Cognitive assumptions and long-term distress in survivors of childhood abuse, parental alcoholism, and dysfunctional family environments

Covariance structure modeling was used to test unique contributions of chil dhood abuse, parental alcoholism, and dysfunctional family environment to s ymptom distress and to cognitive assumptions regarding a worthy self; benev olent world, meaningful world, and spiritual world in college students (N = 651). Abuse history was related to adult symptom distress, while a dysfunc tional family environment was related to negative assumptions concerning th e self and the benevolence of the world. When included in the model with ab use history, family environment, gender, and other characteristics of the f amily of origin, parental alcoholism did not appear to be causally related to symptom distress or to cognitive assumptions. Cognitive assumptions were initially presumed to be mediators of symptom distress. Sequential refinem ent of the model through specification procedures suggested that move negat ive self-assumptions may be a result, rather than a mediator, of symptom di stress. Other assumptions were not related to symptom distress in the model .