The Denial of History: Clinical Implications of Denying Child Abuse

[Guest guest]

I think this is a good read:

" Dr. Sorotzkin, a clinical psychologist, makes a powerful case study for both

the prevalence of and the denial of child abuse by parents. While overt abuse is

almost always universally condemned, the author believes that more subtle forms

of child abuse are very common and may have the same unfortunate effects as

grosser forms of mistreatment. "

Here's an excerpt:

" RANGE OF PARENTING DEFICIENCIES

It needs to be emphasized that when we speak of deficiencies in parenting

practices, we are referring to a wide range of phenomena. At one end of the

spectrum, are the overtly abusive parents, either physically or emotionally.

This includes parents who believe that their children's purpose in life is to

fulfill their own, often immature, emotional needs. They do not hesitate to

manipulate their children's emotions to this end. Even this type of overt abuse

is not always obvious to others, since these same parents are often very

pleasant to other people as they have a strong need to gain the approval of

others.

In the mid-range of the spectrum are parents who are not initially abusive.

However, they are rigid and inflexible, and so tend to over-react to their

children's difficulties resulting from learning problems, lack of motivation, or

even normal childhood misbehavior. They tend to see these problem behaviors in a

very negative light, and even more significantly, they often attribute malicious

intent to the child (Dopke & Milner, 2000; Strassberg, 1997). These parents can

often be identified by the negative and disparaging manner in which they refer

to their children: " He's a self-indulgent truant " ; " She's a free loader " ; " He's

using his learning disability as a convenient excuse for his laziness " , etc.

(This issue is discussed in more detail in the " Parental Attitudes " section.)

At the other, more positive end of the spectrum are parents who are very

caring and giving to their children and rarely have negative interactions with

them. However, they are mostly focused on their children's behavior and

cognitive development, with little attention paid to their emotional life.

Research has shown that a dismissive attitude on the part of parents to their

children's emotional life has far-reaching negative implications for their later

adjustment (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996).

Children whose feelings are neglected or negated respond by neglecting their

own emotional needs, and focus instead on being well-behaved (, 1996).

Many become perfectionistic, striving to please their parents at all costs

(Sorotzkin, 1985, 1998). Eventually, and inevitably, it becomes clear to them

that they cannot be perfect, and so they give up their quest and become

depressed and/or act out their resentment and frustration. It is easy to see

that when a rebellious child comes from such a family, it would be difficult to

perceive the connection to his or her family life, since these families are

indeed high-functioning " good families. "

Here's the link to the entire article for those interested in reading more:

http://primal-page.com/sorotzki.htm

-Annie