Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: A tentative overall model

Two previous reports on a female population sample in Outer London, UK, had identified certain environmental experiences–such as lack of adequate replacement care after parental loss in childhood, premarital pregnancy, and low social class and poor emotional support in adulthood–as key factors intervening between childhood loss of parent and depression in adulthood. A third paper introduced a measure of the cognitive set of situational helplessness-mastery which was associated, on the one hand, with current depression and, on the other, with loss of mother in childhood. This article examines the relationship between these other factors and situational helplessness both in childhood and in adulthood. Most are highly associated with the cognitive set, but the relationship between childhood helplessness and loss of mother appears to be differentially mediated according to whether the loss was by death or separation. A series of multivariate statistical analyses aims to integrate all the findings so far reported on in this sample into a biographical model of the developmental pathways from childhood loss of mother to current depression.

Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: the role of social class position and premarital pregnancy

SynopsisThis paper addresses the critique which maintains that loss of parent in a sample of female adults plays no role in determining current depression over and above that of low social class position with which such loss is associated. It examines a series of variables which combine to determine current social class position and which seem to stem from lack of adequate replacement care following loss of mother. The experience of a premarital pregnancy and the way in which women cope with it emerge as critical in this process. The relationship of low social class to the onset of depression is discussed in the light of better-known vulnerability factors such as low confiding in, and undependability of, marital partner, employment outside the home and number of children. It is concluded that a current low social class position, far from explaining away the association between loss of mother and current depression, may itself be brought about by a chain of circumstances stemming from the loss. Once again, the quality of replacement care is shown to play a critical role.

Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: the role of lack of adequate parental care

SynopsisThe inconclusiveness of the literature on the role of loss of parent in influencing psychiatric disorder in adulthood is well known. A number of reasons involving sampling, location and other methodological features, are given to account for these contradictory findings. A study specially designed to cope with these features is then described and basic results are reported. These indicate that, in a sample of women aged 18–65, loss of mother before the age of 17, either by death or by separation of one year or more, was associated with clinical depression in the year of interview. Loss of father by death was in no way associated with current depression, but separation from father showed a trend which, however, did not reach statistical significance. Control for other possible confounding factors did not change this patterning of results; these were further supported when psychiatric episodes earlier in adulthood were examined. Examination of the caregiving arrangements in childhood suggests that it is ‘lack of care’, defined in terms of neglect rather than simply hostile parental behaviour, which accounts for the raised rate of depression. Such ‘lack of care’ is more frequent after loss of mother than after loss of father.

The Social Conditions of Destitution: The Situation of Men with Schizophrenia or Personality Disorder

ABSTRACTThis article discusses the particular characteristics of men with schizophrenia or personality disorder and it compares these two categories with one another and with the destitute population as a whole. On a number of variables, no significant differences are discerned, the category as a whole sharing a background of considerable material and social deprivation. However, with reference to place of birth, loss of mother, and father's occupation, significant differences do appear. The two categories also show distinctly different patterns in the process of becoming destitute and they use existing agencies differently. Finally, the type of service most suitable for these men is discussed together with other issues raised by the question, ‘How can we improve the lot of the homeless single person?’

Vulnerability Factors and Depression in Women

SummaryA matched controlled study of 84 depressed women confirms the findings of Brown et al, that loss of mother before 11, three or more children at home under 14 years of age, lack of a confiding marital relationship and lack of employment may be vulnerability factors predisposing to depression in working-class women.

Depression and Loss

SummaryRecent losses occurring in the two years before onset of depression in women are distinguished from past losses occurring at any time before this. Of past losses only loss of mother before 11 is associated with greater risk of depression—both among women treated by psychiatrists and among women found to be suffering from depression in a random sample of 458 women living in London. Past loss of a father or sibling before 17 (or a mother between 11 and 17), or a child or husband, is not associated with a greater chance of developing depression. However, among patients all types of past loss by death are associated with psychotic-like depressive symptoms (and their severity) and other types of past loss with neurotic-type depressive symptoms (and their severity). It is argued that these associations probably reflect direct causal links, and a socio-psychological theory to explain them is discussed.