Hostility, aggression, and anxiety levels of divorce and nondivorce children as manifested in their responses to projective tests.

The effects of parental divorce on the levels of aggression, hostility, and anxiety in children, as measured by the Rorschach test, together with the type and direction of aggression, as measured by the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration (P-F) Study, were studied. The Rorschach and the Rosenzweig P-F study were administered to a nonclinical sample of 108 Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 12 years old. The subjects constituted a divorce and a nondivorce group of 27 girls and 27 boys each. Children of divorced parents (hereafter referred to as divorce children, divorce boys, or divorce girls) showed significantly higher levels of hostility, aggression, and anxiety than children of married parents (hereafter referred to as nondivorce children, nondivorce boys, nondivorce girls). There were significant differences found in the type and direction of aggression between divorce girls and boys. Divorce boys showed more extraggression and ego defensive reactions, whereas divorce girls tended to evade aggression. The differences between divorce and nondivorce groups and the diversity of reactions between divorce boys and girls are discussed.

Duplication 18p with mild influence on the phenotype.

Duplication 18p was found in a 12-year-old girl whose father carried a balanced translocation involving the same chromosome segment, t(18;21)(p11;p11). Our patient had delayed speech development, mild psychomotor retardation, epilepsy, and minor anomalies, including a low nasal bridge, anti-mongolian eye slant, low-set ears, and narrowly arched palate. These findings are compared with eight previously published cases.

Marital disharmony four and a half years post partum. Effects on parent-child relationships and child development.

This longitudinal study of primiparous women concerns factors related to the quality of the marital relationship 4 1/2 years after the birth of the first child. Information was independently collected from the women, their husbands and children. A poor relationship to the partner and impaired mental health in the women post partum were associated with marital disharmony at follow-up. In disharmonious marriages more often than in others parents were estimated to have a rejecting attitude towards their child and the child to have a rejecting attitude towards its parents. Further, in these marriages poor parental relationships of boys were more common than those of girls and socially immature boys as compared to socially immature girls overrepresented.

Sex-role patterns, paternal rearing attitudes and child development in different social classes.

Sex-role patterns, the father's rearing attitude and the child's intellectual and emotional development in different social classes were studied in a randomly selected sample of 58 Swedish unbroken families of a small child. Working class men and women married younger and the women were more often house-wives. Working class men had more often been reared in an "authoritarian" way and more often reared their children in the same way. Upper middle class men had taken a more active part in the care of the child. Working class children scored lower on the intelligence tests, especially the verbal ones and were more often estimated as socially immature.

Mental health of 58 Swedish men living together with their wives and preschool children.

The mental health of the man was studied in a random sample ogf 58 Swedish unbroken families. Men with mental symptoms above an approximate median were compared to men with mental symptoms below the median. Thirteen of the men with mental symptoms were regarded as suffering from clinical psychopathology. Men reporting many mental symptoms more often than the others, had poor contact with their parents and poor mental health during childhood and adolescence, and also their parents' marriage had been disharmonious. Men with mental symptoms above the median more often tended to have a less satisfying relationship to their wives and children. This same group of men usually had low incomes and tended to be dissatisfied with their job and present dwelling. There was no relationship between the man's current mental health and the child's report of its emotional contact with its father in a projective play session. Nor was the number of mental symptoms related to the emotional and intellectual development of the child.

Father/child relationship: background factors in the father.

This investigation studied by direct interviews in a randomly selected sample of 58 Swedish unbroken families, factors of importance for the father's experience of his preschool child. The father's experience of his child was shown to correlate with the child's experience of him. Fathers experiencing their child in a positive way had been more active in the care of the child, less "authoritarian" and more physically intimate. They described good marital relations. Fathers with a low income or unsatisfied with their job were more negative towards their child than others. There was no association between the father's mental health and his experience of his child. Fathers reporting poor early parental contact were less positive towards their child than others. The man's relation to his own father was more connected with his experience of his child than his relation to his own mother, especially when the child was a boy.

Experience of father and later relations to men. A systematic study of women's relations to their father, their partner and their son.

Using data from a longitudinal, prospective study of 69 women, their partners and first-born children, the woman's description of her parents was compared with her report about her relationships to her partner and child. Information was independently collected from partner and child. The woman's way of relating both to her partner and to her son was more strongly connected with her report about her early paternal than with her report about her early maternal contact. The woman's experience of her father was related to her way of interacting with her child in the case of a son but not in the case of a daughter. Thus, the specific importance of a woman's image of her father for her way of relating to other significant males was emphasized.

Prognosis of post partum mental disturbance. A prospective study of primiparous women and their 4 1/2-year-old children.

Sixty-nine women who had been studied in connection with their first para-natal period were followed up 4 1/2 years later. Information was collected both from the mother (semi-structured interview) and her child (play session). Those 16 mothers who had been severely mentally handicapped during their first post partum period were compared with the others. About half of the women in the handicapped group reported repeated and/or prolonged periods of impaired mental health even during the following years. Further, the women in the handicapped group reported a poor relationship to the partner more often than the others. The same women more often than the others experienced difficulties in adapting to the parental role; e.g. their general attitude towards the child, as estimated by the interviewer, was more often a rejecting one. They were also described more negatively by their children than women that had not been severely handicapped. It is concluded that women mentally disturbed post partum run a high risk of poor mental health even in the future and that in these cases the mother-child relationship may often develop in an unfavourable way.