Alleging Psychological Impairment of the Accuser to Defend Oneself Against a Child Abuse Allegation:

This paper discusses a group of divorced or separated parents who are in conflict over custody and/or visitation with their children. In each case, a mother alleges that the father has been sexually or physically abusive to the couple's children, and the father alleges that the mother's own abuse during childhood produced a psychiatric disturbance that forms the basis for her pathological need to project accusations of abuse onto him. The authors found that a satisfactory analysis of the competing parental allegations and a recommendation about the children's subsequent guardianship could not be developed until they explored the hypothesis that wife battering had contributed to the family's distressing circumstances.