Child Abusers

This book is about men and women who neglect and abuse children, physically, emotionally and sexually. A number of key themes emerge: Emotional abuse causes the most long-term harm to children, although combinations of emotional with physical and/or sexual abuse cause the most harm to long-term mental health. Because of the long-term burden which abuse imposes on its victims, it is crucial to intervene effectively with abusers (potential and actual) to prevent them from either beginning abuse, committing further abuse, or entering the victim-to-abuser cycle. Abusers have often experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect in their own childhoods. The role of disordered attachments to adult figures in the victim-to-abuser cycle is considered in detail, including ways of effective intervention. Men and women who kill children can be characterized in various ways, and various programmes of intervention can be designed. The cycle of poverty is also considered in detail, a process by which economically poor families beget children who enter a cycle of both economic and psychological poverty, in which risks of all kinds of child abuse and neglect are elevated.