THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT UPON MOTHER-CHILD COMMUNICATION

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Affective language between depressed mothers and their children is examined to determine whether differences in mothers' psychiatric treatment corresponds to differences in their ability to talk with their children about feelings. This involves assessing 1) mother's accuracy in interpreting emotional expression to her child, 2) mother's ability to correct her child's inaccurate interpretation of facial expressions, 3) mother's ability to qualify and elaborate discussion in emotion terms, and 4) the child's accuracy in interpreting emotional expression to mother. Verbal communication about emotion was assessed for accuracy in 84 mother/child pairs from three maternal categories, Control Depressed with psychiatric treatment and Depressed without treatment. Mothers were diagnosed using the SADS-L and scored according to RDC. History of psychiatric treatment was obtained during the diagnostic interview. Mother/child verbal communications about emotions were assessed using eight pictures of infants expressing emotions through facial expression. The mother/child discussion of these pictures was scored for accuracy. A comparison by ANOVA established that depressed mothers who have had psychotherapy were more accurate in communicating with their children about emotion than were depressed mothers with no treatment (p less than .03); depressed mothers with treatment were most accurate in communicating about negative emotions specifically, and differed from the depressed mothers with no treatment (p less than .Ol); there were no significant differences between control mothers and depressed mothers with a history of psychiatric treatment in accuracy of affective communication.