Journal 3 (Psychological Maltreatment)

     After reading two articles into psychological maltreatment, I was still left with a very large question: What are some examples of psychological maltreatment, and how badly do they effect children who experience it in their early life. That is why I decided to narrow my search, and found an article titled, "A Clinician's guide to Recognizing and Reporting Parental Psychological Maltreatment of Children." The title itself let me know that the article was exactly what I was looking for. The article talks about examples of children's negative social interactions, especially with their parents, and what problems the child can have as they grow into adulthood.

     The article's main point was to provide examples of psychological maltreatment so that we as people can recognize when it is happening and how to respond to it, and it achieves just that. It informed me of the six types of psychological maltreatment: spurning, terrorizing, corrupting, isolating, emotional unresponsiveness, and mental, medical, and educational neglect. Each with their own examples, such as ignoring a child and not giving him/her the attention he/she needs, putting a child in dangerous situations with no empathy for the child's saftey, etc. These very specific examples of psychological maltreatment help me understand how psychological maltreatment can manifest in a child's mind, and persuades me even more that this is the most dangerous form of child abuse, because it seems to be much more common than the other forms of child abuse.

    Another question that this article answered is,"What are the long term effects of psychological maltreatment?" The results were actually a lot more insightful than I had predicted. The article describes that depending on which form of psychological maltreatment occurs to a child, various mental stigma may occur. An example that hit me particularly hard was the idea the neglecting a child's emotional want for affection, can lead to that child being more clingy and controlling, or ecen have reverse effects, such as developing trust issues or distancing oneself from others. Why this hits me so hard is due to this happening to me at home, and watching several of my friends and family experiencing the same social interaction. The article seems to agree with my memory, because it states that in a study, 53 percent of children experience some form of psychological maltreatment at home. This statistic really cements my belief that psychological maltreatment is the worst form of child abuse, not because it's the most dangerous, but it is the most common.

     After reading three articles that seem to push the idea that psychological maltreatment is bad, I'm wondering if there are any statements or articles that refute the idea of psychological maltreatment, or if there is an article that even believes that psychological maltreatment doesn't exist. I believe that in searching for something negative about psychological maltreatment being harmful, I will be able to write a much more balanced, well-thought out, and complete paper.