The dynamics and treatment of child abuse: can primate research provide the answers?

Practitioners in the mental health professions presently are faced with the tasks of understanding the dynamics involved in the problem of child abuse and devising efficacious treatment and rehabilitation programs for both the abusive parent and the abused child. The present paper reviews research done by comparative psychologists more than a decade ago that should be considered by those practitioners involved in the treatment of the family in which child abuse has occurred. Seay, Alexander and Harlow (1964) reported on a study that not only points out an etiological factor in abusive mother monkeys, but suggests treatment approaches for both the mother and her battered infant.