The mother's archetypal role is as a nurturer and protector, but challenging new Australian research is shedding light on the little-known crime of mother-son sexual abuse.

The work of Canberra PhD student Lucetta Thomas illustrates how challenging the topic is to discuss - even for seasoned health professionals.

It also highlights a need for greater understanding and awareness of this hidden form of abuse, so that victims can come forward and get the help they need.

Ms Thomas began her research at the University of Canberra after learning someone she knew was apparently abused in this way as a child.

"I want these male victims of maternal sexual abuse to have a voice," she said.

"For them to tell me about what their experience has been, in trying to get counselling, and receiving counselling... what has worked what hasn't worked."

Her thesis will investigate the psychotherapeutic needs of men and boys who have been sexually abused by their biological mother.

But it is a topic that has proved difficult to study.

Abuse can be 'psychologically, emotionally manipulative'

Just how often this type of child sexual abuse occurs is unclear.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2005 Personal Safety Survey estimated about 4,800 Australian males had been sexually abused by their mother or step-mother before the age of 15.

But the figures were qualified as "too unreliable for general use", as an estimate with a relative standard error greater than 50 per cent.

Ms Thomas said reliable data on the number of Australian victims was difficult to collect, as the abuse was incredibly difficult to talk about for most victims.

"Prevalence studies on sexual abuse are problematic... It's very dependent on the questions you ask, where you go to actually recruit your participants, but also how you actually define what you're actually trying to get some information on," she said.

She said it was almost certainly under-represented in prevalence figures, and in terms of the number of men who were eventually able to speak with a psychologist.

Anecdotally, the ABC spoke with several Australian psychologists who said they had spoken with men or boys who had been sexually abused by their mothers.

Dr Georgina O'Donnell, a forensic and clinical psychologist from Hobart, said over the course of her 17-year career she had come across approximately 30 victims and 12 perpetrators of this kind of abuse.

"Most of the male victims I work with in treatment are now adults," she said.

"They have described to me the confused feelings for their mother... love, protectiveness, anger and betrayal.

"Many have advised me that they did not speak up at the time because they did not want their mother to be taken away (or) go to jail etc.

"Many described the abuse as psychologically, emotionally manipulative, as opposed to aggressive and violent."

Prosecution of mothers in Australia rare

In Australia cases of mothers being charged with the sexual abuse of their sons are rare, and successful prosecutions are even rarer.

But Dr O'Donnell said that in the more extreme cases she had come across, the victims were identified by the police and child protection services.

"Some of the male victims have spoken up to a trusted person when they were old enough to understand what was happening was wrong," she said.

"Other children have been identified as victims by neighbours or school staff, who could see that something was wrong and referred the matter to the authorities."

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 6 minutes 46 seconds 6 m Psychologist Mark Griffiths spoke to The World Today's Emily Bourke about the trauma faced by men who were sexually abused as children. Download 3.1 MB

Dr O'Donnell said in some cases she had been involved with, the mothers were socially isolated, and the male child has been viewed as a sexual substitute and companion.

"In other cases the mother has been encouraged to engage in abusive behaviour by a paedophilic partner... who is also involved in abusing the male child," she said.

"In these cases, some of the women have succumbed to the requests of their paedophilic partner in exchange for the supply of recreational drugs."

She said in most cases the woman perpetrator was herself a victim of child sexual abuse perpetrated by a parent or a sibling.

Sydney psychologist Mark Griffiths works for the Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMSN), a group assisting men who have lived through rape or sexual abuse.

He began working with male sexual abuse survivors in the early 1990s and said he too met a number of men abused by their mothers.

"A fairly small minority... it would probably be somewhere between 10 and 20," he said.

Mr Griffiths said in his experience, it was probably one of the most damaging kinds of abusive relationships.

"That sort of abusive relationship, apart from being damaging, can be enormously confusing for the man who experienced it," he said.

Overt and covert abuse by mothers

Doctor Hani Miletski, a sex therapist from Cleveland in the United States, has written a book on the subject.

She interviewed numerous men who were abused by their mothers.

She said the types of abuse described by victims ranged from overt acts like intercourse and inappropriate touching, to covert acts like mothers who undressed in front of their sons in a provocative way or watched pornography with them.

Dr Miletski said, as a sex therapist, she had also worked with a number of clients abused in this way.

"I worked with one client... for several years and he was very honest with me and we talked about a lot of different, very difficult issues," she said.

"After about four years of working with him he finally mentioned, that when he was little his mother used to bath him, until he was able to get aroused by the fact that she was bathing him."

