• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 1998

Aim：We think that the most important etiology in parent abuse is the psychodynamic and psychopathology in the family. So, we investigated the adolescents being admitted in SNMH, whose chief complaints were parent abuse. We were trying to explore families psychodynamic and psychopathology, especially mother-child interaction and to differentiate them in according to developmental psychopathology. Method：Our objects were the adolescent patients admitted in SNMH from 1987 to 1997 because they attacked parents verbally and physically. We examined 21 adolescents except those with psychosis, organic mental disorder, autism and mental retardation by means of interview or chart review. Result and Conclusion：The number of male patients was 14 and the number of female patients was 7. The most common diagnosis was conduct disorder and borderline personality disorder. The mean age was in the mid-teens. We observed 4 subgroups that were divided developmentally in object relation. 1) Symbiotic group with mother：(1) They did not separate and remain in symbiotic relationships with their mothers based on insecure attachment. Fathers were abscent emotionally and physically, and their mothers were prominent in close relationships with the patients in their family , where as the patients were the only man in the family. Adolescents entered the second separation-individuation. They expressed anger and internal tension involved with the close attachment with their mothers and also attempted separation from their mothers through physically attacking them. (2) These patients had suffered from physical illness and developmental delay since birth. Therefore the parents overprotected their children. The children had persistent infantile omnipotence and fantasies of power, so they could not deal with unrealistic states, adapt to reality, and depended on their parents overtly. They easily acted out unless their demands were fulfilled. 2) Borderline personality disorder：We observed deficiencies in care taking. Their parents had personality problems and immaturity. They coulden’t help their children to be separated in the rapproachment phase. Their conflict about dependence-independence was revived in the second separation-individuation adolescent period. We understand parent abuse as an attempt to overcome the conflict. 3) Conduct disorder：They did not build up basic attachment with their parents. They think of their parents as only a means of fulfilling their needs. When patients’ need were not fulfilled and remained in a conflicted state, they attacked their parents, unable to control their aggressions and impulses.