Aggressive Themes Research Articles

Coherence and content of conflict-based narratives: associations to family risk and maladjustment.

This study examined the role of structural and content characteristics of children's conflict-based narratives (coherence, positive and aggressive themes) in the association between early childhood family risk and children's internalizing and externalizing problems in a sample of 193 children (97 girls, 96 boys) aged 3 to 5 years (M = 3.85, SD = .48). Parents participated in an interview on family related risk factors; teachers and parents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; children completed conflict-based narratives based on the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB). We specifically investigated the mediating and moderating role of narrative coherence and content themes in the association between family risk and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Children's narrative coherence was associated with better adjustment, and had a buffering effect on the negative relation between family risk on children's internalizing problems. Positive themes were negatively associated with externalizing problems. Telling narratives with many positive and negative themes buffered the negative association of family risk and teacher-reported externalizing problems. In sum, the findings suggest that in children, being able to tell coherent and enriched narratives may buffer the impact of family risk on their symptoms, and being able to produce positive themes rather than aggressive themes is associated with lower externalizing problems.

Crime Scene Behaviors Indicate Risk-Relevant Propensities of Child Molesters

The current study used crime scene analysis (CSA) to identify the psychological characteristics of child molesters and examined the contribution of these behavioral themes for sexual offender risk assessment. CSA was conducted on a sample of 424 cases of child sexual abuse in Berlin (Germany) using non-metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling. The analysis revealed the behavioral themes of fixation, regression (sexualization), criminality, and (sexualized) aggression, consistent with previous theories and empirical research in child molestation. The construct validity of the four themes was demonstrated through correlational analyses with known sexual offending measures, ratings of offender motivation, and criminal histories. The themes of fixation and (sexualized) aggression were significant predictors of sexual recidivism and added incrementally to the Static-99 for the prediction of sexual recidivism. The results indicate that crime scene information can inform the assessment of child molesters’ risk-relevant propensities and improve the prediction of sexual recidivism.

The visit: observing children's experience of visiting a relative in prison

The article describes an experience working as a play volunteer with children who are visiting male relatives in a large, high-to-medium security prison. It describes the various interactions with the children in which the experience of baby observation proved of help in facilitating the role and understanding the experience. Examples of play interactions are given which attempt to give some impression and understanding of these children's experience in a unique setting. The themes of idealisation, confusion and aggression are described and examined as well as the children's resourcefulness and adaptation to the setting. The experience from the play worker's point of view is also addressed.

Children's Play in the Wake of Loss and Trauma

In the Project for Mothers, Infants, and Young Children of September 11, 2001, children were longitudinally observed and filmed playing and interacting with mothers and therapists as an extension of the mother-infant/stranger-infant face-to-face play paradigm (Beebe, 2003). Children included those still in the womb on September 11, 2001, when their fathers died, as well as older siblings. Play observations contributed to the assessment of risk and resilience and were used in follow-up video feedback sessions with mothers. Implicit and explicit features of play interactions are described with regard to developmental acquisitions, symbolization, and play themes. Mother-child play is sometimes marked by joining on the part of the mother and sometimes by overriding. Maternal diversion and overriding was particularly evident when themes of aggression emerged. In play episodes, children demonstrated intense efforts to express feelings, worries, and queries. Play themes frequently pertained to death, destruction, rescue, irretrievaibility, and risk taking. Therapists aimed to be nondirective and facilitative of elaboration. Video feedback of children's play with mother and therapist addressed insecurities of mothers and fostered greater recognition of children's grief and more sharing of affect between mother and child. A case example of play and videofeedback is described. Children were helped to develop and hold paternal representions and to use play as a means of expression.

Prediction of sexual trauma via disruption of sex–aggression associations

A variant of the Implicit Association Test focusing on the association of sexual and aggressive themes was administered to 90 college students (61 women) and correlated with a series of variables based on participant history of sexually traumatic events. A history of sexual abuse was correlated with increased difficulties in processing sexual and aggressive concepts simultaneously. Furthermore, this relationship remained significant after controlling for general level of emotional distress, and even after controlling for self-reported aggressiveness and positive feelings towards sex. The findings provide grounds for further exploration of deficits in associations between sexual and aggressive concepts as a possible indicator of the cognitive effects of sexual abuse.

