Endeavouring to move forward from child maltreatment by engaging in the process of psyche repair: The adult male's attempt at establishing a more fulfilled adult life
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publisher
Nova Science Publishers
Place of Publication
New York, USA.
Editor(s)
Taylor, M.F., Pooley, J.A., & Taylor, R.S.
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
19985
Abstract
This chapter describes the pathway that the eight Australian males whose lives had been severely damaged by their experience of child maltreatment took towards establishing a more fulfilled adult life. This pathway is encapsulated in the chapter‘s core theme: Endeavouring to move forward from child maltreatment through engaging in the therapeutic process of psyche repair‘, which in turn is comprised of three themes and seven subthemes (See Table 1). The first theme, Theme One: Coping, details how at the start of the long journey towards psychic repair the men existed in a state of emotional and cognitive confusion. Moreover, their first step out of that confusion was to create practical external strategies for dealing with the triggers that unleashed their inappropriate behavioural responses to adverse interpersonal events. Indeed, it was only through a process of establishing practical coping strategies that these former victims of child maltreatment were able to configure a pathway forward. This pathway as reported in Theme Two: Resilience, involved seeking professional help for their underlying problems and building a resilience platform as a foundation on which they could repair their damaged sense of self. The final theme, Theme Three: Post-traumatic growth reveals that once this resilience platform was in place, the adult male victims of child maltreatment subsequently experienced a noticeable growth in their emotional intelligence. The chapter closes with a discussion on the need for therapeutic services for males and an increased societal understanding of the factors that precipitate incidents of domestic violence in both males and females who have, and have not, been victims of child maltreatment.
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Comments
Goddard, T., Taylor, M., & Pooley, J.A. (2015). Broadening the domestic violence debate. In Taylor, M.F., Pooley, J.A., & Taylor, R.S.(eds.) Endeavouring to Move Forward from Child Maltreatment by Engaging in the Therapeutic Process of Psyche Repair: The Adult Male’s Attempt at Establishing a More Fulfilled Adult Life (pp. 317-330). New York, USA. Nova Science Publishers. Available here.