NCJ Number
163606
Date Published
1989
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Adults who physically abuse children can be grouped into a typology consisting of 10 categories, which indicate differences in motivation, abusive practices, and results and have implications for legislation, treatment, and recovery.
Abstract
Most abusers are socially and parentally incompetent abusers who are simply using the same techniques to control children that their parents used with them. These parents have not been exposed to a wide repertoire of coping mechanisms with their children, are particularly good to work with in groups, and can and often do rapidly develop nonabusive behavior. The frustrated and displaced abuser should be assisted in identifying the sources of frustration, reducing the frustration if feasible, and teaching the abuser to use defense mechanisms other than displacement. Situational abusers are characteristic of homes in which a parent is absent for prolonged periods of time and then appear. Neglectful abusers are usually poor, uneducated, dependent, unemployed or underemployed, and the product of two or more generations of welfare assistance. Some parents are accidental or unknowing abusers. Other types of abusers are the subcultural abuser, the mentally ill abuser, employees of institutions who are perpetrating institutionally prescribed abuse such as spanking and striking, and the hidden and usually professionally successful group of self-identified abusers. 3 references