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Risk Family Assessment and Health Promotion Paper
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The problem of violence in families is a very serious challenge
to the entire society since it provokes not only serious psychological
problems among members of violent families, especially children,
but it can also lead to the development of aggressive and
antisocial models of behavior. At the same time, views of
the violent families and their impact on children and their
health varied dramatically. On the one hand, there were supporters
of a natural approach, while, on the other hand, there was
a social determinist view of this problem.
The adepts of ‘natural theory’ that has become
extremely important just recently when the genetics has made
a great progress and now scientists know a lot about genes
and their influence on a person. It is a well-known fact that
genes are responsible for vitally important functions of a
human organism, consequently arises a natural presupposition
that they may also affect a psychological aspect of a personal
development. One of the strongest evidences in their hands
is the result of twin study, particularly monozygotic or identical
twins. Since researches reveal the fact that “identical
twins tend to be around 80 percent the same in everything
from stature to health to IQ to political views”(Collins
2000, p.221). Such data urge some specialists to the denying
of a traditional idea that “violence is part of a historical
process and is not natural or born of biological determinism”
but, on the contrary, they believe that violence “is
part of our design” (Collins 2000, p.230). A great contribution
in favor of the natural or genetic trend was made by Thomas
Bouchard’s identical twins studies. He researched the
development of personality of identical twins that were brought
up in different families, i.e. in different environment, and
on comparing the fate of about 60 identical twins he found
out that despite the fact that they lived separately, in different
families, “the behaviors and personalities and social
attitudes they displayed in lengthy batteries of tests were
often remarkably alike” (Mann 1994, p.267), so, they
still had a lot of common traits of character and behavior
which Th. Bouchard considered to be inherited. Consequently,
according to such research one can make a conclusion that
they might inherit negative traits of character and their
antisocial behavior could also be explained by their genetic
heritage. It was a really strong argument against the idea
of the primary role of nurture and a person’s environment
because it is really hard to argue when you read about such
twins like James Arthur Springer and James Edward Lewis who
had been reunited at age of 39 and both “had married
and divorced a woman named Linda and remarried a Betty…
they smoked and drank the same amount and got headaches at
the same time of day” (Mann 1994, p.270).
However, opponents of natural or genetic determinism have
their own counterarguments. Traditional or even conservative
psychologist estimate that an aggressiveness and antisocial
behavior are learned by children from their parents and it
has nothing to do with our genes and their role in the formation
of a criminal is extremely limited and do not predetermine
a violent behavior. The researches concerning this problem,
that were held in Europe, revealed the fact that children
who were born to violent parents but raised up in a peaceful
families were characterized practically by the same behavioral
non-violent trends as other children who were born and raised
up in a non-violent families. Whereas on the contrary if children
born to non-violent parents grew in aggressive, violent familial
environment had a tendency to be criminally aggressive. As
a result, such researches permit to nurture oriented psychologist
make a conclusion that “if twin and adoption studies
show little or no heritability for violence then the reason
why violence runs in families must be environmental. The huge
body of evidence shows that violence breed violence, not genes”
(Cadoret 1996, p.581). Moreover, they doubt whether the researches
of Th. Bouchard may be scientifically proved or not because
they estimate that when they ask to check the result of Th.
Bouchard’s work in the Minnesota University they are
always refused.
Thus, it is very difficult what is a real cause of antisocial,
aggressive, violent, or even criminal behavior. Nevertheless,
it is possible to identify the basic objectives that should
be achieved by healthcare and social services in the treatment
of members of violent families, especially children. To put
it more precisely, it is necessary to focus on the socialization
of members of violent families and minimize the risk of aggressive
behavior. This means that people having experience of violence
in their families need a psychological assistance. They have
to learn to cope with their problems without the use of violence
and, what is more, control their anger and emotions. Also,
these people often need to learn communicating with other
people, because often violence in families leads to the isolation
or exclusion of an individual from society and he or she turns
to be unable to get socialized.
As it has already been said at the beginning we should be
very careful in conclusions and avoid being categorists. The
fact is that not only natural, genetic factors that each person
inherits influence our behavior but also our social environment,
family, i.e. nurture also play a significant role and the
combination of this two factors form a person’s behavior,
either aggressive or not, particularly for twins who, having
practically identical genes, usually grow in the same environment.
Obviously, it is hard to deny both these factors nature and
nurture. Nowadays arguments about the role of genes in personal
physical and mental development become stronger and now it
is known that certain forms of behavior have a genetic component,
for instance IQ is considered to be 60-80 percent heritable,
and “the body of evidence for over 90 % of causation
of sexual orientation being genetic continues to mount up”
(Glass 2002, p.156) and for twins the percentage rate will
be much more alike than siblings. However, it doesn’t
necessarily mean that genes play a key role or that they predetermine
person’s aggression or antisocial behavior. We must
realize that there is no ‘criminal gene’ that
is exclusively responsible for crimes a person commits. The
same may be said about the influence of environment on a personality
because in spite of the great role of nurture still each person
inherit something from his or her parents that may cause certain
shift in a person’s behavior which may be even dangerous.
For instance we know that some psychological or psychiatric
problems are heritable than it wouldn’t be surprising
if a person whose parents had such problems will have problems
with antisocial behavior, or something like that. And for
twins the concordance rate of similar problems will be as
follows: “if 20 twin pairs are studied and in 18 of
them both had developed schizophrenia, this would produce
the concordance rate of 18/20 or 90%, which is very high concordance.
Monozygotic (identical) twins have the same genes (100% concordance)
whereas dizygotic (non-identical) twins and siblings are genetically
50% similar” (Morris-Yates 1999, p.78). So, to understand
a person’s behavior we must analyze his or her environment,
life experience, i.e. nature and, certainly, nurture. One
may contradict me and remind the researches of Th. Bouchard
but even if there wouldn’t be any doubts about the authenticity
of his research and objectivity of its results it is necessary
to draw attention to researches of the scientists in Richmond
who analyzed the influence and correlation of drugs on twins.
It is worthy to note that they analyzed behavior not only
identical or monozygotic twins but fraternal or dizygotic
twins as well. Initially they supposed that social environment
of people is the main cause of drug experimentations. However,
the results of their research revealed the fact that “the
identical twin of a drug addict is far more likely to be an
addict than is the fraternal twin of an addict”(Rutter
1997, p.394). And the cause is not the fact that twins grow
in a similar environment the cause may be also found in the
domain of genetics because according to the same research
“genes play a major role when it comes to the biochemistry
of drug dependence. In other words, “environment”
may lead you to fool around with drugs, but genes hook you”
(Rutter 1997, p.395). By the way, the same reveal neurological
studies that prove that addicts’ brains are wired differently.
Thus, as the drug addiction is a really serious problem, that
influences the behavior of a person and usually results in
crimes, violation of law, antisocial behavior or at least
in aggressiveness, and identical twins are at a greater risk
than fraternal twins or siblings. Consequently, addiction
is conditioned both genetically and environmentally.
While working with members of violent families, nurses need
to pay a particular attention to the psychological state of
patients. In fact, the nursing intervention should primarily
focus on the psychological level, while medication may be
used to minimize the negative effect of stressors patients
suffer from while they are in their violent families. In this
respect, the role of the advanced practice nurse is particularly
significant since this healthcare professional should manage
the treatment of patients in terms of nurses’ duties
and responsibilities. Basically, the advanced practice nurse
can assist other nurses giving them the major strategies which
could be applied in relation to the patient suffering from
significant psychological pressure or the domestic violence
involving the closest relatives of the patient. In addition,
the advanced practice nurse should assess and control actions
of other nurses in order to introduce some changes in their
work with the patient if necessary. In such a way, such patients
need a psychological assistance and rehabilitation above all
and nurses are playing a very important role in this regard
because they spend a lot of time with patients and can really
help them solve their psychological problems.
References:
Ainslie, R, C. et al. “The early development Context
of Twinship: Some Limitations of the Equal Environments Hypothesis.”
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, 1997.
Cadoret, R. J. et. al. “The Developmental Interface
Between Nature and Nurture: A Mutual Influence of Child Antisocial
Behavior and Parent Behavior.” Developmental Psychology
vol. 32, no. 4, 1996.
Collins, W.A., et. al. “Contemporary Research on Parenting:
The Case for Nature and Nurture.” American Psychologist,
55, 2000.
Glass, J. “Nature vs. Nurture.” Parenting, vol.
13, no 10, Jan. 2002.
Mann, C. “Genes and Behavior.” Science, 264, 1994.
Morris-Yates, A. et al. “Twins: A Test of the Equal
Environments Assumption. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 81,
1999.
Rutter, M.L. “Nature-Nurture integration.” American
Psychologist, vol.52, no. 4, Apr. 1997.
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