Sibling Abuse

Hidden Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Trauma

Vernon R. Wiehe

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1997
• ISBN:
  9781506318851
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Interpersonal Relations in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Often excused by parents as `kids will be kids' behaviour, sibling abuse remains largely unrecognized. Symptoms of such abuse and its devastating effects on victims go undetected, victims do not receive appropriate therapeutic intervention, and transgressors do not come to the attention of the courts.

The author of this book brings this neglected area `out of the shadows' with personal accounts of adult survivors, insights into why sibling abuse occurs, suggestions for prevention and implications for treatment.

1	Sibling Abuse: An Undetected Problem

Please tell others that there is such a thing as sibling abuse, so that children don’t experience what I did from my sibling.

A sibling abuse survivor

I was raped when I was 13 years of age—not by a stranger in a dark alley but by my own brother in my own home when he was baby-sitting me and my younger siblings. He threatened to kill me and make it look like an accident if I ever told my parents. I didn’t tell, and he used me sexually from then on whenever he wanted.

I would tell my parents about how my brother would hit me. “You must have done something to deserve it,” they would say. I didn’t do anything. He constantly was beating me. If I tried to protect myself or hit him in return, it was proof to them I deserved it. I spent a lot of time hiding from him to protect myself.

Recently, I was with a group of friends and we were telling about nicknames we had as children. I said I didn’t have any nicknames, but all the while we were laughing and talking, the name I was called by my sister kept going around in my head—lard ass. I wouldn’t tell them that is how I was known in my house to my sister when I was a child. My parents used to laugh about it. I wasn’t laughing; I was crying. My childhood was a nightmare. I don’t even want to look at pictures of when I was a child. I threw my school pictures away. The memories hurt so much. At the age of 421 have finally found the courage to seek counseling. May Be I can come out of my shell and enjoy the remaining years of my life.

These are neither quotations from the script of a play nor words of characters of a novel. They are the comments of adults who as children were victims of a type of abuse that has largely remained undetected—sibling abuse. While considerable progress has been made in the field of family violence in detecting, treating, and preventing different types of abuse—child, spouse, or elder—one type of abuse remains largely undetected. This is the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of one sibling by another.

During past years, parents have excused sibling abuse in various ways. Some have looked the other way. Other parents have ignored the problem, or they wouldn’t believe their children when they were told what was happening. Some have blamed the victims for the abuse they experienced—as if they were asking for it or deserved what they experienced. Still others have said it was normal behavior, simply sibling rivalry, and that this was a normal part of growing up.

Ask the survivors if they would agree that sibling abuse is typical behavior of children when they are growing up, that it is merely sibling rivalry, or that they deserved what happened to them. A resounding No would be heard from around the country, as it was from the 150 survivors of sibling abuse who tell their stories in these pages.

Ignoring sibling abuse, pretending it doesn’t exist, believing the problem will solve itself, or blaming the victim for the abuse are inappropriate ways of coping with this problem. In the pages that follow, survivors will describe how their parents handled their abuse from a sibling in these ways. The adult lives of these survivors are scarred both from their abuse from a sibling and from their parents’ response to the abuse: They are fearful of others; feel they can trust no one; have very low self-esteem; are having problems with drugs and alcohol; and exhibit serious sexual problems.

Historical Perspective

During the past several decades, various types of family violence—child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse—have been brought out into the open from behind the closed doors of the family home. As these types of abuse have become known and understood, organizations and resources have developed to combat them.

While progress has been made in detecting, preventing, and treating these types of family violence, sibling abuse has largely remained unrecognized. Several reasons may be cited for this. First, there has been a reluctance for the government through its legislative bodies, the courts, police, and social service agencies to concern itself with what happens in the privacy of the home. Americans value highly their freedom. This includes the freedom to raise their children according to their religious and social values. Thus, historically the philosophy has developed, “What happens at home is the family’s business.” The published findings of an initial study of violence in American families, based on a sample of over 2,000 families, was aptly titled, Behind Closed Doors (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980).

However, the philosophy that the home is a man’s castle and what happens behind the closed front door is no one else’s business has been challenged, and rightly so, by individuals who have been victims of abuse in their own homes—children abused by their parents, women battered by their husbands, senior citizens mistreated by their adult children. Adult survivors of child abuse, for example, have worked through the media to bring to public attention the malnutrition, beatings, sexual molestation, and death of innocent children. Legislation was passed by Congress in 1974 in the form of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (Public Law 93-247) that among other things provided funds to the states for combating and preventing child abuse. This legislation made the reporting of incidents of child abuse mandatory and provided protection to the individual doing the reporting. Spouse abuse likewise has come to public attention in part through the efforts of the feminist movement and through the criminalization of domestic violence cases, beginning in the 1970s. States have formed adult protective service agencies for the reporting and adjudication of incidents of elder abuse. Consequently, the closed door of the family home is now open to the scrutiny of the court and allied agencies when the abuse of any family member is suspected. A better understanding has arisen regarding limitations to the authority of parents and other caregivers.

Unfortunately, this has not been true for sibling abuse. This problem has not yet been brought out into the open. Its symptoms go unrecognized, and its devastating effects continue to be ignored. Generally, violent acts between siblings do not come to the attention of the courts unless a parent or the victim is willing to file assault charges against the perpetrating sibling. The latter rarely occurs.

