ABSTRACT

This study concerns the developing relationships between depressed mothers and their young children. When mothers are depressed, what kinds of affective environments do they create for their children? What are the psychosocial consequences for the children? There is a special significance in singling out depressed mothers in relation to mother-child attachment patterns and children’s psychosocial functioning. In healthy mother-child relationships, one expects to see mothers who are available to their children, who are sensitive and responsive, and who are confident in themselves. Translation of the classic symptoms of depression into the role of mother suggests problems for the mother-child relationship: depression is characterized by feelings of hopelessness and lack of self-worth, low involvement and low energy, disordered interpersonal relationships, episodic emotional dysregulation, and psychological unavailability. Such impairments in the mother would seem to place the child in a perilous and uncertain caregiving environment.