Shaping children's internal working models through mother–child dialogues: the importance of resolving past maternal trauma

Abstract

The study examined how mothers who were sexually abused as children guide conversations about emotional events with their children. We hypothesized that compared to mothers who were less resolved regarding their traumatic past, those who were more resolved would better guide such conversations. The dialogues of 33 mothers and their children were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue procedure (AEED; Koren-Karie, Oppenheim, Haimovich, & Etzion-Carasso, 2000) which yields three composite scores: Mothers' Sensitive Guidance, Child Cooperation and Exploration, and Coherent Narrative. Level of resolution of the trauma was assessed using the BLAAQ-U (Main, van IJzendoorn, & Hesse, 1993). Other measures pertaining to the abuse and to maternal psychopathology were also obtained. As hypothesized, mothers who were more resolved showed more sensitive guidance, their children were more cooperative, and their narratives were more coherent. Measures of the abuse and of maternal psychopathology were not associated with mother–child conversations.

Keywords:

• mother–child dialogues
• resolution of trauma
• sexual abuse
• internal working models
• secure base

Notes

1. Based on these scales transcripts can be classified into one of four categories, Emotionally Matched, Non-Emotionally-Matched–Excessive, Non-Emotionally-Matched: Flat, and Non-Emotionally-Matched–Inconsistent. In the current study only 6 dyads (18%) were classified as showing Emotionally Matched dialogues, however, and due to this small number we could not conduct meaningful statistical analyses on the AEED categories. Rather, we used the AEED aggregate scores based on the AEED rating scales.