Maternal Affective Disorder and Children’s Representation of Their Families

Children’s perceptions of family relationship are related to their later emotional and social adjustment. This is of particular
relevance in the context of family stressors such as maternal affective disorder. This study investigated the effects of maternal
postnatal depression and anxiety on children’s family representations. In our sample of postnatally depressed mothers we also
explored marital conflict as mediator between maternal psychopathology and children’s representations. Family drawings of
235 4–5 year-old children (93 control, 53 depressed and 89 anxious) were examined. When compared to controls, children of
depressed, but not of anxious mothers, were more likely to draw themselves as less prominent than other family members and
to represent a dysfunctional family, less likely to represent themselves with a happy face and showed a greater tendency of
drawing bizarre pictures. Marital conflict mediated the association between maternal depression and dysfunctionality in drawings.