An examination of defense style in parents who abuse children.
The study aimed to determine the predominant defense style in parents who abuse their children, at least as determined by a new defense style questionnaire. The scores of 32 parents who had physically abused their young children and had been assessed after court proceedings were compared with a normal population sample and with patients with anxiety disorders who were equally symptomatic. Parents who had abused their children identified themselves as being particularly likely to use projection, displacement, passive-aggressiveness denial, and splitting to a degree greater than normal persons or patients with anxiety disorders. We would caution that, although the differences remained after statistical control of age and sex differences, a firm conclusion that such defenses are germane to child abuse will have to await replication of these findings with a study using a control group of young parents who do not abuse their children matched for social class and family structure.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Children's Hospital, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia.
J
J
Brennan
G
G
Andrews
A
A
Morris-Yates
C
C
Pollock
D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics