E. Mark Cummings

Emotional Security and Conflict in Context: A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on Youth Adjustment covers the effects of conflict on children. Moving beyond conflict in the family, over 1 billion children are affected by community and political conflict and war, which also has profound and long-lasting implications for development. This book integrates several theoretical models that are central to work in this field, providing a clear review of the literature in a way that systematically and logically flows. In addition, it discusses child development from a developmental psychopathology perspective.Finally, the book integrates perspectives on violence and conflict across the social ecology, as well as several theoretical frameworks that are core to the field.

This book reviews and critiques the growing literature on youth development under conditions of political violence and armed conflict. It presents a robust framework, based in developmental psychopathology, for evaluating current research on this topic for strength of design, methodology, and documentation. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies from diverse regions and conflicts as well as across disciplines examine risks and challenges as well as resilience and coping as youth develop in unstable and threatening environments. In addition, this book provides strategies for designing and implementing prevention and intervention programs as well as further opportunities for expanding applied research for youth exposed to political violence and armed conflict. Topics featured in this book include: Analysis of major research on youths’ normative and pathological development during political violence and war. Guidelines for assessing research studies on the impact of political violence and armed conflict on youth.The effects of social ecology factors (e.g., family, school, and community) on youth functioning. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Political Violence, Armed Conflict, and Youth Adjustment is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in the fields of child and school psychology, family studies, and public health as well as developmental psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, political science, anthropology, social and peace psychology, sociology, and ethnic studies.

This book reviews and critiques the growing literature on youth development under conditions of political violence and armed conflict. It presents a robust framework, based in developmental psychopathology, for evaluating current research on this topic for strength of design, methodology, and documentation. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies from diverse regions and conflicts as well as across disciplines examine risks and challenges as well as resilience and coping as youth develop in unstable and threatening environments. In addition, this book provides strategies for designing and implementing prevention and intervention programs as well as further opportunities for expanding applied research for youth exposed to political violence and armed conflict. Topics featured in this book include: Analysis of major research on youths’ normative and pathological development during political violence and war. Guidelines for assessing research studies on the impact of political violence and armed conflict on youth.The effects of social ecology factors (e.g., family, school, and community) on youth functioning. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Political Violence, Armed Conflict, and Youth Adjustment is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in the fields of child and school psychology, family studies, and public health as well as developmental psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, political science, anthropology, social and peace psychology, sociology, and ethnic studies.

From leading researchers, this book presents important advances in understanding how growing up in a discordant family affects child adjustment, the factors that make certain children more vulnerable than others, and what can be done to help. It is a state-of-the-science follow-up to the authors' seminal earlier work, Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. The volume presents a new conceptual framework that draws on current knowledge about family processes; parenting; attachment; and children's emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral development. Innovative research methods are explained and promising directions for clinical practice with children and families are discussed.

From leading researchers, this book presents important advances in understanding how growing up in a discordant family affects child adjustment, the factors that make certain children more vulnerable than others, and what can be done to help. It is a state-of-the-science follow-up to the authors' seminal earlier work, Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. The volume presents a new conceptual framework that draws on current knowledge about family processes; parenting; attachment; and children's emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral development. Innovative research methods are explained and promising directions for clinical practice with children and families are discussed.

Study moderators examined interactions between children's parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems (PNS and SNS) activity in order to achieve a greater specificity in the prediction of externalizing problems in the context of interparental conflict. Findings are robust across the three studies and provide the first reported evidence of interactions between PNS and SNS activity. Findings extend current theory indicating the importance of multisystem investigations for clarifying inconsistencies and discrepancies in the literature linking environmental stress, physiological responses, and child adjustment.

Why do some children grow into resilient, adaptive adults, while others develop serious psychological problems? What are the dynamic processes and pathways that underlie normal and abnormal development? And how can the answers to these questions inform efforts to decrease both the prevalence and the severity of psychological distress? Focusing on the primary context in which children develop--the family--this volume unravels the complex connections among biological, psychological, and social-contextual processes that influence adaptation in childhood and adolescence. Explicating the basic concepts and methods of developmental psychopathology, the book sets forth a process-oriented framework for understanding human development and the onset of disordered behavior.

Why do some children grow into resilient, adaptive adults, while others develop serious psychological problems? What are the dynamic processes and pathways that underlie normal and abnormal development? And how can the answers to these questions inform efforts to decrease both the prevalence and the severity of psychological distress? Focusing on the primary context in which children develop—the family—this volume unravels the complex connections among biological, psychological, and social-contextual processes that influence adaptation in childhood and adolescence. Explicating the basic concepts and methods of developmental psychopathology, the book sets forth a process-oriented framework for understanding human development and the onset of disordered behavior. Introduction I. Theory 1. What Is Developmental Psychopathology? 2. Identifying the Dynamic Processes Underlying the Development of Psychopathology 3. Methodological Directions in Developmental Psychopathology Research 4. Pathways in Development 5. Complex Patterns of Influence: Risk and Protective Factors II. Research 6. Child Development and the Parent–Child Subsystem 7. New Directions in the Study of Parenting and Child Development 8. Children and the Marital Subsystem 9. Applications of Developmental Psychopathology: Parental Depression, Families, and Children's Development III. Clinical Implications 10. A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on the Diagnosis, Classification, and Conceptualization of Children's Problems 11. A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on Prevention and Treatment Epilogue