Childhood abuse and neglect experiences, Hostile-Helpless attachment, and reflective functioning in mentally ill filicidal mothers.
The present study represents the first empirical investigation of the mechanisms - a Hostile-Helpless (HH) attachment and reflective functioning (RF) - through which childhood abuse and neglect (CA&N) experiences may impact a mother's likelihood to commit filicide. The sample was comprised of 46 mentally ill mothers. Differences in attachment-derived risk variables between filicidal mothers (FM) and non-filicidal mothers (NFM) were also examined. FM (n = 23) reported lower RF, higher HH attachment, and a more severe history of CA&N, compared to NFM (n = 23), but did not differ on the severity of childhood experiences of loss of and/or separation from attachment figures. Bayesian analysis indicated that the mediated effect of more severe CA&N on the likelihood of committing filicide through higher HH attachment was significantly amplified by lower RF. A developmental interpretation of filicide is proposed and clinical implications for prevention and attachment-based interventions with at-risk mother-child dyads are discussed.
['Barone|Lavinia|L|0000-0002-4072-8317', 'Carone|Nicola|N|0000-0003-3696-9641']
D001499:Bayes Theorem D002648:Child D005260:Female D006801:Humans D028642:Mentally Ill Persons D009034:Mother-Child Relations D009035:Mothers D009769:Object Attachment
childhood abuse and neglect Hostile-Helpless attachment reflective functioning mental illness filicide