Sports—Applied Psychoanalysis Par Excellence

Understanding the ubiquitous human phenomena associated with sports requires a “depth” psychology like psychoanalysis, among other theoretical tools. Sports exemplify basic Freudian concepts, such as unconscious motivation, unconscious conflict and compromise, and the centrality of sexual, aggressive, narcissistic, and attachment themes throughout the human life cycle. Sports also provide powerful illustrations of some of the important recent developments in psychoanalytic theory, including Lacan's work on the Imaginary and Symbolic registers; Kohut's psychology of the self and the role of selfobjects in development; Butler's feminist-psychoanalytic theories on performativity, gender binaries, and the unmourned losses at the root of gender; Laplanche's “general theory of seduction”; and the work of the psychoanalytically influenced sociologist Rene Girard. Finally, sports have a natural kinship with psychoanalysis because both involve the interrelationships among the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and social realms.

Bullying: Are researchers and children/youth talking about the same thing?

Given the rapid increase in studies of bullying and peer harassment among youth, it becomes important to understand just what is being researched. This study explored whether the themes that emerged from children's definitions of bullying were consistent with theoretical and methodological operationalizations within the research literature, and whether the provision of a definition when administering bullying experience items would lead to different prevalence rates in reported victimization and bullying. Students aged 8—18 (N = 1767) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the first condition, students were provided with a standard bullying definition; in the second condition, students provided their own definition of bullying. Results indicated that students' definitions of bullying rarely included the three prominent definitional criteria typically endorsed by researchers: intentionality (1.7%), repetition (6%), and power imbalance (26%), although almost all students (92%) did emphasize negative behaviors in their definition. Younger children made more mention of physical aggression, general harassing behaviors, and verbal aggression in their definitions, whereas the theme of relational aggression was most prominent in the middle years and reported more by girls than boys. Finally, students who were given a definition of bullying reported being victimized less than students not provided with a definition. As well, boys who were given a definition of bullying tended to report higher levels of bullying than those not given a definition (marginal effect).

Troubles autistiques, traumatisme et agressivité : leur élaboration à travers une thérapie « ludique »

Abstract This paper proposes that psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be a helpful form of treatment for certain autistic children. Some of the misconceptions surrounding this kind of treatment are discussed. The literature identifying a particular sub-group of autistic children is then reviewed and the characteristics of this group, and the relationship of their difficulties to early trauma, are described. Using clinical material from work with a child who probably fell within this sub-group, and who had very marked autistic features, the paper illustrates the importance of the therapist taking an active role in the therapy and how this helped the child to emerge from his withdrawn state. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of introducing themes of aggression, and of this being done in a playful way. The impact of trauma on children’s development, with particular reference to the acquisition of language, is considered. The role of sibling rivalry as a factor is emphasised.

Relations Between Parents' Interactive Style in Dyadic and Triadic Play and Toddlers' Symbolic Capacity.

Play has a major role in the evaluation and treatment of young children referred to mental health clinicians. The present study examined parental correlates of preschoolers' symbolic play during dyadic and triadic play interactions. Boys' play contained more aggressive themes, and girls' contained more nurturing themes. Mothers displayed more caring themes during play with both sons and daughters, and fathers displayed more repair and construction themes. Mothers' and fathers' facilitative- creative interaction style in dyadic play predicted the level of the child's symbolic play. Co-parenting style marked by cooperation and autonomy predicted symbolic play during a triadic family session. Child intelligence predicted symbolic play beyond the parent's style during triadic but not dyadic interactions. The findings have implications for early intervention directed at increasing symbolic play in young children.

