Emotion socialization in mothers who experienced maltreatment: Mentalizing the past may help the present.

Abstract

Adults who experienced childhood maltreatment (CM) are at increased risk for parenting problems. Mentalization capacity may disrupt intergenerational patterns of problematic parenting among mothers with a CM history. In this study, we examine: (a) parents' use of negative emotion socialization practices as one path of intergenerational transmission of risk in mothers with CM and (b) whether mothers' ability to mentalize about the emotion socialization behaviors of attachment figures diminishes intergenerational similarity in negative emotion socialization practices. Mentalization was operationalized as the frequency of cognitive processing words in mothers' narrative responses to questions about how and why attachment figures responded to their negative emotions during childhood. Participants included 154 mothers with and without a self-reported CM history in a case-control design, matched on child age, gender, maternal education, and race/ethnicity. Mothers with CM recollected more unsupportive responses to their negative emotions during childhood, which in turn predicted using more punishing, ignoring, and magnifying responses toward their own child's negative emotions (i.e., a significant indirect effect). However, greater cognitive processing language when describing the emotional climate of childhood diminished this pathway (i.e., a significant moderated effect). Among mothers who recollected unsupportive responses to emotions from their parents, those whose narratives included more cognitive processing words did not act in similar ways toward their own child whereas those who used fewer cognitive processing words did. These preliminary findings support the growing body of research suggesting that the quality of mentalization can be a protective factor among adults who experienced childhood maltreatment.

Association between maternal emotional maltreatment history and children’s problem behaviors: The mediating role of mothers’ mentalization and emotion socialization.

“…Recently, the parental reflective function has been found to mediate the relationship between parental maltreatment history and negative parenting or a child's outcomes (Berthelot et al, 2019;Stacks et al, 2014). It has also been confirmed that the inability of a parent to mentalize leads to nonsupportive emotion socialization, an emotion-related parenting behavior (Arikan & Kumru, 2021;Milan et al, 2021). However, no study has comprehensively ascertained the sequential pathways of mentalization and emotion socialization in the relationship between a parent's EM history and their children's problem behaviors.…”

“…Maternal EM experiences may be an extreme form of negative emotion socialization and a significant predictor of one’s ERSB (Hughes & Cossar, 2016; Leerkes et al, 2020). Mothers who have experienced EM tend to be more punitive or minimize their child’s negative emotions (Cabecinha-Alati et al, 2021; Milan et al, 2021; Morelen et al, 2016) and do not show supportive responses (Rea & Shaffer, 2016). However, since the lack of supportive responses to negative emotions and nonsupportive responses are not simple opposites on the same spectrum (Choi & Kang, 2021), the effects of these two types of responses cannot be considered to be identical.…”

“…This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that maternal mentalization and emotion socialization play sequential mediating roles in the relationship between maternal EM history and children’s problem behaviors. This hypothesis was formed from previous studies on the relationship between childhood trauma and mentalization (Fonagy & Bateman, 2008; Katznelson, 2014) and the association between parental reflective function and ERSBs (Arikan & Kumru, 2021; Milan et al, 2021). It has been noted that EM was the most prevalent form of maltreatment and that mothers are the primary caregivers in Korea.…”

When Parents Fail to Mind the Child: Lower Mentalizing in Parents Who Maltreat Their Children

“…Individuals who have faced maltreating experiences in their childhood often encounter severe difficulties in parenting their children (for reviews, Morelen et al, 2018 ; Madigan et al, 2019 ; Savage et al, 2019 ), however, considerable variability was observed and research found that not all maltreated individuals become parents who maltreat their children. It was seen that parental mentalization is a protective factor ( Berthelot et al, 2015 ; Ensink et al, 2016 ; Milan et al, 2021 ), whilst mentalization deficit was observed in mothers of abused children ( Ensink et al, 2017 ), and in parents who experienced child maltreatment ( Berthelot et al, 2015 , 2019 ; Garon-Bissonnette et al, 2021 ). Adults who underwent child maltreatment are mostly expected to show a distinct disposition to keep away from thinking in mental-state terms.…”

“…Since mentalization deficit is usually associated with an insecure state of mind regarding attachment, Milan et al (2021) suggested that mentalizing capacity in individuals who experienced maltreatment may be an index of a more resolved (i.e., secure) attachment state of mind. In line with this hypothesis, Borelli et al (2015) found that mentalization can be a protective factor against insecure attachment, and that the association between neglect and insecure attachment was more strongly positive among individuals who have lower mentalizing capacity.…”