Until recently, our society has refused to acknowledge and recognize the widespread incidence of incest. Childhood sexual abuse, especially incestuous abuse, has reached unconscionable proportions. A representative study by Dr. Diana E. H. Russell determined that as many as thirty-eight percent of the female population have experienced sexual molestation by the age of eighteen years. Formerly, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, and other investigators who did discover the severe effects of childhood incestuous abuse on adult women reacted by suppressing and denying their findings
