Children of disturbed parents: The interface between research and intervention

Abstract

This paper provides a review of high-risk studies and preventive interventions with children who have an increased likelihood of developing psychopathology because they are the offspring of emotionally disturbed parents. The research implications for preventive interventions are summarized in terms of selection of participants, goals for prevention, intervention methods, and intervention research methodology. Next, several preventive intervention programs are reviewed and evaluated for their responsiveness to the research literature. The review revealed that, despite theoretical and methodological diversity in the research literature, the findings provide many suggestions for the design of preventive interventions. On the other hand, intervention programs were most often found to have not used research findings in program design. This review concludes with suggestions for needed research and guidelines for future preventive interventions.

Stress resilient children in an urban setting

“…The latter pertain most directly to the concept of stress resilience used here. There is, for example, evidence to suggest that circumstances such as being born into poverty (Honig, 1986a), being the child of a seriously disturbed parent (Goodman, 1984;Honig, 1986b;Orvaschel, Weissman, Padian, & Lowe, 1981), and chronic familial tension and discord (Block, et al, 1986;Emery, 1982;Rutter, Yule, Quinton, Rowlands, & Yule, 1975) predispose maladjustment in children who experience them. Prospective and longitudinal data on the effects of life stressors support that view (Bedell, Giordana, Amour, Tavormina, & Boll, 1977;Robins & Ratcliff, 1979).…”

The Rochester Child Resilience Project: Overview and summary of first year findings

“…The latter often exact a serious toll (Gersten, Langner, Eisenberg, & Simcha-Fagan, 1977;Honig, 1986a). Examples of such circumstances include child maltreatment (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989), chronic family discord (Emery, 1982;Rutter, Cox, Tupling, Berger, & Yule, 1975a;Rutter et al, 1975b), having seriously disturbed parents (Goodman, 1984;Orvaschel, Weissman, Padian, & Lowe, 1981), and poverty or harsh living conditions (Broussard, 1976;Greenspan, 1982;Kornberg & Caplan, 1980). Because such circumstances increase the child's risk for behavior problems and maladjustment, they provide a very meaningful context in which to study childhood resilience.…”

Parents with psychosis: a pilot study examining self-report measures related to family functioning

“…We know little about how psychosis impacts on the parental role and on general family functioning. There is a sizeable literature that has examined aspects of mother-child interactions where the mothers have severe depression or schizophrenia (Goodman, 1984;Riordan et al, 1999;Snellen et al, 1999), however, psychosis impacts on a broad range of family functioning that is less reported in the literature (Davenport et al, 1984). An acute episode of psychosis is often associated with reduced parental competency.…”