Date of Award

6-1992

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Robert L. Betz

Second Advisor

Dr. Edward Trembley

Third Advisor

Dr. Ray Lish

Abstract

This research was undertaken to explore the significance of care and protection as correlates related to the experience of chronic pain in adults. Chronic pain may affect as many as ten percent of the American population and cost up to a billion dollars a year in treatment costs. It was hypothesized that certain parenting styles are related to the experience of chronic pain in adults.

Thirty male and female patients referred to The Center for Health Psychology and Medicine in Kalamazoo, Michigan who were diagnosed as experiencing chronic pain by a referring physician participated in this study. Each participant underwent a clinical, psycho-social interview and was administered the Millon Clinical Multi axial Inventory-II (Millon, 1983) and the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979). Only the scores from the PBI were used in this study.

All four of the hypotheses were confirmed (p < .05). The results supported the research hypothesis that there is a statistically significant difference in the mean PBI scores between the sample group and the normative population from studies by Parker (1983). The results of this study demonstrated that perceived parental behaviors and attitudes are important factors to evaluate when treating the experience of chronic pain in adults.

Conclusions and explanations of the results were offered and recommendations for further research were proposed.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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