5.6 Family pathology
Psychology offers number of theories of psychopathologies, aggression and deviance, with a number of these placing the root cause of violence within family relationships during infancy and childhood.
Social learning theory offers insights into aggression and deviance, not only within the family but also on a societal level. Bandura (1973) argues that aggression is a response learned though behaviour modelling, and theorises that children learn aggressive responses from observing others, either in the family or through the media and their wider environment. However, the aggression reinforced by family members is the most prominent source of behaviour learning. Children use the same aggressive tactics that their parents illustrate when dealing with others, thus the child who witnesses his father repeatedly strike his mother would be more likely to become an abusive parent and husband (Bandura and Ribes-Inesta 1976).
Object-relations theory and family systems theory argue that aggression stems from the family. Object-relations theorists view psychopathologies as expressions of traumatic self-object internalisations during childhood. Psychological dysfunction is seen as a manifestation of an attempt to resolve early traumas internalised during infancy. As such, psychotherapy is the only way to address the resulting problems. In contrast, family systems theory argues that individuals can change their behaviour patterns by becoming aware of the impact current and historical family behaviours have had on the definition of their choices (Bowen 1985).
Cognitive neoassociation theory argues that “negative affect produced by unpleasant experiences automatically stimulates various thought, memories, expressive motor reactions, and physiological responses associated with both fight and flight tendencies” Anderson and Bushman (2002: 30). Cues that are present during the negative event become associated with the event, and with the cognitive and emotional responses triggered by the event, such that in later situations, these cues are enough to trigger similar responses, even in the absence of the actual event itself (Berkowitz 1989, 1990). Aggressive thoughts, emotions and behavioural tendencies are linked together in people’s memories, and concepts with similar meanings (eg, hurt, harm) or that are frequently activated simultaneously (eg, shoot, gun) develop strong associations with each other. Similarly, Crick and Dodge (1996) argue that children who experience harsh physical or psychosocial treatment become hyper-vigilant to hostile cues and are biased to perceiving hostile intent in others actions. Abuse during childhood increases the sensitivity of cue interpretation such that individuals may interpret a non-threatening cue as hostile.
5.6.1 Child abuse and domestic violence
The maltreatment of children in the form of sexual or physical abuse and neglect can have short and long-term consequences for well-being. Children who suffer maltreatment during infancy and early childhood can develop emotional, behavioural and cognitive problems, with evidence suggesting that children from difficult or severely dysfunctional families disproportionately suffer severe substance abuse, high levels of depression and anxiety and suicide and run away from home (CSR Incorporated 1997, Hider 1998).
New Zealand research, replicated in many international studies, suggests that children who experienced severe or harsh parental punishment practices had one-and-a-half to four times higher rates of conduct problems, substance abuse, depression, anxiety and violent crime in early adulthood, than those whose parents did not use physical punishment (Fergusson 1998, Jenkins and Keating 1998, Kelley, Thornberry and Smith 1997). The higher rates of problems among abused children appear to reflect the consequences of generally compromised childhoods rather than the specific effects of the abusive treatment (Fergusson 1998).
Children who have been sexually abused exhibit a variety of problems both in the short term and later on as adults (Briere and Elliott 1994, Oddone, Genuis and Violato n.d.). The CHDS findings on sexual abuse suggest that, independently of the socio-economic context, exposure to child sexual abuse is causally linked to later mental health and adjustment problems in some children (Fergusson 1998). This conclusion accords with recent research in basic brain science that brains are sculpted by experiences (Teicher 2002).
The theory of cognitive dissonance provides an explanation of how such abuse contributes to emotional instability (Festinger, 1957). Cognitive dissonance refers to the emotional and intellectual tension that people experience when faced with a set of conflicting “messages” from their social environment, such as when they experience behaviours that are at odds with their prior knowledge or beliefs. (So, for example, a child who is abused may experience tension between the messages “my parent cares about me” and “my parent is hurting me”.)
Festinger considered the human need to avoid dissonance to be as basic as the need for safety or the need to satisfy hunger. Arguing that the greater the discrepancy between behaviour and belief, the higher the magnitude of dissonance, Festinger believed that the tensions of dissonance acted as a driver to motivate either a change in behaviour or a change in beliefs (Aronson 1969, Festinger 1957). Sometimes adult victims of child abuse will reconcile the conflict by deciding that they deserved the abuse (this is associated with poor self-esteem). Sometimes they will decide that their parent did not really hurt them (ie, they will minimise the abuse in their mind, and in extreme cases memory of the abuse may be suppressed). Sometimes the rationalisation can be elaborate: they may decide that the parent was driven to abuse them by external circumstances or by another relative.
It is common for adult victims of abuse to have ongoing problems reconciling this conflict, because any particular rationalisation will tend to be unstable. As a result they may experience ongoing emotional and intellectual stress, resulting in emotional instability and impeded ability to function socially.
