ABSTRACT
There is some evidence that mothers of young children have elevated rates of depression (Weissman & Klerman, 1977; Brown, Bhrolchain & Harris, 1975). Clearly, not all mothers of young children however, actually develop emotional disorder, either in everyday life or even when facing adversity. This has led researchers and clinicians to search for stress mediators to explain why some women are more likely than others to develop psychiatric disorder following a stressful experience. In this chapter the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear disaster is employed as a “natural experiment” enabling us to put the stress moderating role of one potential stress mediator, social support, to empirical test.
