Abstract
This study examined the relation between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and object relations in adulthood. Early memory narratives from 79 outpatients seeking individual psychotherapy at a community clinic were coded using Westen's (
1995
) Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (SCORS). Differences in functioning between those outpatients who reported CSA and those with no history of CSA were compared. Initial findings suggested that there were no group differences between CSA survivors and no-CSA clinical controls on the SCORS variables. However, when this clinical group was organized into no-CSA, low-severity CSA (no penetration), and high-severity CSA (oral, anal, or vaginal penetration) groups, analyses demonstrated that the high-severity CSA survivors had a significantly poorer understanding of social causality.