ABSTRACT
A second reason that much of my focus in previous chapters was on sexual molestation is that in contrast to child physical abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect, which most extenSively occur within the family context, child sexual abuse often is committed by someone outside the family circle (Mancini, van Ameringen, & MacMillan, 1995; Mullen et al., 1996). This makes it possible, by comparing maltreatment by intraand extra-familial perpetrators, to conceptually distinguish and empirically measure the differential effects of overt sexual abuse and global family context. This task is much more difficult in the case of physical abuse or neglect. Particularly in the instance of less concrete forms of maltreatment such as emotional neglect, the type of maltreatment and the larger family context intersect to a degree that makes them almost indistinguishable.
