The 1979 Division 27 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Community Psychology and Community Mental Health: Emory L. Cowen

Children of disturbed parents: the interface between research and intervention

This paper provides a review of high-risk studies and preventive interventions with children who have an increased likelihood of developing psychopathology because they are the offspring of emotionally disturbed parents. The research implications for preventive interventions are summarized in terms of selection of participants, goals for prevention, intervention methods, and intervention research methodology. Next, several preventive intervention programs are reviewed and evaluated for their responsiveness to the research literature. The review revealed that, despite theoretical and methodological diversity in the research literature, the findings provide many suggestions for the design of preventive interventions. On the other hand, intervention programs were most often found to have not used research findings in program design. This review concludes with suggestions for needed research and guidelines for future preventive interventions.