14 Child maltreatment and attachment theory
نویسندگان
چکیده
The study ofchild maltreatment has grown exponentially in the years since the identification ofthe "battered child syndrome" (Kempe, Silverman, and Steele, 1962). In that time the area has experienced many of the conflicts and missteps to be expected in an emerging field. Underlying these problems is the lack ofa single, comprehensive theoretical approach to child maltreat ment (Newberger, Newberger, and Hampton, 1983). It is the purpose ofthis chapter to examine attachment theory in regard to its adequacy in account ing for the existing data on child abuse and child neglect. Because child abuse was identified as a social issue earlier than child neglect, it will be discussed first. However, in regard to the early literature, the dichotomy is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to make because cases of neglect or abuse-with-neglect were included indiscriminately under the rubric ofabuse. One goal ofthis chapter will be to disentangle the conditions and consider separately how relevant attachment theory is to understanding them. The first studies of child abuse focused on identifying the characteristics ofabusers. Although abusers were not usually found to be mentally ill, they were often described as more aggressive, punitive, domineering, and incon sistent than nonabusing parents. As more cases of less severe child abuse were reported and investigated, the incidence of clear parental deviance decreased while the evidence for cultural and child influence increased. The societal variables associated with abuse included unemployment, job dis satisfaction, single-parent families, and social isolation of low-income, mul tiproblem families. More recently, there has been a focus on those charac-
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Attachment style as a mediator between childhood maltreatment and the experience of betrayal trauma as an adult.
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تاریخ انتشار 2010