Understanding Clinical, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Child Emotional Maltreatment

Abstract

Emotional maltreatment is associated with detrimental outcomes in youth, yet research investigating its phenomenology, prevalence, and detection has lagged behind that investigating other forms of maltreatment. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers are challenged by how best to address and identify emotional maltreatment in childhood, given that the indicators are often less overt than those seen with sexual or physical abuse. These challenges are also relevant for professionals legally mandated to report incidences of child maltreatment. The goals of this article are threefold: (a) to present a brief review of empirical research on the occurrence and sequelae of child emotional maltreatment, (b) to describe the current legal and ethical implications regarding emotional maltreatment for clinicians and other professionals identified as mandated reporters, and (c) to enumerate the challenges that such professionals face due to ambiguities in legal and ethical guidelines, using previous research on mandated reporting of physical and sexual abuse as our guide.

Keywords:

• emotional abuse
• emotional maltreatment
• emotional neglect
• ethics
• mandated reporting