Will It Never End? the Narratives of Incest Victims on the Termination of Sexual Abuse (Report‪)‬

How does child sexual abuse (CSA) come to an end? This research question originated in the experience of working with adult female CSA victims in clinical practice. Several CSA victims said the abuse came to an end when they started saying "no" to their perpetrator. But was it really that simple? Can a single word put an end to severe sexual abuse, and, if so, under which circumstances may this hold true? Research regarding this phenomenon seems more or less absent in the scientific literature. For this reason a qualitative study of CSA victims was undertaken. This qualitative study can contribute to our knowledge of how CSA victims structure their reality, how reality is shaped and maintained by the victims. Our studies aim at identifying which factors CSA victims attribute to the termination of the abuse. The purpose of the in-depth interviews is thus to contribute to the body of knowledge on how CSA victims perceive, describe, experience, and interpret their experiences. The informants in this study do not constitute a representative sample. The purpose of the study is, however, to contribute to the knowledge of how CSA victims perceive and create their realities, and not to estimate means. At the same time there is always the question of another type of representativity, namely, generalizability, which is different from statistical representativity. A qualitative study makes it possible to discuss how social realities are formed and maintained in people. By interviewing them we are able to elucidate how people reflect upon and understand the experiences they make. The purpose of the interview study is to present the ways different CSA victims understand themselves, interpret what happens to them, and create meanings. The research questions in this article are the following: From the perspective of the subjects' narratives, how is abuse terminated? What causes the termination of abuse, and how do the subjects perceive their own role in the termination process? Does the feeling of being in a situation of abuse terminate when the sexual abuse ends?