Psychological maltreatment in the context of separation and divorce.
Children of separating or divorcing parents seldom escape suffering psychological stress, particularly when the parents are in open conflict. How much should such children be allowed to suffer? The author discusses the problem of defining the terms "emotional child abuse" and "psychological maltreatment" as they are used in the literature. Reviewing the common behavioral patterns that children in this situation resort to and the roles that they tend to take upon themselves, he attempts to distinguish between those instances of stress that can be regarded as acceptable and those that must be considered harmful. With respect to children in this situation, the following behavior patterns are discussed: (a) the inclination of the child to sacrifice itself for the sake of the parents, in particular for the "weaker" one; (b) the tendency of the children to reach agreements among themselves about how they should be divided up; (c) the phenomenon of parentization in which the child assumes the role of the substitute partner for one or the other parent; and (d) the child's discovery of both its power and its helplessness with respect to the situation and the feelings of guilt awakened by this discovery.
Klosinski
G
G
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Tübingen, Germany.
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology*