Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a highly prevalent and debilitating disorder. The first line treatment for PTSD is prolonged exposure (PE) therapy. Inhibitory learning theory proposes...Show morePosttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a highly prevalent and debilitating disorder. The first line treatment for PTSD is prolonged exposure (PE) therapy. Inhibitory learning theory proposes threat expectancy violation as a strategy to enhance effectiveness of PE. No standardized instrument for the assessment of threat expectancies is currently available. The aim of the current study was to assess the psychometric properties of the TREE, a novel instrument to assess threat expectancies. The reliability and factor structure of the TREE were assessed in a non-clinical sample of 158 trauma-exposed individuals. The TREE showed excellent reliability and was found to consist of four subscales: 1. Fear of dying/losing control, 2. Externalizing symptoms, 3. Negative evaluation, 4. Internalizing symptoms. The reliability of all subscales was good with an internal consistency ranging from .75 to .85. The TREE allows clinicians to tailor exposure sessions to the individual threat appraisal profile of their patients. Furthermore, by making threat expectancies explicit, it can aid in further understanding the mechanisms underlying PE. The factor structure of the TREE should be confirmed and its generalizability to the non-clinical and clinical population should be corroborated in future research.Show less
Objective: Child maltreatment poses a severe global concern and has been identified as an influential factor in the trajectory of psychopathology. Given that parental bonding has a direct effect on...Show moreObjective: Child maltreatment poses a severe global concern and has been identified as an influential factor in the trajectory of psychopathology. Given that parental bonding has a direct effect on depressive symptoms, and buffers adversity-related pathogenesis, the current study aimed to investigate whether child maltreatment is related to elevated levels of adult depression, and whether parental bonding (maternal and paternal bonding respectively) has a moderating effect on this relationship. In addition, within the context of intrafamilial abuse, the current study aimed to investigate the buffering effect of parental bonding when the abuse is linked to the perpetrating versus the non-perpetrating parent. Method: The study’s data was obtained from NESDA, an ongoing longitudinal cohort study. Information of 2069 participants, on depressive symptoms, parental bonding (at the 9-year follow up) and childhood trauma (assessed at baseline), was collected using self-reports and interviews. Results: The findings reveal that all four types of child maltreatment yielded a positive correlation with depressive symptoms. Furthermore, maternal bonding did have a moderating effect on the relationship between child maltreatment (physical and sexual abuse) and adult depression. The buffering effect of optimal maternal bonding was however stronger when maltreatment was absent. Moreover, paternal bonding did not moderate the relationship between child maltreatment and adult depression. Lastly, the impact of parental bonding was linked to the non-perpetrating parent. Conclusion: The yielded findings extend prior research on the association between child maltreatment and adult psychopathology, and the impact of parental bonding on this relationship. These findings highlight the importance of promoting optimal parental bondingShow less
Childhood emotional neglect (CEN) can lead to problems in parenting. Parents with a history of CEN can have difficulties recognizing and labelling emotions. Our research question is: is a history...Show moreChildhood emotional neglect (CEN) can lead to problems in parenting. Parents with a history of CEN can have difficulties recognizing and labelling emotions. Our research question is: is a history of CEN in parents associated with reduced empathic accuracy (EA) towards their children? Our sample consisted of 74 mothers and 62 fathers (N = 136) and their children. We measured CEN with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) (Bernstein et al., 1998). We measured general EA with a computer task by Aan Het Rot (2014), consisting of videoclips in which persons talked about an emotional experience. Parents rated the emotional valence of the persons continuously. We measured parental EA using a parent-child interaction task that was videotaped. The children rated their emotions and their parents rated their child’s emotions. Results showed no significant association between a history of CEN and general EA. In contrast, parents who reported more CEN significantly underestimated positive and overestimated negative emotions of their child. No significant gender differences were found. In conclusion, the more CEN is reported by parents, the more negatively they interpret the emotional state of their child. We speculate that a parent with a history of CEN is more empathically concerned and worries more excessively over the well-being of their child. This could be a disadvantage in caregiving, it could lead to overprotection of the child, which is not good for a child’s self-confidence. Future research could investigate whether children are more prone to depression when their parents interpret their emotions more negatively.Show less
