Violence and Motherhood: A Case Study about the Personality Profile and Attachment Style of a Filicide Woman

ABSTRACT

Several studies focused on mothers’ psychopathological and environmental risk factors linked to filicide, but few studies explored personality characteristics of these women. Considering that the transition to motherhood requires the activation of deep personality resources, aim of this report is to describe the personality profile and attachment style of a woman who killed her 5-year-old son and tried to kill her 3-months-old daughter. The woman was assessed using Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I (SCID-I), Graphical Tests, Big Five Inventory (BFI), Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). Test results showed a profile characterized by emotional instability, inner fragility and tendency to experience negative emotions, with the possibility of apparently unmotivated hostile behaviors and a tendency towards complacency. AAI results showed a distancing attachment style shading light into the importance of the internalized maternal figure. Examining the mother’s mental state, with attention on personality traits and attachment style, could help clinicians to detect specific temperament patterns that may carry out violent behaviours.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Nicoletta Giacchetti

Nicoletta Giacchetti for many years she has worked in the acute psychiatry department of Policlinico Umberto I Hospital of Rome. She collaborates as a psychiatrist and researcher with the post-partum disorders unit of Policlinico Umberto I, interested in studying perinatal depression and mother-child relationship disorders.

Corinna Pancheri

Corinna Pancheri she specialized in psychiatry at La Sapienza University, Policlinico Umberto I Hospital of Rome with a dissertation about dimensional psychopathology of psychiatric outpatient’s immigrants. She collaborates as a psychiatrist and researcher with the post-partum disorders unit of Policlinico Umberto I.

Riccardo Williams

Riccardo Williams is a psychologist and he has been investigating the impact of early relational trauma on personality development and psychopathology.

Michela Marconi

Michela Marconi she specialized in psychiatry at Università Cattolica’s Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Agostino Gemelli General Hospital where she worked on bipolar disorders and alcohol abuse disorders. After specialization, she worked at Pontecorvo forensic psychiatric hospital looking at antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy.

Rosa Magistro

Rosa Magistro she worked mainly in the field of psychiatric rehabilitation working in therapeutic communities for young people with personality disorders and in forensic psychiatric hospitals. She collaborated with schools, social services and Courts. She is interested in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood and parenthood disorders.

Luciano Pozzuoli

Luciano Pozzuoli he works on the management and development of programs for people with mental illness. He also worked as a forensic psychiatrist at the Court of Cassino. From 2015 to 2018 he was the Director of the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital for men at Ceccano and for women at Pontecorvo.

Franca Aceti

Franca Aceti psychiatrist and analyst, has gained an extensive experience in psychopathology and child-parent relationship disorders. She has been the head of the post-partum depression unit at La Sapienza University of Rome for the last 10 years.