The Effect of Educator Support on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Attachment Security & Posttraumatic Stress Severity

Secure attachment has been shown to be a protective factor against the effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and moderates the relationship between CSA and later attachment-related issues. Although early mother-child relationships have traditionally been considered the basis for attachment development, trusted adults such as school teachers have more recently been identified as ad hoc attachment figures. Nevertheless, there is a significant gap in the literature investigating the impact of educator relationships on adult functioning among survivors of CSA. The aim of the present study is to explore associations between supportive teacher relationships and (a) attachment profiles and (b) levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) among adult survivors of CSA. Adult participants who completed K-12 schooling and experienced CSA before age 11 (n = 148) completed retrospective surveys of educator relationships, current attachment profiles, and current levels of PTSS. Results of multivariate regression analyses indicate that higher levels of educator emotional support during schooling were associated with (a) lower levels of avoidant attachment in adulthood and (b) lower levels of PTSS in adulthood, specifically among participants with scores in the clinically elevated range. Findings varied among the subgroup of participants (20%) endorsing that their teachers had knowledge of their CSA. Educator relationships remain understudied in the lives of students with trauma histories. This study represents a first step in examining the impact of educator relationships on survivors of CSA and highlights both the need for further research and the importance of trauma-responsive teacher training to better serve youth with histories of CSA.