Does psychopathology develop as a function of the objective or subjective experience of childhood maltreatment? To address this question, we studied a unique cohort of 1,196 children with both objective, court-documented evidence of maltreatment and subjective reports of their childhood maltreatment histories made once they reached adulthood, along with extensive psychiatric assessment. We found that, even for severe cases of childhood maltreatment identified through court records, risk of psychopathology linked to objective measures was minimal in the absence of subjective reports. In contrast, risk of psychopathology linked to subjective reports of childhood maltreatment was high, whether or not the reports were consistent with objective measures. These findings have important implications for how we study the mechanisms through which child maltreatment affects mental health and how we prevent or treat maltreatment-related psychopathology. Interventions for psychopathology associated with childhood maltreatment can benefit from deeper understanding of the subjective experience.

中文翻译：

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儿童虐待的客观和主观经验及其与心理病理学的关系。

心理病理学是否会根据儿童虐待的客观或主观经验而发展？为了解决这个问题，我们研究了一个独特的队列，对1,196名儿童进行了客观的，法庭记录的虐待证据，以及他们成年后对儿童虐待历史的主观报告以及广泛的精神病学评估。我们发现，即使对于通过法院记录确定的严重的儿童期虐待案例，在没有主观报告的情况下，与客观措施相关的心理病理风险也很小。相反，与儿童主观虐待有关的心理病理学风险很高，无论这些报告是否与客观测量相符。这些发现对我们如何研究虐待儿童影响心理健康的机制以及我们如何预防或治疗与虐待相关的心理病理学具有重要意义。与儿童期虐待相关的心理病理学干预措施可以从对主观经验的深入了解中受益。