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Abstract
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.
Acknowledgements
The research discussed in this paper was funded in large part by the International Psychoanalytical Association Research Advisory Board, with additional funding from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Pilot Research Award, the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Columbia University, the Irving Center for Clinical Research at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, the Bender-Fishbein Fund, the Ruane Foundation, and NIH K23 MH068405. We would additionally like to thank Drs. Robert Emde and Peter Fonagy for their encouragement and support of the study reported in this paper. Furthermore, we would like to acknowledge Dr. Blake Turner for his helpful comments in revising this manuscript, and Ms. Elizabeth Colon for her help in executing the study.