1 Jewish Child Care Association of New York, 575 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10022
In Reply.
Dr Smith states that "if the estimates of incest are accurate, then some of the 576 families in the sample would be expected to think and behave incestuously." If Sigmund Freud was correct, thinking incestuously, at least unconsciously, is normal, perhaps even a sign of healthy emotional development; behaving incestuously is psychopathologic and illegal.
How frequent is actual incest between parents and/or stepparents and their children? Finkelhor1 used a broad definition of "victimization" and surveyed 530 women and 266 men attending colleges and universities.