Shah, Rajshree; (1998) Did my parents make me miserable? Examining the links between parental style, core beliefs and depression. Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy.), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The relationship between perceived parental style in childhood and depression in adulthood has been extensively researched over the past two decades since the development of the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, et al., 1979). However, less attention has been devoted to finding factors that mediate this relationship. Parker (1993) conducted a study examining for links with personality vulnerability factors, depression and parental style on depressed participants. Unfortunately, he failed to find links between PBI scores and depression levels in his sample and so could only speculate on the diathesis-stress model. The aim of the present study was to test the proposal that the relationship between parental style and depression is mediated by core beliefs. Young's (1990) Schema Questionnaire was used to identify the most relevant core beliefs to depression. There were 70 participants in each of two groups, a clinical and non-clinical group. For the clinical group, perceived paternal overprotection or control was associated with depression in adulthood, and this relationship was mediated by the core belief, vulnerability to harm and illness. For the non-clinical group, there was a relationship between perceived maternal overprotection and depression in adulthood. This was mediated by three core beliefs (self-sacrifice, failure to achieve, and social undesirability). These findings are contrary to conventional wisdom, which regards the relationship with the maternal figure, and the 'care' dimension, as the primary predictors of affective disorder in adulthood. There is a scarcity of research on men and fatherhood. Therefore, there is room for speculation about these surprising results. It is suggested that the findings with the clinical group may suggest abuse, and that in the non-clinical group might reflect the gender difference between the two groups.

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