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The search for a definition of psychological maltreatment

The slogan, “words can hit as hard as fists,” has brought home to many Americans the importance of combating psychological maltreatment of children. Most everyone agrees that psychological maltreatment is a problem worth understanding and eliminating. Despite this consensus, relatively little research has been done on psychological maltreatment, at least not under that rubric. Why should such an important topic evade rigorous and intense study? One reason may be that researchers have been hampered by the lack of a generally accepted definition. According to Hart, Germain, and Brassard (1987), “Sufficiently rigorous operational definitions do not presently exist and they therefore deserve first priority in psychological maltreatment work” (p. 16).