Emotional Cutoff and Family Stability: Child Abuse in Family Emotional Process

Child abuse is a common problem in the United States, and it has an impact on more than 1 million children in this country each year (NCANDS, 1995). As public awareness of the prevalence of child abuse has increased over the past forty years, many treatment approaches and services have developed. These treatment approaches vary in theoretical framework and intervention strategy. The majority of them focus on individual functioning and view symptom formation and abusive behavior as manifestations of individual emotional processes and dynamics.