REMOVED: The cross-generational effects of maternal maltreatment histories: Implications for children's mentalizing development

Bottos, Shauna; Nilsen, Elizabeth S.

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.02.012

Cited by 14 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Bottos and Nilsen (2014) found that if associated with past experiences of emotional maltreatment, maternal impairment in RF as assessed by PRFQ mediated the detrimental effect of maternal depression on the child’s mentalizing abilities. Rostad and Whitaker (2016) found that parental interest and curiosity in mental states as assessed by PRFQ were associated with the degree of satisfaction with parenting, involvement, and communication.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Mentalizing Makes Parenting Work: A Review about Parental Reflective Functioning and Clinical Interventions to Improve It

Camoirano¹

2017

Front. Psychol.

263

213

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In the last decade several studies have investigated the role of parental reflective functioning (RF), defined as the parental ability to understand his/her child’s mental states, on the child’s development. Herein, a narrative review on parental RF is presented aimed at (1) presenting an overview of the existing empirical studies, (2) pinpointing unrequited questions, and (3) identifying future research directions. Specifically, the current review focused on (a) the impact of parental RF on the quality of caregiving and the child’s attachment security, (b) the effect of parental RF on the child’s emotion regulation and the child’s RF, (c) maternal RF in women with a history of neglect and abuse, (d) the efficacy of mentalization-based clinical interventions, and (e) the recently developed Parental Reflective Questionnaire. The following terms “maternal RF,” “paternal RF,” “parental RF,” “parental mentalization,” “maternal mentalization,” and “paternal mentalization” were searched in titles, abstracts, and main texts using Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Next, a search in Mendeley was also conducted. Inclusion criteria comprised original articles if they refer to the RF Scale (Fonagy et al., 1998) and were published in an English language, peer-reviewed journal before July, 2016. According to exclusion criteria, dissertations, qualitative or theoretical papers, and chapters in books were not taken into account. The review includes 47 studies that, taken together, supported the notion that higher parental RF was associated with adequate caregiving and the child’s attachment security, whereas low maternal RF was found in mothers whose children suffered from anxiety disorders, impairment in emotion regulation, and externalizing behaviors. In addition, higher parental RF was associated with better mentalizing abilities in children. However, unexpected findings have emerged from the most recent randomized controlled trials that tested the efficacy of mentalization-based interventions in high risk samples of mothers, raising questions about the suitability of the verbal measures in capturing the mentalizing processes at the root of the parental capacity to be adequately responsive to the child’s emotional needs.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Mentalizing Makes Parenting Work: A Review about Parental Reflective Functioning and Clinical Interventions to Improve It

Camoirano¹

2017

Front. Psychol.

263

213

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“…Consequently, clinical and empirical interest continues to drive research on the effects of trauma on subsequent generations, as it has proven to be more complex than previously thought. As a result, there has been specific focus on the parent/child relationship and how trauma specifically affects parenting in adult survivors of child abuse and neglect (Bottos and Nilsen, 2014). Research in this area has important implications in terms of how different service providers approach survivors of traumatic experiences in terms of parenting, attachment styles, and early childhood interventions, as childhood maltreatment is more likely to occur during essential moments of childhood development and its long-term effects can be especially adverse in these particular areas (Ford and Courtois, 2009).…”

Section: Early Experiences Of Trauma and The Attachment Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding the effects of different types of trauma can also shed light onto the intergenerational aspect of trauma when working with families who have extensive histories of trauma from one generation to another. A recent study by Bottos and Nilsen's (2014) was the first to take a close look at the relationship between distinct types of traumatic experiences and the experience of depression in adult survivors of abuse and its effect on maternal mentalization and the development of theory of mind in their offspring. Their findings highlighted the deleterious effects the experience of childhood trauma can have on survivors of CA&N and on their children.…”

Section: Different Types Of Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their findings highlighted the deleterious effects the experience of childhood trauma can have on survivors of CA&N and on their children. Bottos and Nilsen's (2014) study specifically highlighted the deleterious effects that emotional maltreatment had, in comparison to physical and sexual abuse. In their study, parental childhood experience of emotional maltreatment was found to be a significant predictor of children's mentalization outcomes.…”

