Child Abuse and Family Emotional Process
November 14, Friday, 2008
Walter H. Smith, Jr., PhD,
Western PA Family Center, Pittsburgh PA
The Clarion Hotel Manhattan KS 7.0 CEUs $100 Advanced / $120 after Nov.6
Child abuse is a symptom of human functioning, reflecting a basic family emotional process. Individuals and families do not choose their symptoms. Given enough stress, individuals and families will develop them. Stress is defined as individual and family tensions, strain and anxiety, which naturally occurs when we adjust our functioning to cope and adapt with challenging events and circumstances. When challenged beyond the limits of our abilities to cope, stress becomes chronic and symptoms develop. Aggression, violence and child abuse are just a few possible symptoms of prolonged stress and they will occur in some portion of all families to some degree.
Symptoms have two basic characteristics. One is that they are repetitive and persistent aspects of functioning which occur autoomatically, do not readily change, and reflect more primary aspects of functioning. The second charasteristic is that they bind and manage anxiety and stress in the short term, but over time, promote other problems.
Child abuse is a symptom that reflects family relationship patterns which were useful at one time. Under calmer conditions, the parents established appropriate limits for their child. As numerous stress and conflict occured, the father became as controlling of his son as he was out of control in other areas of his life. Initially, his strict parenting was calming and created order. But as stresses continued to escalate, he increased his aggressive behavior and became more violent. (Smith, 2001).
The seminar will discuss the role of family emotional process in the clinical treatment of child abuse. Understanding the broad emotional processes, common to all families can increase the effectiveness of clinical practice. Bowen theory provides a broader framework that enables professionals to sustain clinical neutrality with families that are overtly intense or present subtle relationship tensions and conflicts. Professionals benefit in being able to develop more accurate clinical hypotheses from which to design interventions.
