The abusing parent revisited: a decade of psychological research

In 1972, a major review paper by Spinetta and Rigler (Spinetta, J. J., and Rigler, D. The child abusing parent: A psychological review. Psychol. Bull., 77; 296-304, 1972) was published. This paper examined the largely clinical literature that existed up to that time on the psychological characteristics of the abusing parent. The authors concluded that abusive parents were abused as children, lacked accurate parenting knowledge, and were characterologically impulsive, and that socioeconomic stressors were neither necessary nor sufficient causal factors in the abuse cycle. In the last decade, a considerable number of controlled empirical studies on the abusive parent have been published. This paper critically investigates these studies with respect to the four conclusions offered by Spinetta and Rigler and suggests future areas of research needed.