Dr Miletski said when the woman saw the child get an erection, she would then take a rag and rub his genitals.

"He was so ashamed of that. It was horrible for him to just describe that," Dr Miletski said.

"Everybody wants to put their mother on a pedestal. Nobody wants to think that they're mother did something that is so horrible."

Dr Miletski said some victims of mother-son abuse she had come in contact with also expressed an unfounded fear that they would be branded as sex offenders themselves.

"There's this idea... that if you were sexually abused as a child you're going to turn out into a sex abuser yourself," she said.

"I think that holds a lot of men back from coming forth and talking about it.

"And there's the whole situation where guys, and I've seen this a lot in my practice, guys tend to internalise the abuse, and they do not perceive it as a bad thing."

Five myths perpetuating the taboo

Dr Miletski said a range of myths existed about mother-son sexual abuse that allowed a kind of taboo to persist — despite a greater societal understanding of child sexual abuse and rape against males in recent decades.

"Nobody wants to think about it, nobody wants to deal with it, nobody wants to research it, nobody wants to study, nobody wants to read about it," she said.

"It's like the big elephant in the room and nobody pays attention to it."

Dr Miletski said the first myth was that sex abuse meant intercourse, when in fact there were a range of overt and covert ways the abuse could occur.

The second was that men, and boys, could not be victims of sexual abuse.

"It's starting to get better and we hear more about boys who are victims, and people who abuse boys. But still people tend to think that boys ... the more sex they get the better. 'Boys like sex', 'they look for it', 'they're usually the aggressors', and so forth."

Dr Miletski said the next myth was that women could not be perpetrators of sexual abuse, a societal belief illustrated by the way in which the media often played down cases of women teachers having sex with male students.

"It's usually 'oh, so they had a love affair', or something like this they call it," she said.

"If it was the opposite and it was an older man with a female student, it would be horrible."

The fourth, and possibly the most pervasive myth, is that a mother could never sexually abuse her own child.

"Even if we can accept the fact that boys can be victims of sexual abuse and women can be perpetrators of sexual abuse, to go a step further and think that mothers can be abusers... that's like a whole category that people just cannot accept," she said.

Dr Miletski said even as a sex therapist, she found it difficult to fully comprehend at times.

"Honestly, when I hear people who talk about it now in session, sometimes I think to myself 'my god it's impossible, I can't believe what I'm hearing'," she said.

"It's just so difficult for us to take it in, and accept that it can happen."

Dr Miletski said the final issue that allowed the taboo to exist was that even if these myths could be overlooked, mother-son sexual abuse was often glossed over with excuses about what happened and why.

"'Oh you know, one of them must be crazy - that's why it happened'," she said.

"So these five misconceptions together help prolong this idea of this taboo, that it doesn't happen... It does happen."

Hope for new understanding of victims' needs

At the University of Canberra, Ms Thomas's doctoral research on the topic continues.

As part of her work she is conducting confidential, anonymous surveys – with both the victims of mother-son abuse and with health professionals who have treated them.

The early results of her surveys indicated that victims wanted to speak with male, rather than female health practitioners.

Lucetta Thomas from the University of Canberra says prevalence figures on mother-son sexual abuse are scarce. ( ABC News: Tegan Osborne )

Another theme was that victims were concerned they would not be believed.

"The literature is saying that in a lot of cases it's actually explained away, it's not taken seriously," Ms Thomas said.

"I think there's movement that could occur there, in terms of seeing women as (potential) perpetrators... to provide a safer place to disclose."

Ms Thomas said that while some health professionals understood the complexities of this kind of abuse, for others it was placed in the proverbial too hard basket.

She said her survey responses so far indicated that for victims to get the help they needed, that had to change.

"I think people who work in the health professions.... they really need to be aware that this can happen, that this does happen. The level of trauma that it actually causes in the male child, the long term impact of that trauma and the difficulty they are having in accessing services," she said.

Ms Thomas said the aim of her research was to identify what treatments and support options worked best for victims.

"What I'm hoping is the males that respond to this survey will provide me with an indication of what worked in terms of the counselling they received," she said.

"And what they found less effective and less useful, so that I can then draw out detail on that, then provide that to people who work in the field."

Ms Thomas said she hoped to piece together a clearer image of the help victims were seeking and how that could be provided.

"To help them manage, if not overcome, the effects of the abuse on them," she said.

Ms Thomas's surveys for victims of mother-son abuse and for health professionals who have treated them are ongoing.