Mommies and their role in mental illness

[PhyllisHaugPen]

A study from NIU discusses how a mother's perception influences a mentally ill person's recovery. Let me know what you think. Is this research even necessary? Plenty of movies have been around for years that have already stated the same thing!

 

http://www.examiner.com/science-news-in-national/moms-play-big-role-mental-illness

[Moontanman]

I'm not sure how much real science is involved in this study but what about the Dads? Dads can have a huge influence for good or bad on their kids, nice pic btw, you remind me of my Mom.....

[PhyllisHaugPen]

Thanks, Moontanman, I think? Moms in this article don't have the most positive light...lol. I was wondering why they didn't include Dads in the study as well...trying to go along with the same old stereotype, I guess. They did try and generalize it to say family. The research to me is kind of a no-brainer, I guess. Family influences everything!

[Moontanman]

Thanks, Moontanman, I think? Moms in this article don't have the most positive light...lol. I was wondering why they didn't include Dads in the study as well...trying to go along with the same old stereotype, I guess. They did try and generalize it to say family. The research to me is kind of a no-brainer, I guess. Family influences everything!

 

 

It was a complement Phylis, and I agree, family is a huge part of what makes us who we are and if your Dad beat your Mom then his sons will be likely to do the same thing and his daughters will tend to seek out abusive men. Blaming it all on the Mom seems to me at least to be simply more of blaming the woman for what the man does....

 

I knew it was Momma's fault

Edited June 7, 2011 by Moontanman

[PhDwannabe]

I'm just going to go ahead and say that the phrase:

 

Is this research even necessary? Plenty of movies have been around for years that have already stated the same thing!

 

is really a pretty disturbing thing to say. Regarding any topic. I'll just go ahead and leave it at that.

[Marat]

It has long been clearly established that if schizophrenic patients are returned from treatment to so-called 'high EE' families -- that is, families where there is extreme, vocal expression of negative emotions -- their relapse rate is very much higher. In contrast, schizophrenics returning to 'low ee' families where critical emotions are not verbalized tend to do much better. Even in 18th century psychiatry it was a rule at the famous Tuke Clinic that mental patients should be isolated for the initial period of their treatment from their family and friends so that they would not be exposed to what we would today call the schizophrenogenic effects of their friends' negative emotions.

 

The stereotype of the 'schizophrenogenic mother' has existed for a long time, both in psychiatry and in popular culture. With the rise of feminism and political correctness, public cultural values required these scientific observations to be suppressed (cf. Galileo and the Church), just as the long-established observation of 'female subjectivism' also had to be revised out of existence in the 1980s, but now the old insight has been dressed up in acceptable form by the construct of high EE families being schizophrenogenic. This latest study has apparently slipped in under the radar and will soon have to be refuted.

[imatfaal]

Famous graffiti in London Gents WC

 

"My mother made me a homosexual"

 

and written below

 

"If I gave her the materials would she make me one too?"

[Athena]

I am sure everyone has good intentions, but there is something wrong with stressing the mother has a big effect on her children, separate from mentioning the effect of the father. Young girls who are mentored by their fathers, do much better in life than girls who do not get this attention from their fathers. There are also movies about husband's who drive their wives insane.

 

Of course expressing a positive attitude about a child will have a better effect on the child than expressing a negative attitude. It doesn't matter if the parent is male of female. The reaction to positive or negative stimulus will be what it is, and fathers impact their children as much as mothers. Even if a parent abandons a child, the child will have a reaction to how this parent behaved as a parent, and this plays into what the child thinks about him/her self. Sorry, I just hate the thousands of years of sexism and the problems this has caused, especially the problem of fathers neglecting their roles as fathers, supported by sexist science, leading men to believe their role as fathers is not that important.

 

I'm not sure how much real science is involved in this study but what about the Dads? Dads can have a huge influence for good or bad on their kids, nice pic btw, you remind me of my Mom.....

 

Thanks Moontanman.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Athena

[PhDwannabe]

I am sure everyone has good intentions, but there is something wrong with stressing the mother has a big effect on her children, separate from mentioning the effect of the father. Young girls who are mentored by their fathers, do much better in life than girls who do not get this attention from their fathers. There are also movies about husband's who drive their wives insane.

 

Of course expressing a positive attitude about a child will have a better effect on the child than expressing a negative attitude. It doesn't matter if the parent is male of female. The reaction to positive or negative stimulus will be what it is, and fathers impact their children as much as mothers. Even if a parent abandons a child, the child will have a reaction to how this parent behaved as a parent, and this plays into what the child thinks about him/her self. Sorry, I just hate the thousands of years of sexism and the problems this has caused, especially the problem of fathers neglecting their roles as fathers, supported by sexist science, leading men to believe their role as fathers is not that important.

