ABSTRACT

The present study represents the first empirical investigation of the mechanisms – a Hostile-Helpless (HH) attachment and reflective functioning (RF) – through which childhood abuse and neglect (CA&N) experiences may impact a mother’s likelihood to commit filicide. The sample was comprised of 46 mentally ill mothers. Differences in attachment-derived risk variables between filicidal mothers (FM) and non-filicidal mothers (NFM) were also examined. FM (n = 23) reported lower RF, higher HH attachment, and a more severe history of CA&N, compared to NFM (n = 23), but did not differ on the severity of childhood experiences of loss of and/or separation from attachment figures. Bayesian analysis indicated that the mediated effect of more severe CA&N on the likelihood of committing filicide through higher HH attachment was significantly amplified by lower RF. A developmental interpretation of filicide is proposed and clinical implications for prevention and attachment-based interventions with at-risk mother–child dyads are discussed.

摘要

本研究代表了对机制的第一次实证调查——敌对无助 (HH) 依恋和反思功能 (RF)——通过这些机制，童年虐待和忽视 (CA&N) 经历可能会影响母亲犯下杀人罪的可能性。样本由 46 名患有精神病的母亲组成。还检查了杀丝的母亲 (FM) 和非杀丝的母亲 (NFM) 之间依恋衍生的风险变量的差异。FM（Ñ = 23）报告较低的RF，更高HH附件，CA＆N的一个更严重的历史相比，NFM（Ñ= 23），但在童年时期失去和/或与依恋对象分离的严重程度没有差异。贝叶斯分析表明，较低的 RF 显着放大了更严重的 CA&N 对通过较高的 HH 附着进行 filicide 的可能性的介导影响。提出了对filicide的发展解释，并讨论了预防和基于依恋的干预对有风险的母子二人的临床意义。