Abused Child to Nonabusive Parent: Resilience and Conceptual Change
Abstract
Individuals who were abused as children and have spontaneously, without intervention, been able to change their cognitive and behavioral patterns such that they do not abuse their own children represent a heretofore untapped source of information and understanding about the processes of conceptual change and resilience. This pilot study investigates the nature of this conceptual change as an exemplar of resilience. Birth order, gender, locus of control, and coping behaviors emerged as areas needing further study. Additionally, the belief on the part of the abusing parents that abuse was not wrong needs further investigation as a possible precursor to this particular context for conceptual change.
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Abused parents who did not become abusers clearly recognized how wrong their parents' behavior had been and attributed no blame to themselves for what had happened; these are hypothesized as two crucial resilience factors.
“Wilkes [19] found in a group of abused parents who did not become abusers that they clearly recognized how wrong their parents’ behavior had been and attributed no blame to themselves for what had happened, and he hypothesized that these were two crucial resilience factors.”
From Psychoanalytic Interventions with Abusive Parents: An Opportunity for Children’s Mental Health (2022) · cites this paper as [19]
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“Wilkes [19] found in a group of abused parents who did not become abusers that they clearly recognized how wrong their parents’ behavior had been and attributed no blame to themselves for what had happened, and he hypothesized that these were two crucial resilience factors.”
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- Authors
- Wilkes, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Arizona (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wilkes, Glenda
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2002-03
- Volume
- 58
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 261-276
- ISSN
- 0021-9762 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-4679
- OpenAlex
- W2089609005
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 0.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Resilience and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Keywords
- child abuse, resilience, conceptual change, cognitive change, birth order, gender differences, locus of control, coping styles, intergenerational transmission of abuse
- MeSH terms
- Child, Child Abuse, Humans, Parent-Child Relations, Pilot Projects
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