Culturally Mediated Learning and the Development of Self-Regulation by Survivors of Child Abuse: A Vygotskian Approach to the Support of Survivors of Child Abuse

In his studies of handicapped and ‘difficult’ children, Vygotsky applied one of his basic assumptions in the domain of affective development: that human individuals try to master themselves from the ‘outside’ through the development of higher mental functions. His theoretical accounts provide both a conceptualization of the unique methods employed by abused children to compensate and a conceptual framework to study the way new psychological tools can assist the further development of abused children’s methods of compensation. In this respect, a Vygotskian therapeutic approach, together with current constructivist theories of the development of abused children, provides an alternative to psychodynamic and cognitive therapies that focus on the cause of ‘original’ traumatic experiences and the (cathartic) re-living of affective reactions to them. Clinical examples are discussed to illustrate this Vygotskian therapeutic approach.