Stability of memories of parental rearing among psychiatric inpatients

Abstract

Information about childhood experiences, particularly parental rearing behaviour, is of importance in the clinical investigation of psychiatric patients and in research. As concerns assessment among adult individuals, it has the shortcoming that these data are exclusively retrospective by nature implying the risk of various biases. An influence of mood states, mostly depression, onto autobiographical memories has been established in different studies on the background of mood-dependent recall. Investigations by Gerlsma et al. have shown the independence of memories of parental rearing behaviour of significant changes in depressed mood. A consecutive sample of 162 psychiatric inpatients, mainly unipolar depressives, were investigated at admission and discharge by means of the EMBU (perceived parental rearing), the BDI and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale in the present study. The results underline once again the high stability of reported parental rearing behaviour during significant clinical changes in severity of depression and more specific of depressive disorders during changes in dysfunctional attitudes. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.