The Impact of Intimate Partner Violence on Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Relationships: The Role of Childhood Attachment

The Impact of Intimate Partner Violence on Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Relationships: The Role of Childhood Attachment Intimate partner violence (IPV) has consistently been shown to have deleterious effects on survivors' interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.Despite the negative outcomes of IPV, distress after IPV varies widely, and not all IPV survivors show a significant degree of distress.The present study examined the impact of IPV on adult attachment and self-esteem, as well as the moderating role of childhood attachment on the relationships between IPV, adult attachment, and self-esteem using path analysis.A total of 1,708 adult participants were included in this study.As hypothesized, we found that IPV survivors had significantly higher levels of anxious and avoidant adult attachment than participants without a history of IPV.Additionally, childhood attachment buffered the relationship between IPV and self-esteem.We did not find that childhood attachment moderated the relationship between IPV and adult attachment.These results provide insight on attachment-based interventions that can mitigate the negative effects of IPV on people's perceptions of self.