• Home
  1. Home
  2. How do maternal PTSD and alexithymia interact to impact maternal behavior?
Scientific article
English

How do maternal PTSD and alexithymia interact to impact maternal behavior?

Contributors

Schechter, Daniel; Suardi, Francesca; Manini, Aurelia Céline; Cordero Campana, Maria Isabel; Rossignol, Ana Sancho; Merminod, Gaelle; Gex-Fabry, Marianne; Moser, Dominik; Serpa, Sandra

Published in

Child psychiatry and human development, vol. 46, no. 3, p. 406-417

Publication date

2015

Abstract

Maternal interpersonal violence-related post-traumatic stress disorder (IPV-PTSD) is known to be associated with impairment of a mother's capacity to participate in mutual emotion regulation during her child's first years of life. This study tested the hypothesis that maternal difficulty in identifying feelings in self and other, as an important dimension of the construct of alexithymia, together with maternal IPV-PTSD, would be negatively associated with maternal sensitivity. Maternal sensitivity to child emotional communication is a marker of maternal capacity to engage in mutual regulation of emotion and arousal. Following diagnostic interviews and administration of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, 56 mothers and their toddlers (ages 12-42 months) were filmed during free-play and separation/novelty-exposure. Observed maternal sensitivity was coded via the CARE-Index. Maternal IPV-PTSD severity, difficulty in identifying emotions, and lower socio-economic status were all associated with less maternal sensitivity, and also with more maternal controlling and unresponsive behavior on the CARE-Index.

Keywords

  • Adult
  • Affective Symptoms/psychology
  • Child, Preschool
  • Exposure to Violence/psychology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Maternal Behavior/psychology
  • Middle Aged
  • Mother-Child Relations/psychology
  • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology
  • Young Adult

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

SCHECHTER, Daniel et al. How do maternal PTSD and alexithymia interact to impact maternal behavior? In: Child psychiatry and human development, 2015, vol. 46, n° 3, p. 406–417. doi: 10.1007/s10578-014-0480-4

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

0009-398X
612views
2downloads

Technical informations

Creation

27/10/2016 16:04:00

First validation

27/10/2016 16:04:00

Update

15/03/2023 01:07:09

Status update

15/03/2023 01:07:08

Last indexation

31/10/2024 05:29:16
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of Geneva
OpenAIRE Indexed & Validated