Abused child to nonabusive parent: resilience and conceptual change.

Individuals who were abused as children and have spontaneously, without intervention, been able to change their cognitive and behavioral patterns such that they do not abuse their own children represent a heretofore untapped source of information and understanding about the processes of conceptual change and resilience. This pilot study investigates the nature of this conceptual change as an exemplar of resilience. Birth order, gender, locus of control, and coping behaviors emerged as areas needing further study. Additionally, the belief on the part of the abusing parents that abuse was not wrong needs further investigation as a possible precursor to this particular context for conceptual change. Copyright 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.