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Talking out the rage: an ego‐supportive intervention for work with potentially abusive parents
Author(s) -
Holman Warren D.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2010.00734.x
Subject(s) - rage (emotion) , intervention (counseling) , anger , psychology , id, ego and super ego , feeling , developmental psychology , social psychology , action (physics) , psychotherapist , psychiatry , physics , quantum mechanics
Child abuse experts agree that the single factor ultimately responsible for child maltreatment is the inability of parents to control their aggressive impulses. This paper describes a verbalizing, ego‐supportive intervention for work with potentially abusive parents. It is designed to give parents increased understanding of the experience of parenting and greater control over their angry impulses. The intervention is based on two well‐supported premises: anger towards one's children is natural and inevitable; and putting angry feelings and thoughts into words significantly diminishes the tendency to put them into action. The engagement, ego‐building and prevention benefits of the intervention are discussed.