Although maltreatment is a serious threat to the short and long term well-being and development of children and adolescents, in some cases children do not appear to suffer significant effects (Masten and Coatsworth 1998). Research on resilient children indicates that 3 broad factors can protect children against lasting impacts from childhood psychological stress: the child’s personal characteristics, including an easy temperament and a mastery-oriented approach to new situations (ie, a belief that the new situation can be mastered, which fosters competence); a warm, well-organised family life combined with an authoritative parenting style; and an adult outside the immediate family (perhaps a teacher) who offers the child an alternative support system (someone to turn to, say during periods of conflict within the family) and a positive coping model.
The factors that contribute to domestic violence are in some respects very similar to the factors that lead to child maltreatment. The factors that contribute to other forms of psychopathology are often present where there is chronic and/or serious violence in the home.
In extreme forms of partner abuse a constant terrorizing and domination may occur: the battering syndrome. This syndrome is well documented and has been found to have three distinct phases: First, a build-up of stress and tension in the relationship; the explosion (ie, the assault) and finally expressions of contrition and asking for forgiveness.
Perpetrators of this type of abuse are almost exclusively male. The typical batterer has a drive to exert control and focuses this drive on his partner. He tries to establish control through isolation, enforced dependence, jealous surveillance, threats, verbal abuse, meticulous enforcement of petty rules, and even physical exhaustion (Urdang 2002).
5.6.2 Loyalty to an abuser
Attachment theory provides a mechanism for understanding the emotional draw of abusive relationships, and a basis for understanding why people continue to live with or deny abusive behaviour from a parent or spouse. Morgan and Shaver (1999) argue that the tendency to desire contact with a violent or frightening attachment figure is a natural outcome of the attachment system that, under normal circumstances, serves a protection function.
However, the attachment system was not "designed" for situations in which the attachment figures themselves are the source of danger. Loyalty to an abuser is the dysfunction of a system operating under unusual circumstances. When attachment figures are repeatedly abusive, the children or romantic partners will experience heightened feelings of attachment and will be confronted with the paradoxical dilemma of longing for the comfort of the attachment figure while also experiencing a desire to flee from him or her… This paradox is perfectly understandable when one considers that attachment bonds are non-rational, enduring, and largely uncontrollable.” (Morgan and Shaver 1999: 120). The links between evolutionary biology, discussed below, and attachment theory become clear.
Victims of abuse may know rationally that their relationships are destructive, but may still continue to love and long for their abuser. Fairbairn (1952) theorised that people experiencing the discrepancy between their loving feelings and their knowledge that the people they love are not deserving may experience "splitting," a dissociative defense whereby tension and confusion are bypassed through the formation of two separate models of the attachment figure, one positive and one negative. Once the models have formed, people will be able to draw on an "all good" model of their attachment figure to justify their current involvement.
Object relations theorists also offer some insight into why battered women stay with their abusers. Celani asserts that battered women stay with their abusers because they are drawn to "bad objects"-partners "who hold out the promise of gratification, yet fail time after time to satisfy the needs of the dependent individual" (Celani 1994: 137) Celani argued that people who were deprived or neglected in childhood may feel drawn into a relationship with a “bad object”. Specifically, adults who did not receive adequate positive experiences with their caregivers in childhood may seek to re-create the dynamics of those early experiences by entering relationships with people like their parents.
Other psychological theories offering explanations for victim loyalty include post-traumatic stress disorder and learned helplessness. Women who have been chronically battered develop signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. The disorder commonly involves severe depression and mental and physical exhaustion, and sufferers may experience dissociation, a process or experience in which the “unity of consciousness” is disrupted. People suffering dissociation become alienated from their own emotions, thoughts and behaviours. In some cases, people cease to have emotional reactions to events that would normally trigger such a response, they have memory lapses and cannot account for some of their actions, and they have difficulty “gathering their thoughts” and communicating these to other people. The causes of dissociation are not well understood but it is thought to be partly a defence mechanism.
Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness contends that when a person is prevented from avoiding some repeated aversive stimulus, they will become passive and depressed, believing that any actions to avoid this aversive stimulus are ineffective. As such, women experiencing repeated abuse tend to develop a strong sense of powerlessness, believing that their lives are controlled by external influences, and that they have no ability to influence their future life course (Urdang 2002).
5.7 The family, policy and the state
Family functioning appears to have a greater impact than family structure on individual well-being and child development. What really matters for adult well-being and child outcomes is a set of conditions within the family, including the quality of relationships, parenting style and the quality of child care, rather than how the family is configured.
The state’s ability to influence the way that families function is constrained: the domain of the family is private, and the state has limited opportunities to observe family functioning. In practice the state tends to only intervene directly when problems are serious, evident and probably entrenched—for example, when a child’s safety is at risk or there has been a violent incident.
The question of state intervention in this area raises fundamental issues about the rights of individuals versus the rights of the state. The role and capacity of the state to influence behaviour within families, other than in extreme circumstances such as these is not clear.
Security of attachment is of vital importance to a child’s successful development. If children are removed from their homes in an effort to protect them, this can cause further harm arising from a lack of continuity or permanency. “Continuity of care” has been postulated as a guiding principle in working with children who need fostering (Urdang 2002).
