Character and behavior in the mentally ill and well mother

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine character and behavior in a group of mentally ill and well mothers. Mentally ill mothers differed from well mothers in mother‐child interaction in their positive involvement in the feeding context and in overall optimal mothering during feeding. On measures of intrapsychic conflict and concern, mentally ill mothers demonstrated significantly more conflict in areas of trust, anger, self‐esteem, mutuality and nurturance and more concern with issues of self‐esteem, and giving and caring than well mothers. For the mentally ill mothers postpartum onset of illness and number of separations from her child were related to some aspects of character and behavior.

Parenting Self‐Construals of Mothers With a Serious Mental Illness: Efficacy, Burden, and Personal Growth1

“…Although maternal mental illness (particularly depression) is relatively common, little research has addressed how mothers with mental illness make sense of themselves as parents and what implications their self-construals have for parenting. Far from being perceived simply as a burden, qualitative research with low income (Edin, 2000a(Edin, , 2000bJarrett, 1994) and mentally ill (Klehr, Cohler, & Musick, 1983;Mowbray et al, 1995;Nicholson & Blanch, 1994;Ritsher et al, 1997;Sands, 1995;White, Nicholson, Fisher, & Geller, 1995) mothers has suggested that parenting is often central to these women's identities and that they are concerned about being effective parents. Indeed, it has been argued that parenting self-construals may be important proximal predictors of quality of parenting in conditions of stress (Raver & Leadbeater, 1999).…”

Determinants of parenting attitudes in mothers with severe psychopathology

“…Furthermore, these mothers exhibited apathy and restricted affect while interacting with their children. Klehr, Cohler, and Musick (1983) have discussed difficulties emanating from maternal psychosis including problems in establishing a healthy relationship with the child, involvement of the child in the mother's pathological process, using the child as a target of the mother's impulses, and creating confusion for the child by vacillation in the mother's attitudes and mood. Goodman and Brumley (1990) found low-income schizophrenic mothers to be withdrawn and emotionally uninvolved with their children and depressed mothers to be restricted in the structure and guidance they provided their children.…”

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“…Depressed mothers are also more likely to ignore their children and to disengage (Cox, Puckering, Pound, & Mills, 1987). Klehr, Cohler, and Musick (1983) found that mothers with serious mental illnesses demonstrated more conflicts with children than control mothers, even after a year-long, intensive intervention. Depressed mothers are reportedly more negative in their responses to children (Conrad & Hammen, 1989) and have been rated as being overly angry (Inoff-Germain, Nottelmann, & Radke-Yarrow, 1997), less positive and more critical (Gordon, Burge, Hammen, Adrian, Jaenicke, & Hiroto, 1989), and less likely to achieve compromise with their children in videotaped family interactions (Kochanska, Kuczynski, Radke-Yarrow, & Welsh, 1987).…”