The purpose of this study was to specifically look at the consequences of emotional abuse and to determine if emotional regulation difficulties were specifically associated with abuse. The participants were given questionnaires that have been used to identify Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The results of the questionnaires showed that those who indicated that they had experienced emotional abuse also relate to symptoms of BPD. They both showed detachment of relationships, apathy and difficulty relating to others. This shows that child abuse causes children to develop emotional irregularities that mirrors the emotion regulation impairments of BPD. Abused children probably use apathy and detachment as defense mechanisms to avoid being hurt by …show more content…
Traumatic experiences are haunting and can dictate how people live their lives. A study done by Joanna Cathall Young and Cathy Spatz Widom tested the long term effects of childhood neglect. For this study they focused on children who were abused and neglected. In order to accomplish a long term study, they interviewed a large amount of people in intervals from the year 1967 to 2010. During these interviews, they would include psychopathology testing, IQ testing, and emotion recognition testing. From their results, they found that by the time the subjects became adults, they did not display as much psychopathologic difficulties. The main finding of this study was that children of abuse struggled recognizing emotion. Compared to the control, the participants who had history of abuse and neglect scored lower in identifying correct emotions. The experimental group had a more difficult time identifying positive emotions than negative ones. The researchers theorized that the abused have a more negative outlook on life so they are more proficient with negative stimuli, and they also believe that people who have been abused probably have very limited encounters with people with positive emotions. This study shows that child abuse does have a long term effect on people’s emotion recognition. This may be a defense mechanism to alert the child whenever a negative emotion is