 

This is a vastly problematic way to view a study like this. In science, we're often interested in breaking down phenomena into granular, manageable bits. When we examine one of them, there is nothing--nothing--about that examination, per se, which claims that any of the other bits aren't important. To say so is to read into it with one's own agenda. If I study environmental contributions to the rate of drug use--neighborhood crime rate, availability of parks, etc.--am I for one moment saying that, for instance, parenting isn't important? Or that drug education isn't important? No. I'm just studying a small piece of a large puzzle. Nothing, nothing, nothing about the focus of my study denies the importance of other things. Even if I focus on that one phenomenon for my whole career, I'm not saying it's the only important contributor, it's just what I've specialized in.

 

Could you make a case that a broad literature base has yet to extensively treat some kind of important contributor to a phenomenon? Yes. But that's greatly different from attempting to make a case that some prejudice or other nefarious motive is behind the missing pieces. Think for a moment about how hard it would actually be to convincingly demonstrate such a claim. By the way, there is an extensive literature on the role of fathers--and absent fathers--in all realms of child development. Enough for many developmental psych classes to have an entire section on it. So, in addition to being logically off-base ("mentioning one thing without another thing that i think is important is bad and wrong, and constitutes a denial that the second thing is important"), if you really believe that social and behavioral science neglects the role of fathers, you're also factually incorrect. Additionally:

 

There are also movies about husband's who drive their wives insane.

Has nothing to do with anything, and

 

thousands of years of sexism and the problems this has caused, especially the problem of fathers neglecting their roles as fathers, supported by sexist science, leading men to believe their role as fathers is not that important

Appears to constitute a claim that delinquent fathers are somehow consulting the scientific literature, thinking, "Ehh, all this stuff says it's mostly moms that are important, so I don't have to do anything." The science doesn't say that, and nobody'd be behaviorally driven by it in that way even if it did. Finally:

 

Of course expressing a positive attitude about a child will have a better effect on the child than expressing a negative attitude. It doesn't matter if the parent is male of female. The reaction to positive or negative stimulus will be what it is

Jives neither with peoples' implicit understanding of parenting roles, nor with established science. Children do not react neutrally and equally to both parents, and accept the same sort of inputs in the same way whether they came from mom or dad. The maternal attachment relationship--while not the only thing in a child's life--has been long understood to be of a particular unique importance. Do you think that constitutes some sort of sexist denial of male responsibility and burdening of mothers? Hmmm, I dunno... you should ask Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main, great infant attachment theorists, great pioneering women in psychological science, and originators of much of our understanding of the phenomenon.

 

Does sexism exist? For crap's sake, yes. Does everything in the world constitute evidence which you can wave around to support that fact? For crap's sake, no. Watch yourself before you do so. It weakens the case of a team I happen to be on.

Edited June 19, 2011 by PhDwannabe

[Marat]

The great problem with applying any moralistic social values to psychological studies (e.g., the moral values that fathers should stay with the children they father by remaining committed to the family) is that they fail to adopt a fully dialectical approach to social problems and instead just rely on a linear analysis based on conformity = praise and failure to conform = blame. Only a dialectical approach, in contrast, if tensions arise when society tries to fit men into their socially prescribed roles, we have to ask the question: Would it make more sense to try to discipline men further to remain in their traditionally prescribed father roles or to alter or abandon that prescribed social role entirely, since it is proving so difficult and conflictive to enforce? After all, fifty years of feminism has been based on the idea that women should be liberated from their traditionally prescribed roles, so why shouldn't men similarly be liberated from their traditional roles, especially if they are obviously having trouble fulfilling them?

 

The difficulty in looking at the problem objectively comes from the intrusion of morality into the analysis, which does not permit the design of social structures to be viewed neutrally as nothing more than an engineering problem of constructing functional units for society to operate more happily. Would morality really permit anyone to discover that men are in fact hormonally driven to be too creative, dynamic, imaginative, and ambitious to sit at home and play nursemaid, or to slave at some meaningless work for the sole purpose of being able to purchase sufficient supplies to support the egg-laying nest at home? Has anyone really bothered to take seriously the vacant, dead look in the eyes of new fathers, stupidly pushing a baby carriage down the street as the new mother meets and chats with other ladies on the street, nattering on about breast feeding, which diaper to buy, what clothes to get, the perennial hot topic of crib or basinette, what did Dr. Oz say about babies' health on Oprah, etc.? If males don't naturally enjoy this world, is it socially rational to blame and punish them for fleeing it and then call their more effective imprisonment in what is an unnatural role for them a successful design of society?