Children's Perceptions of Family Relationships as Assessed in a Doll Story Completion Task: Links to Parenting, Social Competence, and Externalizing Behavior

AbstractThis study was designed to examine the links between parenting, children's perceptions of family relationships, and children's social behavior. Seventy‐four children (M age=6.01 years; 39 boys; 35 girls) and their parents took part in the study. Children completed relationship‐oriented doll stories that were coded for coherence, prosocial themes, and aggressive themes. Parents completed a report of their child's social behavior, a parenting scale, and a number of demographic items. Teachers also completed measures of children's social competence and externalizing behavior. Warm parenting predicted both a child's representation of prosocial themes in the doll stories and social competence, whereas harsh parenting predicted both a child's use of aggressive themes in the doll stories and a child's externalizing behavior. These findings support the idea that children are constructing models of relationships out of the early interactions with caregivers, and that they use these representations to guide their social behavior.

Wie gefährlich sind Patienten mit psychischen Störungen?

The question of potential violence on the part of people with a mental disease has caused considerable controversy in recent decades. While in the eighties the prevailing opinion was that they have no increased risk of aggression, recent studies, especially from Scandinavia and Canada, show a moderate but reliable coherence between violent crime and paranoid and schizophrenic diseases. The danger of people with a mental disease is assessed essentially through the following five study-approaches: Studies to assess the criminal rate of hospitalised patients, the prevalence of mental disorder, studies on prisoners who are committed to a psychiatric facility, and long-term analyses of cohorts. Special emphasis is attached to investigations on homicides. Other investigative questions are concerned with the influence of psychopathological symptoms, the importance of comorbid disturbances and sociological aspects. The studies agree that the risk of violence is decisively increased in people who suffer from schizophrenia, through additional substance abuse, comorbidity with personality disorders, absence of treatment and social desintegration. An unprejudiced approach to this sensitive theme of aggression in people with schizophrenia with regard to further effective prevention and therapy is required.

Follow-Up Section: Early Childhood Emotional Competence: Young Children's Emotionally-Charged Moral Narratives: Relations with Attachment and Behavior Problems

Participants were 45 mostly African-American or Latino young children (25 boys, 20 girls, mean age = 56.4 months), with about half recruited from a mental health facility and half from preschool settings. Children were administered two separate interviews examining their affectively-charged moral narratives regarding acts of victimization (Moral MSSB) and their attachment-related narratives (SAT). In addition, children's teachers or therapists completed assessments of the attachment-like aspects of their relationships with children (STRS), and a measure of children's behavior problems and competencies (C-TRF). Overall, after controlling for child age, gender, SES, and expressive language ability, children with more externalizing problems were more likely to describe aggressive themes, and less likely to mention adult aid or taking responsibility for transgressions in their moral narratives. In addition, more positive attachments (both the SAT and STRS) were associated with fewer externalizing problems. More than half of the total variance in children's externalizing scores could be predicted from a combination of the attachment and Moral MSSB variables. These findings have implications for understanding the affective origins of young children's externalizing behavior problems involving both peers and adults.

Gender-Specific Characteristics of 5-Year-Olds' Play Narratives and Associations With Behavior Ratings

To examine the content and structure of children's play narratives in a large sample of 5-year-olds in order to replicate previous findings, explore the role of gender differences, and identify a pattern that can provide useful information about children's behavior. The MacArthur Story Stem Battery and coding system was used to code content themes and coherence from play narratives of 652 twins in a nonclinical sample. To measure behavior problems, parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist when their children were aged 5 and 7 years; teachers completed the Teacher's Report Form when the children were aged 7 years. Girls told more coherent narratives with less aggression than boys. Aggressive themes were found to correlate with behavior problems as in previous studies. Upon further examination, this correlation held for girls but not boys. Children who told repeated aggressive/incoherent narratives had more behavior problems than those who did not show this narrative pattern. The Story Stem methodology is useful for gaining access into the young child's inner world. The gender of the child, content of the story, and coherence of the story all provide useful information in identifying narratives that may indicate more risk for behavior problems.

Parenting difficulties in sexual-abuse survivors: A theoretical framework with dual psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral strategies for intervention.