There is a second reason why sibling abuse has been ignored. The abusive behavior of one sibling toward another is often excused by parents as normal behavior: “Kids will be kids”; “All kids call each other names”; “Didn’t you ever play doctor when you were a child?”; “It’s just normal sibling rivalry.” Professionals in the field of mental health, too, have been guilty of viewing abusive behavior between siblings as part of the normal process of growing up. The behaviors to which these statements refer do occur in many families. However, these statements are inappropriate when they are used to excuse the physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of one sibling by other. A differentiation must be made between sibling rivalry and sibling abuse.

Approximately four decades ago child abuse was recognized. This doesn’t mean that there was no child abuse before that time. It was occurring, but it was not recognized as abuse. In 1962, an article titled “The Battered Child Syndrome” was published by Dr. C. Henry Kempe and his colleagues at the University of Colorado Medical Center (Kempe, Silverman, Steele, Droegemueller, & Silver, 1962). This article, which would prove to have a historical impact in the field of family violence, was written by physicians who had seen many victims of child abuse. They coined the phrase battered-child syndrome as a clinical condition to describe the fractures, burns, wounds, and bruises they saw in their young patients as a result of physical abuse.

John Demos (1986), a historian of the family, commented on the historical impact of this article:

Child abuse evoked an immediate and complex mix of emotions: horror, shame, fascination, disgust. Dr. Kempe and his coauthors noted that physicians themselves experienced “great difficulty … in believing that parents could have attacked their children” and often attempted “to obliterate such suspicions from their minds, even in the face of obvious circumstantial evidence.” In a sense the problem had long been consigned to a netherworld of things felt but not seen, known but not acknowledged. The “Battered Child” essay was like a shroud torn suddenly aside. Onlookers reacted with shock, but also perhaps with a kind of relief. The horror was in the open now, and it would not easily be shut up again, (p. 69)

The time has come for the shroud to be torn aside on yet another type of abuse—the physical, emotional, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another. Professionals may have seen this abuse in families with whom they have worked; they may have seen the effects in adults who have sought help for their problems-in-living, but they were not able to link the effects to the cause. Perhaps they remain unsure of how to recognize this form of abuse or how to prevent it.

The Purpose of This Book

The purpose of this book is to bring sibling abuse out into the open. This will be done by allowing adult survivors who experienced this problem when they were growing up to tell their experiences of how they were abused physically, emotionally, or sexually by a sibling, their parents’ reaction to the abuse that was occurring, and how the abuse has affected their lives. The book also will discuss why sibling abuse may occur in some families and how this social problem may be prevented. Implications for the treatment of sibling survivors will be presented for mental health professionals.

The book was written with several audiences in mind. Primarily, the book is directed to professionals working in the field of family violence, to mental health professionals engaged in therapy in counseling centers, as well as to students preparing to become professionals in the field of mental health. Mental health professionals include individuals leading self-help groups for those who have experienced abuse, child protection workers, and persons such as parent life educators, clergy, nurses, and others who are teaching families how to effectively live together. Those preparing to become professionals may include individuals preparing for careers in the field of mental health, such as students taking courses in family violence and related subjects in college and university departments of social work, sociology, psychology, and family studies. The survivors’ accounts of the abuse they experienced from a brother or sister will assist professionals and students in understanding the problem of sibling abuse, in diagnosing the problem in families with whom they may be working, in treating those who are attempting to cope with the effects of such abuse on their lives, and in preventing this problem from occurring in other families.

A second audience to whom the book is directed are adult survivors of sibling abuse. The author has received numerous comments and letters from adult survivors of sibling abuse who have read an earlier edition of this book or who have heard the author discuss the subject of sibling abuse on television and radio programs. Repeatedly, these comments and letters state that the author’s discussion of sibling abuse has “validated” for them that what they experienced from a sibling as a child was not sibling rivalry but sibling abuse. The last chapter, “A Final Word,” is directed to persons who may have been abused by a sibling as a child. This book may help these readers realize that they are not alone in the abuse they experienced from a sibling, and that the nightmare of abuse in their childhood is not their fault. Perhaps, as the survivors in this book speak about their abuse, their comments will encourage these readers to seek help if they are having problems struggling with the effects of sibling abuse on their lives now as adults.

Although the book was not written specifically for parents, some parents may find the book helpful. The accounts of the survivors—how they were physically, emotionally, or sexually abused by a sibling—may sensitize parents to the subtle and not-so-subtle forms of sibling abuse that may be occurring within their own families. Becoming sensitive to sibling abuse may prompt parents to take action to stop such abuse or to prevent the problem from occurring.

Throughout the book, the findings from the author’s research on sibling abuse will be related to the larger body of research on family violence, especially child abuse, since most sibling abuse survivors were children at the time of their victimization. Numerous references to the literature in the field of family violence are cited that may be helpful to readers in pursuing in greater depth specific areas of interest.

The Research

During the past several decades, when the author would speak to audiences on the subject of child abuse, repeatedly someone at the end of the lecture would comment, “I think I was abused as a child but not by my parents. Rather, I feel I was abused by a sibling. Have you ever heard of that?” After this repeatedly occurred, the author initiated a study on the subject of sibling abuse that forms the basis of this research.

Research Subjects

Individuals participating in the research responded to ads in several major newspapers and newsletters of professional associations, as well as notices sent to organization...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• 1. Sibling Abuse: An Undetected Problem
• 2. Physical Abuse
• 3. Emotional Abuse
• 4. Sexual Abuse
• 5. Parental Reactions to Sibling Abuse
• 6. Understanding Sibling Abuse
• 7. Effects of Sibling Abuse on the Survivor
• 8. Distinguishing Abusive Behavior From Normal Behavior
• 9. Preventing Sibling Abuse
• 10. Treatment of Sibling Abuse Survivors
• A Final Word
• References
• Index
• About the Author