Section: Different Types Of Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Manifestation of Trauma: The Effect of Early Traumatic Experiences and Adult Attachment on Parental Reflective Functioning

2017

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There are many risk factors that make the transition to parenthood difficult, even in the best of circumstances. One such risk factor is the experience of parental childhood trauma, which has the potential to affect the parent/child relationship, both in terms of attachment style parental reflective functioning. This study aims to expand on the line of research concerned with the effects that trauma has once that child transitions into adulthood and into parenthood by looking at the role that the experience of trauma and adult attachment has in relation to parental reflective functioning. This study assessed mothers (N = 125) by using the CTQ (childhood experience of trauma), ECR (adult attachment), and the PRFQ (parental RF). Our study found that in the presence of physical neglect, insecure attachment had a particularly deleterious effect on maternal reflective functioning. This relationship was not as strong in the absence of physical neglect.

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“…The application of PRF measures has expanded to different contexts such as drug-use disorders [25], mothers with childhood maltreatment [26,27], infant distress [28], and parenting programs [12,[29][30][31][32][33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advancing Optimal Development in Children: Examining the Construct Validity of a Parent Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (Preprint)

Roo¹,

Wong²,

Rempel³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Objective: We sought to examine the factor structure and select psychometric properties of the PRFQ in a sample of Canadian parents. Methods:We examined the factor structure and discriminant and construct validity of the PRFQ-18 among 308 parents (Males=120; Females=186) across Canada who also completed online measures of perceived stress, parental coping Scale, parenting competence social support.Results: A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the hypothesized 3-factor structure of the PRFQ-18 providing evidence that the PRFQ-18 may be a useful and practical measure of PRF in Canadian adults and showed minor revisions may improve the suitability of the PRFQ-18 for assessing PRF. Conclusions IntroductionDecades of research unequivocally demonstrate that reflective processes enhance parental insight and sensitivity toward children's emotions [1]. Reflective functioning (RF), first introduced by Fonagy and colleagues in 1991 describes an individual's cognitive capacity to recognize and interpret one's own mental state as well as the mental state of others to identify and comprehend meaning behind behaviour [2,3]. In the literature, RF is akin to mentalizating, which is a fundamental and intrinsic human capacity to regulate affect and attune to interpersonal relationships [4]. Likewise, maternal mind-mindedness is described as a mother's ability to recognize her child as a separate agent with independent thoughts, experiences, and emotions [5], and parental insightfulness is defined as a parent's representation of their child's intentions and mental states [6].Rather than a natural ability, RF is believed to develop through the internal organization of an individual's understanding of one's own and other's feelings and behaviours through experiences, social and emotional information, meaning making [2,3] and interactions with primary caregivers [7,2,3]. In addition, social interactions, family structure, family size, parenting quality [7] and environmental responses [8] influence the development of RF. The development of the RF neurological function is noteworthy as it provides individuals with the ability to predict behaviour, distinguish between manifestation and reality, and enhance interpersonal communications, self-organization [3], impulse control and affect regulation [7].Understanding the development of RF is crucial given the relationship between how a parent chooses to respond to their child's needs, which affects the child's attachment status [2,9,10] as PARENT REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING 4 well as the child's development and capacity to mentalize [1]; and circumscribes the health of the parent-child relationship overall [11,12].Parental reflective functioning (PRF) pertains to a parent's proclivity to understand and comprehend mental states influencing their child's behaviour [13]; playing a crucial role in how parents respond to their child`s needs and feelings [9,14], and behaviors [3]. Parent reflective functioning is a core cognitive capacity that connects parents to their child's emotions and a...

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REMOVED: The cross-generational effects of maternal maltreatment histories: Implications for children's mentalizing development

Cited by 14 publications

References 55 publications

Mentalizing Makes Parenting Work: A Review about Parental Reflective Functioning and Clinical Interventions to Improve It

Mentalizing Makes Parenting Work: A Review about Parental Reflective Functioning and Clinical Interventions to Improve It

Manifestation of Trauma: The Effect of Early Traumatic Experiences and Adult Attachment on Parental Reflective Functioning

Advancing Optimal Development in Children: Examining the Construct Validity of a Parent Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (Preprint)

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