Our health care system is affected, too, as it attempts to heal victims' injured bodies and bruised minds. As we begin to study interpersonal abuse and neglect, we find it much more prevalent than we had believed. Rape, incest, and physical injury among family members are commonplace. In more than 20 percent of all American homes, an individual is physically injured by another family member each year . Spouses beat each other.
Parents abuse their children.
Children purposely injure each other. While the verbal abuse and physical blows occur about equally between sexes, the stronger do more damage. The cycle repeats from generation to generation, inflicting deep psychological scars, broken bones, and injured egos. Fear, intimidation, harassment, and physical beatings become a way of life, ending too often in murder or suicide. However, we have not been successful in isolating and preventing the root causes.