• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 1996

This paper was to investigate the relationships between the types of incest and family dynamics. 9 incest cases were collected from the Department of Social Work, Seoul National University Children's Hospital and an adoption agencies. The study cases were categorized into three types of incest, father-daughter incest, mother-son incest, sibling incest. The father-daughter incest families revealed various dysfunctional family dynamics such as sociopathic father, psychologically and physically absent mother, pseudomature child, and lack of communications among family members. In mother-son incest families, the fathers were absent and the mothers abused their sons as an outlet for their sexual desire, which was most pathological, among three types of incest. Sibling incests were characterized by the absence of parental supervisions and appropriate emotional care, and younger sibling becoming a sexual outlet of older sibling. It is evident that the incest does not occur simply because of pathology of one family member but because of family dystunction. Therefore the incest was a kind of 'family disease', and the focus of treatment should be on the whole family.