Do Turkish mothers’ emotion regulation, psychological symptoms and caregiving helplessness vary based on attachment states of mind?

ABSTRACT

Mothers’ emotion regulation, mental health, and feeling of helplessness in caring for their child may vary based on maternal attachment classifications. Particularly, insecure attachment and unresolved state of mind can act as risk factors. Therefore, we examined how emotion regulation strategies of suppression and cognitive reappraisal, maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety, and caregiving helplessness differ based on maternal attachment classifications in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Fifty mothers of children in the early childhood (AgeRange = 12-56 months) completed a pack of questionnaires, including Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Brief Symptom Inventory, and Caregiving Helplessness Questionnaire. Then AAI interview protocol was administered and coded. Mothers did not vary in emotion regulation strategies, indicating emotion regulation balance. However, mothers with secure/autonomous AAIs reported less anxiety than mothers whose AAIs were judged to show unresolved loss or unresolved trauma. The mothers who provided AAIs judged to be secure/autonomous scored lower in depression and caregiving helplessness than mothers whose AAIs were judged to show unresolved loss or unresolved trauma. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies conducting AAI in Turkish mothers. We revealed the critical role of secure attachment for mental health and caregiving helplessness that can facilitate interventions targeting maternal attachment mind state.

KEYWORDS:

• Unresolved/disorganized attachment
• attachment state of mind
• emotion regulation
• caregiving helplessness
• mental health

Acknowledgments

We thank mothers who participated and shared their early memories. We also thank the graduate and undergraduate students for helping us in the recruitment and data collection phases.

Author contributions

GA, AMUB and NT designed the study. AMUB and GS coded interviews. NT did the data collection and statistical analyses. GA wrote the manuscript and AMUB, NT and GS contributed to the writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Consent

Written informed contents were obtained from participants.

Ethical approval

Ethics Board of Bahcesehir University approved the study and procedures used adhere to the tenets of Declaration of Helsinki.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.