Date

1-14-2026

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

Debra Perez

Keywords

Childhood Sexual Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, African American Male, Sexual Abuse, African American Childhood Sex

Disciplines

Counseling | Educational Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative interpretive phenomenology study is to explore the lived experiences of African American adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse within intimate partner relationships. The problem is that it is not known how African American adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse describe their present or past intimate partner relationships experience or the impact that childhood sexual abuse has on their intimate partner relationships. Research shows how experiences of sexual abuse create difficulty in managing intimate partner relationships. Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse often had damaging effects on adults with their romantic relationships. Findings from research showed that men and women who were sexually abused as a child failed to fully commit to a partner due to attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, or sexual shame. However, few focus directly on such intimate partner relationships and childhood sexual abuse within a population of African American men. This proposed study is guided by the Traumagenic Dynamics Model (TDM) as its conceptual framework and attachment theory as the theoretical framework (Ainsworth, 1979), Browne & Finkelhor, 1986). The TDM and attachment theory combined as this study's framework establishes the necessary narrative explanation of how underlying assumptions associated with the investigated phenomenon are warranted and how the theoretical and conceptual examination impacts the study's results.

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