The relevance of family-of-origin and sexual assault experience to therapeutic outcomes with college students.

Abstract

This study involving student clients from severely stressed childhood families investigated a desired treatment outcome-improvement in psychosocial functioning-in relation to 3 covariates relevant to therapeutic progress: clients' personal psychological and cognitive resources, their level of affective and interpersonal functioning, and the therapeutic alliance between client and therapist. The authors also determined whether the specific trauma of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) impacted improvement differently than other general, severely stressful childhood family experiences. Results indicated that improvement in psychosocial functioning was related to all 3 client covariates. Furthermore, although the level of stressful childhood family experiences did not directly affect improvement, it may have indirectly affected it through the client covariates. CSA status did not impact improvement during therapy, but the pattern of relationships between the client covariates and improvement distinguished it from more generalized stressful family experiences.