were also sexually abused as children.
Executive Director Parents United, Inc. P.O. Box 952 San Jose, California 95108
HENRY GIARRETTO,PH.D.
Father-Daughter Incest. Judith L. Herman (with L. Hirschman). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, England, 1981, 282 pages, $15.95. FATHER-DAUGHTER INCEST synthesizes the information Dr. Judith Herman of the Women's Mental Health Collective gathered during in-depth interviews with women who had been incest victims. She obtained her subject population by asking an informal network of therapists in the Boston area to refer to the study patients in their private practices who had a history of being incestuously victimized by their fathers. Dr. Herman then compared the forty women who consented to be studied (she does not say how many refused) with a group of twenty women in psychotherapy who reported that during their childhood their fathers had been frankly seductive but had never attempted actual incest. Like so many authors who have written about incest in the past, Dr. Herman tells her readers of the sorrow, anger and perplexity both groups of women suffered. Poignant, descriptive excerpts from the interviews are scattered throughout this book's pages and deserve careful reading. The statistical analyses are simpler to share in what must be a short review. Daughters victimized by incest were significantly more prone to adolescent pregnancy, to tolerate extremes of physical abuse in their marriages, and to have a predominantly negative self-image than were daughters in the comparison group. Daughters victimized by incest were more likely to make a runaway attempt, a suicide attempt, to be promiscuous and to abuse alcohol and drugs, but these tendencies were not statistically significant. Both these groups of psychotherapy patients suffered frequent, major depressive symptoms as well as sexual problems. Dr. Herman writes in an exciting, passionate style which aims to persuade her readers of the accuracy of her feminist conclusions that incest is a product of male supremacy and the rearing of children by "subordinate women." What do Dr. Herman's victimized patients report about their parents? Many daughters "described their fathers as gifted, likeable, and intelligent, terms they rarely applied to their mothers." Some daughters viewed their mothers ambivalently, "excusing their weaknesses as best they could . . . Many daughters remembered their mothers only with bitterness and contempt. They described the women who had borne them as selfish, uncaring, and cruel." Incestuous daughters were significantly more likely to report that their fathers had been violent (p ,(.05). They were even more likely to report that their mothers had suffered periods of disabling illness which resulted in frequent hospitalizations or in the mother's living as an invalid at home (p ~.01). Depression, alcoholism, and psychosis were among the most common causes of the mothers' disability. "Over a third (38%) of the daughters had been separated from their mothers for some period during childhood. The separations occurred because their mothers either were hospitalized or felt unable to cope with their child care duties and temporarily placed their daughters in the care of relatives" (p ~.01). Dr. Herman feels that the origin of the mothers' ailments, though obscure in some instances, was only too obvious in others: repeated enforced pregnancies. While Dr. Herman follows many others who have noted that families of incest victims are larger than those in the general population, she presents no evidence to support the idea that in her research sample, or in any other in report in the literature, these pregnancies were "enforced." In Chapter Seven, Dr. Herman ponders the reasons for the seductive fathers' greater self-restraint (whatever their impulses may have been, these fathers did not commit actual incest). She entertains the possibility that these men had "better developed adult personalities and more highly elaborated inner controls," but finds these possibilities impossible to test given her data. More impressive to her in the seductive-father families was the daughters' descriptions of their mothers: These women "appeared to
254
Book refiews
be healthier, more assertive, more competent, more socially active, and less isolated than the mothers in incestuous families." Only one "seduced" daughter (5%) was pressed into service as a deputy mother for her family," compared to 45 percent of incestuous daughters (p ~.01). From this data, Dr. Herman concludes: "As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail." Dr. Herman's solution in her previous articles and in this book is to empower mothers. In some cases, direct supportive counseling for mothers has had a powerful effect in restructuring incestuous families. But is this outcome general? Would the empowerment of depressed, alcoholic, or psychotic women improve their daughters' lives? Would it control the lack of self-restraint in these perverted incestuous fathers? Would these particular mothers, if empowered, be able to nurture their emotionallydeprived and victimized daughters? "When men no longer rule their families, they may learn for the first time what it means to belong to one." We all wish for clear-cut, simple, and definitive solutions to complex problems and tragic human suffering. Each of us must decide, hopefully from the data presented rather than from tendentious presuppositions, whether Dr. Herman has proven her central thesis which she implies crystallized only when she had studied the results of her interviews: "A frankly feminist perspective (understanding male supremacy and female oppression) offers the best explanation of the existing data."
Division of Child Psychiatry and Child Development Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences School of Medicine Stanford University Stanford, California 94305
ALVIN ROSENFELD, M.D.