Recognizing Psychological Abuse in Children and Effective Interviewing Techniques

Recognizing Psychological Abuse in Children and Effective Interviewing Techniques

After reading Chapter 9 of Crosson-Tower’s (2019) text, there are several aspects I can use or rather characteristics I can use to recognize a psychologically abused child. The first characteristic is displayed through emotional symptoms, including low self-esteem, which is an indication of the child feeling unwanted, unloved, or unworthy. The second emotional symptom is depression and anxiety, which means that the child will be sad persistently, excessively anxious, have negative reactions to highly stressful situations, and could isolate themselves from participating in activities. Additional emotional symptoms include having severe and frequent changes in mood and fearfulness towards certain situations (Crosson-Tower, 2019). It is also worth noting that calming down a psychologically abused child will not be as easy as it should be.

Another characteristic of psychologically abused children is manifested in behavioral symptoms, including aggression, whereby a child can have hostility or unexplained outbursts of anger towards other people or things, where they become destructive. A second behavioral symptom is withdrawal from their peers and family. Self-harm is also a behavioral symptom whereby a child will physically hurt themselves through self-injury, like cutting. Another behavioral symptom is having excessive eagerness to please other people, particularly adults who are authority figures (Crosson-Tower, 2019). Notably, some of these behavioral symptoms are caused by an effort to gain attention from adults around these children.

Psychological abuse in children can also be recognized based on cognitive symptoms. One example of a cognitive symptom is academic problems and developmental delays. Physical traits that can help identify a psychologically abused child include somatic complaints, sleep-related issues like insomnia and nightmares, and physical body changes due to changes in eating patterns, like weight gain due to overeating or eating disorders due to not eating. Lastly, one can also recognize a psychologically abused child based on their relationships; these can displayed through difficulty trusting others, insecure attachment styles, whereby they are either completely detached or too clingy (Ensink et al., 2020), and poor social skills.

When it comes to interviewing a child, some of the key aspects stated by Crosson-Tower (2019) that one should keep in mind include,, that their expression will be different from that of an adult in that children tend to use more metaphors as opposed to literal meanings. Secondly, their attention must be taken into consideration, and strategies like drawing can be applied to help them stay focused. Third, the interview setting must make the child feel safe enough to open up to the interviewer. Fourth, just because the interviewee is a child does not mean that they will not know what they remember or not; in fact, children can remember certain events than they are given credit for. Lastly, to ensure that the material uncovered during an interview is valid, four key indicators are required, namely consistency, certainty, clarity, and celerity.

References

Crosson-Tower, C. (2019). Understanding child abuse and neglect. United Kingdom: Pearson.

Ensink, K., Borelli, J. L., Normandin, L., Target, M., & Fonagy, P. (2020). Childhood sexual abuse and attachment insecurity: Associations with child psychological difficulties. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 90(1), 115.

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After reading Chapter 9, explain how you would recognize the psychological abuse of a child. Then, after reading Chapter 10, discuss some of the fine points in interviewing a child.

Recognizing Psychological Abuse in Children and Effective Interviewing Techniques

What must be considered to ensure the material uncovered during the interview will be helpful to the case? 350-word minimum, be sure to use APA formatting, and in-text citations as needed, and do not forget to cite your sources in APA format.