Systematic investigations of the consequences of sexual abuse and clinical literature on interventions with survivors have frequently neglected the impact of sexual abuse on parenting. Grounded in both object-relations and trauma theory, this article presents a case illustration to depict the unconscious repetition of one mother's childhood abusive relationship with her own child. We explore how this survivor's parenting conflicts became increasingly salient during specific developmental stages of the child, as themes of sexuality and aggression triggered unresolved conflicts, distorted cognitions, and trauma reactions. The reenactment impairs parenting in critical ways, hence increasing the risk for sexual abuse in the next generation. Strategies for interventions to modify the mother's poor parenting responses are described using a therapeutic approach that integrates concepts from psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral theories.

Sexual intrusive thoughts of college students

Despite the fact that a substantial minority of individuals describe sexual thoughts that are perceived as unwanted and unacceptable, for the most part sexuality researchers have not differentiated sexual thoughts and fantasies that are perceived as positive by the respondent from those which are perceived as negative. At the same time, cognitive‐behavioral researchers investigating intrusive thoughts—that is, unwanted, sudden, and involuntary ego‐dystonic thoughts and obsessions—have not distinguished those reflecting sexual themes from those reflecting other themes. The purpose of this study was to examine sexual intrusive thoughts in a nonclinical population. One hundred seventy‐one college students participated in the study and were administered measures assessing intrusive thoughts, psychological distress, and disposition towards sexuality. Sexual intrusive thoughts were reported by 84% of participants. Compared to the women, the men reported a greater number of different sexual intrusive thoughts, and marginally more frequent sexual intrusions. In addition, the men reported more frequent sexual intrusive thoughts involving some active, aggressive themes and less frequent thoughts of being sexually victimized than did the women. Compared to the men, the women reported less sexual arousal in response to their most upsetting intrusive thought. Greater erotophilia, more frequent sexual daydreaming, and more frequent obsessive thoughts uniquely predicted the frequency of sexual intrusions. This indicates that sexual intrusive thoughts are not just a result of general psychopathology or psychological distress, but also have a large sexual component. Two patterns of experiencing sexual intrusions are delineated.

The Role of Culture, Violence, and Personal Factors Affecting Dream Content

The impact of culture, violent environment, gender, and age on dream content was studied among 205 children in three groups: a Palestinian group living in a violent environment (n = 80), and Palestinian (n = 45) and Finnish (n = 80) groups living in peaceful areas. They were matched for age (7-12) and gender. The method used was a 7-day dream diary in which the participants recorded the dreams they recalled every morning. Results showed that living in a violent environment affected dream content more than did culture and personal factors. The results confirmed our hypothesis that a violent and dangerous environment was associated with mundane, intensive, and vivid dreams incorporating persecution and aggression themes. As an indication of individualistic versus collective dream characteristics, results showed that the dreams of the Palestinian children from Gaza incorporated more "external scenes" of anxiety, whereas the Finnish children's dreams had more "inner anxiety scenes."

Pornography and sexual aggression

This paper reviews work on the relation between pornography and sexual aggression, covering experimental research on arousal, attitudes, and laboratory aggression, and some correlational studies. The termpornography is intended to cover the materials used in the relevant research, although not all of these would necessarily be seen as “pornographic.” The main body of the review is divided between “aggressive” and “not specifically aggressive” pornography, with some consideration in the discussion of the nature of supposedly “nonaggressive” pornography. In the case of sexually aggressive pornography, a variety of undesirable effects have been observed. Males show equal sexual arousal to pornographic rape depictions and consenting intercourse depictions under certain “disinhibiting” circumstances, such as anger or depicted victim pleasure, and these disinhibitors can also produce increased laboratory aggression against female targets by males exposed to aggressive pornography. Aggressive and, to some extent, not specifically aggressive pornography have also been found to increase the endorsement of attitude statements that are supportive of sexual aggression. The paper concludes with a discussion of ethical considerations, possible psychological bases of the effects, and the question of censorship. It is concluded that although several types of materials may produce behavioral orientation toward, and/or attitudinal support for, sexual aggression, this is a function of aggression and dominance themes rather than the explicitness of the sexual cues. These themes extend beyond explicit pornography, through extremely violent stimuli that lack explicit sexual elements, to widely consumed “normal” films and reading matter.

