Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Lab on Attachment and Parenting - LAG, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Attach Hum Dev. 2021 Dec;23(6):771-794. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2020.1738510. Epub 2020 Apr 7.
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 ( = 23) reported lower RF, higher HH attachment, and a more severe history of CA&N, compared to NFM ( = 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.
（1）依恋中的敌意-无助（HH）和（2）反省功能（RF），以探讨儿童期虐待和忽视（CA&N）经历如何影响母亲杀人的可能性。该样本由 46 名患有精神疾病的母亲组成。本研究还研究了杀亲母亲（FM）和非杀亲母亲（NFM）之间基于依恋的风险变量的差异。与非杀亲母亲（NFM）相比，杀亲母亲（FM）报告了较低的 RF、较高的 HH 依恋和更严重的 CA&N 经历，但在与依恋对象丧失和/或分离的童年经历的严重程度上没有差异。贝叶斯分析表明，通过更高的 HH 依恋，更严重的 CA&N 对杀人可能性的中介效应通过更低的 RF 显著放大。提出了对杀亲行为的发展性解释，并讨论了针对高危母婴对子的预防和基于依恋的干预措施的临床意义。
