Research Review: Risk and resilience in cases of emotional abuse

TLDR

Research shows that child and family factors raise the risk of emotional abuse and that such abuse heightens vulnerability to negative outcomes, yet the determinants of its impact on later psychosocial functioning remain poorly understood. This review investigates the risk and resilience factors associated with emotional abuse in children, emphasizing the importance of tailoring interventions to individual vulnerabilities and protective factors. The authors outline predisposing, precipitating, intrinsic child, and external contextual factors—such as early caregiving, abuse severity, internal working models, coping strategies, and school support—that influence risk and resilience.

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines risk and resilience in relation to emotional abuse. Research has identified numerous child and family factors that may increase the risk of emotional abuse occurring and has also identified numerous ways in which an experience of emotional abuse can enhance vulnerability to negative outcomes. However, relatively little is known about the factors that determine the extent to which an experience of emotional abuse predicts later psychosocial functioning. Factors that may determine risk and resilience in children who experience emotional abuse are discussed. These include predisposing factors such as early caregiving experiences; precipitating factors such as the frequency, intensity and duration of the abuse; factors intrinsic to the child such as working models of the self and others, internal or external attributions, behavioural and coping strategies, self‐esteem, and disposition; and external factors such as school and availability of supportive relationships. The need to pay attention to the particular vulnerabilities and protective factors pertaining to each emotionally abused child in order to most effectively enhance resilience is highlighted.