Treating Abusive Parents in Outpatient Settings (From Clinical Treatment of the Criminal Offender in Outpatient Mental Health Settings: New and Emerging Perspectives, P 57-64, 1990, Nathaniel J Pallone and Sol Chaneles, eds. -- See NCJ-126044)

• NCJ Number: 126048
• Author(s): M L Otto
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Haworth Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This outpatient treatment model describes a psychoeducational approach to helping abusive parents acquire parenting skills they lack due to deficits in their own childhood development.

Abstract

The treatment model focuses on a teaching/learning approach for working with abusive parents. The model contains an educational component designed to help parents learn about the relationship between developmental stages and related behaviors. This part of the treatment aims at defining behaviors in the children that might stimulate the abusive parent to aggression, even though the child's behavior is appropriate for the developmental stage. The educational component also provides information about family violence, so that abusive parents can gain insight into how their own childhood experience affected them. The model also includes group counseling to help the parents understand their personal problems and manage their emotional relationship with their children. Individual counseling is available for those parents with emotional problems that cannot be addressed through group counseling. Since the treatment needs of abusive parents vary, this model will work with some but not all abusive parents. Appended model outline and 11 references