Preschool children's erroneous allegations of sexual molestation
- 1 August 1988
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychiatric Association Publishing in American Journal of Psychiatry
- Vol. 145 (8) , 989-992
- https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.145.8.989
Abstract
Occasionally, a preschool child may erroneously accuse a parent of molestation. When this occurs, the child usually believes that his or her story is correct. A false accusation can be made when an adult has persuaded a child that the sexual events actually occurred, when a child in the oedipal stage has misinterpreted caregiving ministrations, when a child''s thought processes are confused by primary pocess material, or when a child is secondarily involved in the projective identifications of a dominant caregiver. More than one of these mechanisms may operate in a given case.This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
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