A theoretical framework for linking the experience of dysfunctional parental rearing attitudes with manifest psychopathology.

The results of several investigations suggest a possible relationship between a subject's experience of the rearing attitudes of his parents and the later development of various kinds of psychopathological disorders. Most studies, however, are based on small populations and on dubious assumptions about linear causal relationships between parental rearing practices and poorly defined mental disorders. This article gives a theoretical background to a comprehensive multinational study of rearing practices and psychopathology, now in progress. It is suggested that dysfunctional parental rearing practices may contribute to the development of dysfunctional self-schemata by the offspring and that these dysfunctional self-schemata represent an important pathogenetic link between rearing practices and psychopathological disorders.