This is part two in a three-part series on covert childhood sexual abuse. In this article, I build on last week’s post that covered the definitions of childhood sexual abuse and the ways in which it exists in covert forms.
Covert childhood sexual abuse occurs when a parent takes emotional and psychological pleasure from a form of intimacy with their child that is not centered on the child’s needs. Many examples of this type of abuse can be categorized as either enmeshment or enslavement. In this post I’m diving into the concept of enmeshment and next week we’ll look at forms of enslavement.
Enmeshment: parental domination of a child’s emotional and relational energy
Enslavement: parental domination of a child’s body
This series culminates with a substack live event on Friday July 24th at 11am MST with author Marissa Burt, coauthor of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families. We’ll discuss how the use of spanking intersects the terrain of childhood sexual abuse.
Continue reading the free post here!