[Athena]

This is a vastly problematic way to view a study like this. In science, we're often interested in breaking down phenomena into granular, manageable bits. When we examine one of them, there is nothing--nothing--about that examination, per se, which claims that any of the other bits aren't important. To say so is to read into it with one's own agenda. If I study environmental contributions to the rate of drug use--neighborhood crime rate, availability of parks, etc.--am I for one moment saying that, for instance, parenting isn't important? Or that drug education isn't important? No. I'm just studying a small piece of a large puzzle. Nothing, nothing, nothing about the focus of my study denies the importance of other things. Even if I focus on that one phenomenon for my whole career, I'm not saying it's the only important contributor, it's just what I've specialized in.

 

Could you make a case that a broad literature base has yet to extensively treat some kind of important contributor to a phenomenon? Yes. But that's greatly different from attempting to make a case that some prejudice or other nefarious motive is behind the missing pieces. Think for a moment about how hard it would actually be to convincingly demonstrate such a claim. By the way, there is an extensive literature on the role of fathers--and absent fathers--in all realms of child development. Enough for many developmental psych classes to have an entire section on it. So, in addition to being logically off-base ("mentioning one thing without another thing that i think is important is bad and wrong, and constitutes a denial that the second thing is important"), if you really believe that social and behavioral science neglects the role of fathers, you're also factually incorrect. Additionally:

 

 

Has nothing to do with anything, and

 

 

Appears to constitute a claim that delinquent fathers are somehow consulting the scientific literature, thinking, "Ehh, all this stuff says it's mostly moms that are important, so I don't have to do anything." The science doesn't say that, and nobody'd be behaviorally driven by it in that way even if it did. Finally:

 

 

Jives neither with peoples' implicit understanding of parenting roles, nor with established science. Children do not react neutrally and equally to both parents, and accept the same sort of inputs in the same way whether they came from mom or dad. The maternal attachment relationship--while not the only thing in a child's life--has been long understood to be of a particular unique importance. Do you think that constitutes some sort of sexist denial of male responsibility and burdening of mothers? Hmmm, I dunno... you should ask Mary Ainsworth and Mary Main, great infant attachment theorists, great pioneering women in psychological science, and originators of much of our understanding of the phenomenon.

 

Does sexism exist? For crap's sake, yes. Does everything in the world constitute evidence which you can wave around to support that fact? For crap's sake, no. Watch yourself before you do so. It weakens the case of a team I happen to be on.

 

 

 

Could we make a case that when the female nurse inoculates a child, the child does not get the disease? Is the sex of person giving the inoculation important, or is it the stuff used for the inoculation that is important?

 

The research should be on the family and the effect of positive or negative feedback, not sexist, what is the effect of the mother.

 

By the way, after college and learning how social research is done, I think it is perhaps the worse source of trouble in modern times.

 

If we are going to discuss culture and delinquent fathers, I think we should do this is in a thread for that subject, not this one. However, here it is appropriate to say, sexist research and sexist reporting of research, leads to a sexist culture, not good science.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Athena

[PhDwannabe]

Could we make a case the when female nurses inoculate a child, the child does not get the disease? Is the sex of person giving the inoculation important, or is it the stuff used for the inoculation that is important?

Parental influences on child development are not inoculations. At the least, though, you've provided a fantastic example of the perils of arguments from analogy.

 

The research should be on the family and the effect of positive or negative feedback, not sexist what is the effect of the mother.

Any why are all those idiots wasting their time looking for the Higgs boson? Which also reminds me, I met a guy once who was an expert in a particular genus of grasshoppers, which is ridiculous, since there are so many other types of insects he's neglecting to include in his research. I could go so far as to call him prejudiced.

 

By the way, after college and learning how social research is done, I think it is perhaps the worse source of trouble in modern times.

You could have a point. War and famine are bad, but the horrible things I do to my experimental subjects--making them fill out all kinds of onerous surveys, for instance--are probably much, much worse.

[Athena]

Parental influences on child development are not inoculations. At the least, though, you've provided a fantastic example of the perils of arguments from analogy. [/Quote]

 

OH YES THEY ARE!

[PhDwannabe]

OH YES THEY ARE!

 

...is this a joke?

[Athena]

...is this a joke?

 

Did you read the opening post? If parents are negative with their children, the effect is negative. If parents are positive with their children, they are effectively inoculated, and better prepared to cope with life. And so we don't forget the point, the father is as important to this as the mother, and researchers and reporters need to avoid being sexist.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Did you read the opening post? If parents are negative with their children, the effect is negative. If parents are positive with their children, they are effectively inoculated, and better prepared to cope with life. And so we don't forget the point, the father is as important to this as the mother, and researchers and reporters need to avoid being sexist.

But the research specifically covers mothers, and so you have no evidence to support the claim that the father is just as important. It's not in the data.

