This presentation is not eligible for APA or ASWB continuing education credits.
Background Betrayal trauma describes the circumstance where a person upon whom a child depends, commits acts that violate that child’s trust and threaten the requirements of their physically and emotionally dependent state (such as in the case of incest) (Freyd, 1994, 1996, 2001). In contrast, emotional betrayal is the emotional experience (i.e., feelings and emotions) that result from the betrayal trauma itself. Whereas qualitative assessments have helped us understand the depths of emotional betrayal, quantitative measurements have attempted to measure betrayal as an abstract concept (i.e., with statements directed towards the public at large), as well as towards the perpetrator or non-offending parents/family/friends. The purpose of the current study was to develop and psychometrically validate a new measure to assess feelings of emotional betrayal from child sexual abuse (EBSCAM) in adult survivors.
Methods After obtaining University Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the online questionnaire, the researcher emailed the webmasters of 88 unique CSA survivor websites to ask if they would allow a link to the study to be posted on their website. If they agreed, the researcher emailed them the link and the web masters posted it on their websites. Potential participants then clicked on the link to the study to participate. This study included 342 anonymous participants of all genders.
Measures The Emotional Betrayal from Child Sexual Abuse Measure (EBCSAM) assesses for feelings of emotional betrayal resulting from CSA. The original measure had sixteen questions, two of which were open-ended, six were dichotomous (yes/no), and the rest were Likert-scaled questions.
Results The 342 participants were randomly split in two files using the split file command in SPSS to create one set of cases for the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA; n=161) and a second for the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA; n=143). While there were originally 16 survey items, the Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) suggest that the categorical items were not a valid way of assessing feelings of betrayal. Instead, the statistical analyses guided us towards a shortened version of the EBCSM, with two factors (Perpetrator Betrayal, and Environmental Betrayal), and this final version showed good internal consistency, and high reliability. The Chronbach’s alpha for the 6 items in the scale was .85. Results of the EFA suggested a two-factor solution that together accounted for 74.18% of the variance. The final model produced fit statistics that exceed established norms (CFI=.99; TLI=.99; RMSEA=.05; SRMR = .03).
Discussion The understanding of emotional betrayal associated with CSA is an important task in treatment and clinical work with survivors of CSA. The underlying factor structure of involves two latent factors: Emotional Betrayal by the Perpetrator (Perpetrator Betrayal), and Emotional Betrayal by the People in the Victim’s Environment (Environmental Betrayal). This short measure yields a reliable clinical picture of the client who feels betrayed, as well as the environment that allowed the abuse to happen. In this way, this measure may be used for research, clinical assessment, and therapeutic treatment of survivors of child sexual abuse.
Learning Objectives:
At the conclusion of this session participants will be able to:
Describe the difference between ‘betrayal trauma’ and ‘emotional betrayal’
Assess the measurement of emotional, perpetrator, and environmental betrayal in adult survivors of child sexual abuse
Identify symptoms of emotional, perpetrator, and environmental betrayal in the assessment and treatment of adult survivors of child sexual abuse
Explain how to use the EBSCAM in research studies on adult survivors of child sexual abuse
Describe the psychometric properties of the EBSCAM