Studying Maltreatment Through Polyvictimization: A Three-Dimensional Theoretical Foundation

The chapter provides a theoretical model to conceptualize polyvictimization according to the unique lived experiences of children when multiple victimization/maltreatment experiences co-occur. It argues polyvictimization must rest on a conceptual foundation of victimization that sits in three dimensions: invasiveness, exploitativeness, and severity. The model offers logic and evidence for measuring polyvictimization experiences and their effects using multiplicative interaction effects rather than simple additive (sometimes called cumulative) effects. Conceptually, theorizing polyvictimization according to the unique lived experiences of children extends knowledge on the trauma framework which has informed the study of polyvictimization. Deconstructing polyvictimization experiences grounds the model in lived experiences as the foundation before focusing on environmental potentiating and compensating factors. To explore and contextualize the model, the paper develops a new qualitative approach based on a multiple interviews using in-depth river of life oral history method with a survivor of polyvictimization. Focusing on the subjective voice of a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and neglect, a new visual approach for depicting the victimization experiences of polyvictimization survivors is developed. The invasive, exploitative, and severity theorization of polyvictimization provides important direction to better understand the unique experiences and effects of polyvictimization. Such knowledge is useful to inform trauma-focused intervention. The chapter concludes with implications for theory, research, and practice with this model.