Cognitive Distortion of Adverse Childhood Experience and Psychopathy Deviate Behaviour

The adverse childhood experience (ACE) study reveals a powerful relationship between our emotional experience as children and our physical and mental health as adults, as well as the major causes of adult mortality and criminality. It has been documented that the conversion of traumatic emotional experiences in childhood leads to organic disease later in life. Efficacy of Rational Emotional Behaviour Therapy on cognitive distortion of adverse childhood experience was investigated. Influence of age and marital status on adverse childhood experience was also examined. The study adopted pretest-posttest design. The study was divided into 3 stages: pre- intervention, intervention and post- intervention. At the pre intervention, a carefully designed sixty-nine items self-report questionnaire was administered to purposively selected five hundred and fifty-three (n=553) prison inmates in Agodi Correction Centre(formerly Agodi Prison) Ibadan, out of which, forty (n=40) inmates who had secondary psychopathy and high on adverse childhood experience were randomly assigned into two groups to receive individual REBT and group REBT at the intervention stage. Post measurement of cognitive distortion of adverse childhood experience was obtained two weeks after the intervention stage. Result showed that there was a significant inverse relationship between pre and post individual REBT of adverse childhood experience (r= - .26, df= 18;p.05). Marital status had significant influence on cognitive distortion of adverse childhood experience (F (4,545) =7.75;p