Identifying Pathways Linking Child Abuse to Psychological Outcome

ABSTRACT Child abuse has been linked to pathogenic parenting, and each has been associated with long-term psychological impairment. This study seeks to contribute to the growing volume of investigations concerned with the identification of possible pathways linking child abuse to symptoms by exploring the mediating role of perceived parental failure of empathy in this association. Child abuse and deficient parental empathy were strongly related to one another and separately predictive of symptoms in a sample of 437 female students. Whereas parental empathic failure was found to mediate the long-term effects of physical and extrafamilial sexual abuse, neither it nor incest were capable of predicting most measures of adjustment independently of the other. Findings are discussed in the context of classic developmental psychopathology and trauma resolution theories, and implications for treatment are outlined.