Language patterns of opponents to a child protection program.

A community effort was made to help sexually abused girls and a "pro-incest lobby" was uncovered. This report focuses on the language used to deny or obscure the occurrence of father-daughter incest. As children's rights advocates, the authors attempted to provide a lexicon, a dictionary for the clinician, so that efforts to condone incest will not be overlooked but refuted. Both in the past and the present, instances of incest have been rationalized away by health care professionals, members of the legal profession and the community at large. The incidence of incest is higher than the increasing number of actual cases reported. The vocabulary that systematically drives certain resistances and defenses to the surface, in opposition to child protection in such cases, is analyzed by the authors. The "dynamics" involved in the realization of incest as a psychologically damaging situation for the child are complex. The social influences on the individual and the married couple, that serve to make incest a closely kept secret, are examined. The authors express hope that their linguistic analysis will help to alert all persons who work in the broad field of child abuse and child protection.