Abstract:

Early abuse and neglect can have detrimental effect on future well-being and both intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences. Early abuse and neglect are, among others, associated with more interpersonal problems, lower academic achievement, less stable relationships, substance abuse etc. They also negatively affect the attachment style children create with their significant others during the first years of their lives. The aim of this study is to investigate factors that have positive or negative impact on resilience of people who grew up in institutional care after leaving their primary families and abusive parents. 28 in-depth interviews were conducted with people who left institutional care ten or more years ago. Qualitative analysis revealed that those who experienced early abuse and neglect had more often avoidant or disorganized attachment style. All respondents created coping strategies to deal with their early experiences and successfully integrate into society after leaving the institutional care, but those with early abuse and neglect experiences experienced more problems in finding stable job and intimate relationship and used more rigid coping strategies with less ability to adapt to new conditions. This creates especially the transition periods such as starting the university or starting the first job espeically challenging and often elads to failure even due to minor problems. Based on the results, the caretakers might focus more on the early experiences of children in institutional care and develop and support a flexible system of coping strategies to improve their resilience and hardiness, important skills in building and maintaing lifetime well-being.

Keywords:

Early abuse, resilience, hardiness, well-being, institutional care, coping skills.