1996 Volume 10 Issue 2 Pages 105-117
This article examines the result of the investigation of the abused children born in the unexpected pregnancy. the unexpected pregnancy is often regarded as one of the chief factors of the child abuse, and this article examines it from the standpoint of transgenerational family systems theory.
1. Outline
The investigation in carried out on 13 abused cases diagnosed as “the children born in the unexpected pregnancy” from 1992 to 1994. When extracting the cases, more than 1 of the following 5 points are to be recorded in the child recorded.
1) Parents did not want the baby when they knew the pregnancy.
2) The time of pregnancy/birth was not when parents expected.
3) Pregnance/birth was not agreed upon by the parents.
4) Parents did not want to have a child.
5) When they knew the pregnancy, they were displeased, depressed and isolated.
2. Discussion
The result of the investigation shows that the abuse to the child born in unexpected pregnancy mainly occurred in the disfunctional marriage. This report discusses the results from the following standpoints based on the transgenerational family theory and family life-cycle model:
1) The relation of the couple with the family of origin
2) The mate selection
3) The couple relationship concerning the pregnancy
4) The relationship of father, mother and abused child
1) shows emotional reaction of highly fused relationship by extreme ‘dependency’ and ‘emotional cut-off’, and ‘differentiation of self’ from the family of origin was on achieved.
2) shows highly fused marriage which keep temporal emotional stability, but easy to be broken by the third party intrusion, which can be called “pseudo-intimacy”.
3) is as follows: The sexual intercourse temporarily makes it possible to escape from anxiety and tension caused by couple’s disengagement and conflict, but unexpected pregnancy brought them another added anxiety and tension.
4) is as follows: mother can temporarily escape from the trouble with her husband by mother-child coalition which makes triangulation, but faced with the child-rearing difficulties, she avoids the solution of the difficulties by emotional cut-off from the child and tries to find another object to depend on.
Thus vicious circle of the father, mother, abused child can start, which develops child abuse.
