Tomo Umemura
12.12.2015
Roles of families
in developmental psychopathology
Final paper
• Please email me your final paper by December 31.
Risks in family context: Child
maltreatment and domestic violence
Developmental psychopathology perspective (e.g., Cicchetti &
Valentino, 2006):
• “average expectable environment” which consists of speciesspecific
range of environmental conditions that support
development in the adaptive range of environmental
conditions that support development in the adaptive range
among all individuals.
• Maltreating families fail to provide many of the expected
experiences that are required for normal development.
– Infants, preschoolers, adolescents, etc.
Risks in family context: Child
maltreatment and domestic violence
Types of Maltreatment:
• Physical abuse (e.g., beating, scalding, slapping, punching, kicking)
• Sexual abuse (e.g., fondling, intercourse, etc.)
• Neglect (failure to provide basic necessities or lack of supervision)
• Psychological abuse (failure to meet a child’s needs for emotional security,
acceptance or autonomy)
– Ridiculing, terrorizing or excessively controlling the child
• Exposure to domestic violence
– E.g., witnessing interparental violence
Risks in family context: Child
maltreatment and domestic violence
Psychological abuse
• To convey the message that the child is worthless, inadequate, unloved,
endangered, or only valuable in so far as he/she meets someone else’s
needs.
1. Terrorizing: threatening violence against a child or the child’s loved ones,
placing a child in dangerous situations
2. Isolating: confining a child to home, refusing to allow a child to interact
with others outside family
3. Exploiting or corrupting: modelling or encouraging criminal or
developmentally inappropriate behavior, treating a child as a servant,
coercing a child into playing a parentified role and meeting the parent’s
emotional needs
4. Denying emotional responsiveness: interacting with a child only when
necessary and failing to express affection, caring, and love
Risks in family context: Child
maltreatment and domestic violence
Children may have experienced multiple forms of maltreatment, but we do
not know because research failed to do so:
• Physical abuse is associated more with aggression
• Neglect is associated more with social withdrawal and cognitive delay.
• Sexual abuse is more associated with sexualized behavior and internalizing
disorders (particularly, depression)
• Psychological maltreatment is associated with depression and aggression.
• Exposure to domestic violence is related to intergenerational transmission
of violence.