Forensic and family psychiatry in abuse dwarfism: Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, atonement, and addiction to abuse.

Abstract

The syndrome of abuse dwarfism is characterized by gross impairment of statural and intellectual growth and social maturation while the abused child remains in the domicile of abuse. The parents collude as child abusers, and are medical impostors regarding the symptoms of abuse. The syndrome as a whole is appropriately named Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. Though the mother typically initiates abuse, she cannot give a rational explanation for doing so. In her own history there is a sin that is expiated or atoned for symbolically by the sacrifice of the child--explainable in terms of the theory of opponent-process learning. In the two cases presented, the sin was the mother's own birth out of wedlock, in one case as a sequel to incest. The child's addiction to abuse is a challenge to the program of rehabilitation. With respect to parents at risk, the data of this paper are relevant to the prevention of a predisposition toward, or the actual implementation of child abuse, though a program of prevention needs still to be formulated. The sexological relevance of this paper is that the data demonstrate that the effects of sexual abuse may be transmitted to the next generation and manifested as child abuse which is not necessarily sexual in content.