Problems in Treating Abused Children

Abstract

Since Kempe’s pioneering article in 1962 [1] on the battered child syndrome, there has been an increasing focus on the various aspects of child abuse. According to Carolyn Okell Jones, the first decade of child abuse work drew attention to the associated brain injury and the high mortality rate [2]. The response to this focus was “to protect the child from lethal physical harm [3]. ” Work in that first decade was basic: description of the syndrome, diagnosis, legal ramifications, and beginning efforts to address the needs of the abusing parent. The children were usually stereotyped on the basis of early anecdotal data and theoretical generalizations concerning their development. Despite clinical observations indicating considerable emotional damage to the children, direct work with them was largely neglected [4]. The subtler nuances of the problem, i.e., the emotional effects of abuse, were less of a priority than the more urgent, life threatening issues of physical abuse.