Citation

Brennan J, Andrews G, Morris-Yates A, Pollock C. J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. 1990; 178(9): 592-595.

Affiliation

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Children's Hospital, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2394980

Abstract

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.

Language: en