NCJ Number
226372
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 33 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2009 Pages: 59-68
Date Published
January 2009
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study examined the extent to which childhood emotional abuse (EA) and emotional neglect (EN) perpetrated by parents contributed distinctively to symptoms of anxiety, depression, and dissociation in young adulthood, as well as the extent to which links between EA and EN and later symptoms were mediated by specific internalized maladaptive interpersonal schemas.
Abstract
The findings suggest that early interactions with parents contribute to the development of internal working models of self and self-in-relation to others, which influence later cognitive schemas and psychological adjustment. The study found that perceptions of childhood EA and EN each continued to influence later symptoms after controlling for gender, income, parental alcoholism, and other experiences of child abuse. Both EA and EN were associated with later symptoms of anxiety and depression; and they were mediated by schemas of vulnerability to harm, shame, and self-sacrifice. Only EN was related to later symptoms of dissociation; this relationship was mediated by the schemas of shame and vulnerability to harm. Early intervention might be particularly important in helping youth subjected to EA and EN to modify internal working models of the self as worthless, others as abusive, or the world as threatening and dangerous. Questionnaires completed by 301 college men and women (52 percent female) assessed perceptions of childhood abuse and neglect, exposure to parental alcoholism, current symptoms of psychological distress, and endorsement of maladaptive interpersonal schemas. Participants completed a questionnaire that contained demographic measures, the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test-6, the Lifetime Experiences Questionnaire, the Trauma Symptom Checklist, and the Young’s Schema Questionnaire. 3 tables and 77 references