Research Paper Consequences of Child Abuse

Post Traumatic Stress

People, who have experienced emotional and sexual abuse in childhood, suffer from post-traumatic stress. This can include depression, feeling of self-identity lose, anxiety, nightmares and hallucinations. These victims develop eating problems due to the same stress factors. They often are unable to identify the link between post-traumatic stress symptoms and sexual abuse. Such individuals at later stages of life get involved in self-destructive behavior. They develop and promote repetitive abusive relationships. They get involved in drugs and alcohol consumption. They can also be involved in promiscuity and self-mutilation by hurting themselves physically.

Wunderlich and other researcher observed 38 women who were undergoing incest treatment program at a family service center in 1996. The authors expected to see that abused victims will have higher levels of other tension-reducing behaviors by involving themselves in alcohol consumption and self-injury. The risks of suicidal thoughts also dominate in such individuals. They also studied the magnitude of the emotional reaction to abuse and its correlation with eating disorders development according to the level of posttraumatic stress disorder. Questionnaires were formulated and availed during the studies. The questionnaires included eating disorders and response towards childhood Incest. The findings were in line with their predictions. The abused victims showed more bulimic behavior than the control subjects. They also used more tension-reducing behaviors. Thus, they established the finding that as the level of bulimic behavior increases, the abused individual engages himself in many self-destructive behaviors. It helps them in reducing the emotional distress associated with their abuse. Furthermore, the authors also related bulimic behavior with posttraumatic stress disorder. The efforts of dieting, bingeing, and purging is associated with management of emotional states that arise due to adverse memories of their abuse.

Family Environment

The causal factors that lead to the development of disorders in abused children are truly serious to review. Many studies have established the relationship and association between patterns of family behavior and symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. In 1873, Laseague emphasized that while treating the abused victim on the identification of disorder symptoms, it is also important to involve the family in assessment and treatment (Schmidt et.al, 1997). Ryle in 1936 observed that in many patients with eating disorders are unhappy and suffering from ill-conduct at their homes. The misconduct often comes from foolish parents who are responsible for the onset of the illness. Bruch in 1973 proposed that if mother and child relationship is disturbed from very early age, then this acts as a key feature in the development of eating disorders of Anorexia Nervosa and obesity. Minuchin noticed many transactional patterns as characteristic of all anorexigenic families. These include over-protectiveness or avoidance of parents in child upbringing. The rigidity in parents’ behavior can also develop eating disorders. Selvini-Palazzoli found similar results in 1974. In general, two classes of family experiences have been described as being implicated in the development of eating disorders. These are experiences leading to a failure to form stable and secure attachments to caregivers which means poor quality of early social interactions and those who are related to physical and sexual abuse.