Caregiver traumatization adversely impacts young children's mental representations on the MacArthur Story Stem Battery

• Published in: Attachment & human development Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 187 - 205
• Main Authors: Schechter, Daniel S., Zygmunt, Annette, Coates, Susan W., Davies, Mark, Trabka, Kimberly A., McCaw, Jaime, Kolodji, Ann, Robinson, Joann L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.09.2007; Taylor and Francis
• Subjects: Age Factors; Biological and medical sciences; Caregivers - psychology; Child; Child, Preschool; domestic violence; emotion regulation; Family environment. Family history; Female; Health Surveys; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Intergenerational Relations; Intergenerational transmission of trauma; Internal-External Control; Male; Maternal Welfare; Medical sciences; Mental Health; Mother-Child Relations; Narration; Object Attachment; parental PTSD; Psychological Tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics; Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Self Concept; Social Perception; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; story stem narratives; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic - complications; Surveys and Questionnaires; Techniques and methods; Violence; Wounds and Injuries - complications; Wounds and Injuries - psychology; Affect affectivity; Anxiety disorder; Cognition; Posttraumatic stress disorder; story stem narratives; Victimology; Maternal diseases; Parent child relation; emotion regulation; Language; Affective attachment; parental PTSD; Narrative; Intergeneration relation; Intimate partner violence; Family environment; Woman abuse; Child; Human; Mental representation; Emotion emotionality; Trauma; Intergenerational transmission of trauma; Social interaction; Self regulation; domestic violence; Measurement method; Domestic violence; Parental PTSD; Emotion regulation; Child mental representations; Play narrative
• ISSN: 1461-6734; 1469-2988
• DOI: 10.1080/14616730701453762

The aim of our study was to investigate the impact of maternal exposure to family violence, maltreatment, and related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on young children's mental representations of self and caregivers. Participant mothers (n = 24) and children (n = 25) were recruited from a referred sample when they were 4 - 7 years old. Maternal report and child story stem narratives were used. Mothers' experience of domestic violence and severity of violence-related PTSD symptoms robustly predicted more dysregulated aggression, attentional bias to danger and distress, as well as more avoidance of and withdrawal from conflicts presented in the children's story stems. Less narrative coherence was also noted. Traumatized mothers experience and symptoms prior to their child's turning 4 years old adversely affected their child's mental representations from ages 4 - 7 years.