Towards Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Abuse

Abstract

A quantitative single case study of an adolescent mother with a history of being abused as a child is presented. It illustrates the diagnostic and treatment issues during an intervention designed to break the cycle of intergenerational abuse. Drawing upon an ecological, transactional model of development, the case study utilized a multimethod, longitudinal approach to assess the mother's history and current psychosocial functioning, the infant's developmental competence and attachment status, patterns of mother-infant interaction and components of the family's social ecology. Measures were administered during a baseline period and systematically repeated throughout the one-year period of intervention. The treatment involved two weekly therapy sessions; one, an individual session for the mother and the other, a session in which mother and infant were seen together. The findings at the one-year evaluation showed improved maternal psychosocial functioning, the infant's shift from an insecure to a secure attachment classification and improved patterns of mother-infant interactions. The implications of this therapeutic approach and the use of single-case methodology are discussed.