 

Furthermore, this study covers children who already suffer from schizophrenia, so clearly their mother's positive attitude has not "inoculated" them from mental illness; it merely serves as an aid to treatment, rather than a preventative measure.

 

Science cannot operate with preconceived notions of what must be true. A scientist cannot say, "Fathers must be as influential as mothers," because he has not conducted the experiment to determine whether that is true. This is not sexist. This is merely a reflection of a society where men and women play different roles (due to sexism in many cases) and hence a society in which differences between genders do exist.

 

I suspect that in this particular case the researchers chose to study mothers because a pre-existing longitudinal study of mothers of psychiatric patients already existed and had collected significant amounts of data they could use in their analysis.

[Athena]

But the research specifically covers mothers, and so you have no evidence to support the claim that the father is just as important. It's not in the data.

 

Furthermore, this study covers children who already suffer from schizophrenia, so clearly their mother's positive attitude has not "inoculated" them from mental illness; it merely serves as an aid to treatment, rather than a preventative measure.

 

Science cannot operate with preconceived notions of what must be true. A scientist cannot say, "Fathers must be as influential as mothers," because he has not conducted the experiment to determine whether that is true. This is not sexist. This is merely a reflection of a society where men and women play different roles (due to sexism in many cases) and hence a society in which differences between genders do exist.

 

I suspect that in this particular case the researchers chose to study mothers because a pre-existing longitudinal study of mothers of psychiatric patients already existed and had collected significant amounts of data they could use in their analysis.

 

Thank you love for supporting my point. Sexist research continues to be a serious cultural problem.

 

However, there has also been research on the effect of the father. This is a more recent development and was neglected in the past, and this might explain why you are not aware of it?

 

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Edited June 21, 2011 by Athena

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

We're talking about the role of fathers in the treatment of schizophrenic young adults, not the role of fathers in the development of young children. The study has nothing to do with the behavior or impact of each parent as the child grew up.

 

Research must break these things down by gender because society has caused differences between the genders, whether we like it or not.

[zapatos]

The research should be on the family and the effect of positive or negative feedback, not sexist, what is the effect of the mother.

No, the research should be on the effects of positive or negative feedback from friends.

Then again, that seems rather arrogant of me to be telling others what they should do their research on. I have no idea what further studies they have planned, or what others they are working with are covering, or if the research funding covers separate research studies for the effect of fathers, etc. Never mind.

 

Thank you love for supporting my point. Sexist research continues to be a serious cultural problem.

 

However, there has also been research on the effect of the father. This is a more recent development and was neglected in the past, and this might explain why you are not aware of it?

 

1. [*][PDF]

The Importance of Fathers

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View

ered fathers. Researchers learned that fathers were not “optional family baggage.” Studies show the importance of a caring father in the life of a child, ...

msuextension.org/publications/.../MT200008HR.pdf - Similar►[*]

...

Are you criticizing these articles, as they seem to be sexist for concentrating on the father, separate from mentioning the effects of the mother?

[Athena]

No, the research should be on the effects of positive or negative feedback from friends.

Then again, that seems rather arrogant of me to be telling others what they should do their research on. I have no idea what further studies they have planned, or what others they are working with are covering, or if the research funding covers separate research studies for the effect of fathers, etc. Never mind.

 

 

Are you criticizing these articles, as they seem to be sexist for concentrating on the father, separate from mentioning the effects of the mother?

 

Oh, no what you said is not arrogant. I am coming from a thread where I made a point about the importance of friends, in our choices. When parents are not good citizens, but are perhaps violent people who live by their own rules, we seriously hope teachers and friends socialize a child in a better way. We must have many different studies, and keep in mind, each study is only one of the puzzle and there are at least a thousand pieces in the whole puzzle.

 

Mothers who are raising their children alone in a bad neighborhood, are far more likely to loose their children to gangs, or other subculture groups, because these children will realize they are better off finding more successful people to follow. The child doesn't yet know enough about the world, and why Mom isn't doing as well as the drug dealer. What child will a respect a mother who is failing to keep the family up to a high social standard? Especially in a culture that puts so much value on material things, and so little value on being a mother, or little value in character traits such as humility, honesty, hard work. Hum, maybe the study should take note of the social status of the mother, because the mother who can give her child advantages will be more successful than the one who can not.

 

Someone challenged what I said about the importance of fathers, so I used those studies to support my argument. In a culture that is so focused on the importance of the mother, and so over looks the importance of the father in child rearing, it is necessary to correct this thinking error by studying fathers. When the culture accepts both parents are important, perhaps thousands of years of sexism will no longer be a problem? Right now we are dealing with a serious problem of not recognizing the importance of the father, and need to correct this.

Edited June 24, 2011 by Athena