These two issues contain reviews of legal/legislative issues, research and treatment issues, book and video materials, and on-line resources and websites relating to family violence and sexual assault. The first issue, contains "Empowering African American Children To Become Resilient: Early Success in Overcoming Violent Families and…

This paper is adapted from the final report of the Homelessness Project at the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, New York, a research program conducted from 1965 to 1968.

Investigated whether marriage-related attitudes which are antagonistic to successful marital adjustment, or maladaptive styles of marital interaction, contribute to the higher divorce rate of children from disrupted marriages. Findings indicated that children from separated/divorced homes espouse the most favorable attitude toward divorce. (Author)

Compared adults who came from disrupted families with those who lived with biological parents (at age 16). Little difference was found and those effects noted were positive. Results suggest that under certain circumstances a family disruption and associated stress may eventually turn to the individual's advantage. (Author/JAC)

Reviews research on the antecedents and the consequences of divorce. Research on historical and sociological causes of divorce, theoretical models, and changes in health status and the role redefinitions experienced by the divorced are discussed. Concludes by relating issues to sampling and measurement. (Author/JAC)

Unrooted children who have lost parents through divorce, separation, death, or abandonment need as a model an external psychological family in order to complete their developmental task of constructing an internalized triadic family image. (Author)

The authors present a model designed to facilitate counseling with preadolescent children whose parents are experiencing a divorce. The model, based on a standard loss model, is followed by techniques used in helping the child work through each phase of his feeling regarding the divorce. (Author)

Most marital difficulties are functions of childhood problems leading to childhood solutions. This paper emphasizes symbiotic aspects to marital problems in terms of the individual's existential position and his racket/racketeering behavior. The goal of treatment is to have the individual utilize resources for himself and negotiate resources for…

This study of 159 nonclinical married adults found that, for women, verbal abuse in childhood was predictive of marital conflict, and the caring parenting they experienced predicted the depth of the marital relationship. For men, the abuse variables did not predict any dimension of their current marital relationship. Among parenting variables,…

This article describes an intervention designed to reduce the guilt of parents, experiencing marital difficulties, who had a child with profound physical and intellectual deficits. Following a formal assessment of their daughter, the emotional climate of the marriage was much improved and they felt more able to cope. (Contains references.) (CR)

Examined relationship between verbal and physical aggression in marriage, using data from 1985 National Family Violence Re-Survey. Results indicated that when physical aggression occurred, verbal aggression occurred also. Concludes that for male-to-female aggression subculture of violence theory best explains movement from verbal to physical…

Examined 42 maritally supported, 43 maritally distressed, and 32 divorced parents and their clinic children (aged 3-7) to assess the relationship of marital support, conflict, or divorce to clinic parents' perception of child adjustment, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Results indicated significantly more child behavior problems…

Examines hypothesis that effect children have on parents' marriage is due to stress in parental role. Collected data from 287 intact couples with children living at home. Findings indicate parenting was affected by number of children and economic distress, but not by other roles. For both spouses, psychological well-being and perceived marital…

Presents a time-limited support group intervention. The model, based on the notion that children of divorce frequently encounter specific divorce-engendered stresses during and after a divorce, focuses on commonly occurring stressors, normalizes children's reactions to them, acknowledges and articulates painful feelings, and offers coping…

Examines whether the rising percentage of unmarried adults would affect the level of social support between adult children and their parents. The only major effect found was for coresidence. Neither divorced children in general nor divorced daughters or divorced single parents in particular posed a special burden to parents. (RJM)