Recent work on psychopathology supports a connection between repeated childhood maltreatment and disturbances in self-definition and -regulation. This study tested the hypothesis that chronic childhood sexual abuse is associated with developmentally complex affective splitting of representations of self-with-others, including both a negativity bias in evaluating core self and a high degree of affective splitting of scripts for self-in-relationships. Sixteen inpatient adolescent girls with affective disorders participated in the Self-in-Relationships Interview to produce and analyze a self-diagram; seven had been victims of prolonged sexual abuse, and nine had not. The results supported the hypothesis, showing two powerful differences in splitting between the groups, (a) The abused girls placed negative characteristics as central to their core self and also produced an unusually large overall number of negatives. The nonabused girls regarded negative characteristics as mostly peripheral in their self-diagram and produced fewer negatives, (b) The abused girls showed a form of complex dissociative coordination called polarized qffective splitting, which was not produced by the nonabused group. They also showed slightly higher developmental levels in general than the nonabused group, thus contradicting the traditional view that maltreatment produces splitting through developmental fixation or regression. Psychopathology from abuse arises along a complex, distinctive developmental pathway, not as a result of a delay or failure of development.

Through a translational approach, dynamic skill theory enhances the understanding of the variation in the behavioral and cognitive presentations of a high-risk population—maltreated children. Two studies illustrate the application of normative developmental constructs from a dynamic skills perspective to samples of young maltreated and nonmaltreated children. Each study examines the emotional and cognitive development of maltreated children with attention to their developing world view or negativity bias and cognitive skills. Across both studies, maltreated children demonstrate negativity bias when compared to their nonmaltreated counterparts. Cognitive complexity demonstrated by the maltreated children is dependent upon a positive or negative context. Positive problem solving is more difficult for maltreated children when compared to their nonmaltreated counterparts. Differences by maltreatment type, severity, timing of the abuse, and identity of the perpetrator are also delineated, and variation in the resulting developmental trajectories in each case is explored. This translation of dynamic skill theory, as applied to maltreated children, enhances our basic understanding of their functioning, clarifies the nature of their developmental differences, and underscores the need for early intervention.This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Roche Relief Fund, the Spencer Foundation, and the Spunk Fund, Inc. We are especially grateful to Tracy McCabe and Pamela Raya for their assistance and to the child and families who participated in these investigations.

Contrary to the standard assumption that psychopathology stems from developmental immaturity (retardation, fixation, regression), people diagnosed with psychopathology typically develop along distinctive pathways in which they build complex, advanced skills. These pathways are based on adaptation to trauma, such as maltreatment, or to problems in affective–cognitive regulation, such as those in autism. They do not fit normative developmental frameworks. Research has characterized several types of distinctive pathways, especially those arising from maltreatment; they are marked by normal developmental complexity but distinctive affective–cognitive organization. In one study sexually abused depressed adolescent girls admitted for treatment in a mental hospital described themselves-in-relationships with age-appropriate, complex developmental levels equal to those of both nonabused depressed girls and other adolescents. At the same time, they showed a powerful negativity bias contrasting with the positivity biases of other girls. Many of them produced dramatic switches in affective–cognitive organization across assessments contrasting with the similar organization showed by other girls. In another study toddlers from maltreating families showed a consistent negativity bias in play and representations of interactions. We show how to portray these distinctive developmental pathways through the example of Hidden Family Violence, in which people dissociate their private violent world from their public, good-citizen world.