Domestic Violence and Child Abuse: Breaking the Cycle

Journal of Psychological Abnormalities is devoted to conveying and spreading to its examiners around the world, the latest knowledge in relation to mental as well as behavioral disorders. 

Journal is an Open Access journal that aims at publishing the most complete and novel research around the globe from reliable sources on discoveries and current developments in the form of original articles, review articles, case reports, short communications, etc. in all areas making them freely available online without any restrictions or subscriptions to researchers worldwide.

We are a well-established journal (currently working on Vol. 11) with multiple indexing to bring out the original content done by great scholars like you and continuous endeavors to make it available for everyone.

In the upcoming issue, we are going to publish a research article entitled: Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse, written by Stella Marie Rostkowsk, Union College, Department of Professional and Graduate Studies United States

This amazing piece of writing lights on knowledge for professional counselors who work with women and children in homes where domestic violence and IPV occur by providing professional counselors with a method of how to address the needs of the woman and child when they reside in a home where domestic violence or IPV is taking place.

Research on domestic violence or Interpersonal Violence (IPV) revealed that prevention programs do not address the needs of children living in an abusive household and professional counselors do not feel they have adequate training in both domestic violence and working with children to be effective in treating the needs of the woman in the abusive relationship and the needs of the child who is lives in the home where the abusive relationship is taking place. To fill this gap and show through evidence-based practice psychological programs, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) was selected. 

PCIT is comprised of Child-Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent-Directed Interaction (PDI). CDI “resembles traditional play therapy and focuses on strengthening the parent-child bond, increasing positive parenting, and improving child social skills”. During CDI, “the child guides the direction of play and makes autonomous decisions, not the parent. During CDI, Parents are reminded not to give commands, ask questions, or criticize the child; instead, they are prompted to praise, imitate, and reflect on the child’s actions”.

Findings from this study support evidence that PCIT could be an effective tool that professional counselors use to address the needs of women and children who live in domestic violence households. In studies examining child abuse, psychologists used PCIT to learn how the bond between a parent and a child is affected when the child is exposed to repeated abuse. What psychologists found through PCIT was parents who abuse their children were often victims of child abuse themselves.

In studies examining the effects of living in domestic violence and IPV households on children, through PCIT, psychologists discovered that women who were subjected to repeated acts of domestic violence and IPV abused their children because the repeated acts of violence had changed how the woman learned to communicate her needs. Because PCIT utilizes CDI and PDI, parents are taught how to communicate their needs to their children in an environment outside of the one where the domestic violence is taking place. This is consistent with Bandura’s social learning theory, which argues that actions and reactions are a product of a person’s environment, and to change how a person acts and reacts in a situation, the person has to be taken out of the environment. The strength of this study is that it provides professional counselors with a tool that can be used to individually assess the progress of women and children communicating and living with each other while living in a domestic violence situation.

This study had several limitations. The first limitation was the small sample size. While 70 professional counselors were contacted to participate in this study, 26 professional counselors did not respond to the email regarding this study. Of the 44 professional counselors who did respond to the email regarding this study, 35 were rejected from participating in this study because they did not meet all of the requirements of the inclusion criteria for this study.

The second limitation was this study was not specific to one region. Because of the lack of response in one geographical region, the geographical region had to be expanded to span several states. The third limitation in this study occurred because of the second limitation. The researcher noted during the beginning of the study that professional counselors were less hesitant to speak openly about their experiences with professional counselors who were not from their region. Over the later course of the study, the researcher did notice that professional counselors were communicating their experiences more freely with each other. The fourth limitation is that the findings in this study may not be generalized to face-to-face training for PCIT because the training in this study was conducted virtually. This study was conducted virtually due to university restrictions for in-person studies being conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now is the time for interested authors to submit their work. Because of our speedy publication and immediate peer review, you can sample our journal. To have your essay published in the forthcoming issue, you can submit it right away.

You can send an email directly to the editorial board or use the below-mentioned submission portal link-

https://www.longdom.org/submissions/psychological-abnormalities-children.html

Email id:  psycholab@journalres.com