Dreams of the Dying Patient: An Exploration of Content

This study examined the dreams of eight individuals admitted to the Palliative Care Unit of the Elisabeth Bruyere Health Centre, Ottawa, Canada. Content analysis of the dream reports in this sample supports the hypothesis that a continuity exists between dreaming and waking experience [1]. Results do not indicate that themes of death and aggression, negative emotion, or infant and child characters are more prevalent among the dying. Discrepancies between the findings of this and previous studies are reinterpreted with regard to individual difference variables, such as phase of illness, age, premorbid interests, and medication. It is suggested that these variables, among others, comprise essential components of waking reality and should be considered in explorations of the dream content of dying individuals.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: The secretive syndrome

This article reviewss the current research and latest clinical views on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in schol-age youth. Common compulsions center around washing, counting, and checking, whereas typical obsessions involove themes of aggression, contaminations, sex, order, and scrupulosity. Because those affected with OCD tend to keep their ritualistic behavious hidden, we have tended to seriously underestimate the prevalence of the condition, which authorities now believe is 20 to 40 times more common in youth than previously estimated. Discussion focuses on differentiation from normaity and related psychopathological disorders, biological and psychological factors in etiology, school adjustment, continuity from childhood to adulthood, and drung as well as behavioual therapies. Implications for school psychlgists are presented.

Where the wild things are: A psychoanalytic art therapy perspective

There are at least three major areas of concern to aestheticians: (a) the nature of creative work, including the experience of the artist, (b) the interpretation of the works of art, and (c) the nature of the aesthetic encounter (Spitz, 1985). This paper will deal with the encounter as it relates to the book, Where The Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak (1963). This context deals with the work of art plus the audience and can therefore be related to object-relations theory. Working with the thoughts of Winnicott and Klein, as well as Freudian theory, this paper will offer some explanations of why Where The Wild Things Are is so successful with the children’s audience it addresses. I will try to highlight the issues that the book raises and to elucidate why these intense themes do not frighten the audience. On the first pages of the book, we see a boy wearing his “wolf suit, making mischief of one kind and another” (Sendak, 1963). Because the main character is in a costume, we are already prepared for make-believe; by word and picture, it is made clear that we are entering a land of fantasy. What specific areas are opened up? When his mother calls him a “wild thing,” Max responds with, “I’ll eat you up.” He is sent to bed without eating. The author has introduced major themes of orality, frustration, and aggression. “That very night . . . a forest grew.” Max’s room is transformed over many pages into the forest, the world, the ocean, and, finally, the place where the wild things are. We are transported to the fantasy land gradually and, as audience, we are privy to the graphic creation of this imagined world. Each page’s picture takes up slightly more room until, on Max’s arrival at his destination, there is a doublepage spread of the place where the wild things are. There are no words on either of these pages. It is at this point that we are, with Max, totally immersed in the realm of fantasy. The double page illustrations of the boy and the wild things encourage the feeling of being “transported fully ‘within’ the work of art . . . one feels fused with the aesthetic object . . . illusion becomes ‘real’ and one experiences a sense of power and magic” (Spitz, 1985, p.139). The success of the book with children is due, in part, to the gentle unfolding of the fantasy and the obvious pleasure that Max experiences in its creation. As the book addresses some basic fears of young children, the safety of the gradual transition convinces the child that Max and he will not be overwhelmed. The book takes place in an “intermediate area of experiencing, to which inner reality and external life both contribute” (Winnicott, 1958, p.230). It is this “potential space” between the individual and the environment that the book invites us to enter, the space where imaginative play forms the bridge between inner and outer worlds (Winnicott, 1966, p.371). As Max slowly creates his world of make believe, we enter it with him. Thus, even as the story elucidates the process of transitional phenomena, the