Associations Between Maternal Maltreatment-Specific Shame, Maternal-Infant Interactions, And Infant Emotion Regulation

The current study focuses on maltreatment-specific shame as a potential mechanism by which mothers\u27 histories of childhood maltreatment might influence parenting and infant emotion regulation. Shame is a common reaction to childhood maltreatment, and the persistence of maltreatment-specific shame is associated with psychopathology and other psychosocial problems long after the abuse ends (Andrews, Brewin, Rose, & Kirk, 2000; Feiring, Taska, & Lewis, 2002a; Feiring & Taska, 2005). Despite being associated with psychopathology (e.g., depression, PTSD), shame is a conceptually distinct abuse-specific reaction that can interfere with self and interpersonal development (Feiring, Cleland & Simon, 2010; Feiring, Simon, Cleland, 2009; Feiring, Simon, Cleland & Barrett, 2013). Remarkably little is known about whether and how maltreatment-specific shame might affect women\u27s postpartum adjustment, parenting, and infant emotion regulation. The current study begins to address this gap in the literature by (1) identifying factors associated with maltreatment-specific shame during the postpartum period, and (2) examining associations between mothers\u27 maltreatment-specific shame with parenting (as measured by maternal hostility and maternal positive affect) and infants\u27 emotion regulation during an interactional stressor at 6-months postpartum. These associations were also explored with depression, to compare the outcomes and understand the distinct effects of shame with parenting and infant emotion regulation. Results indicate that maltreatment-specific shame is predicted by multi-maltreatment, but not any other socio-demographic or maltreatment characteristics. Additionally, maltreatment-specific shame predicts maternal hostility, but not maternal positive affect during maternal-child interactions. Depression predicts both maternal positive affect and maternal hostility. Evidence did not support indirect relationships between shame and infant emotion regulation via parenting behaviors. The relationships between shame, parenting, and infant emotion regulation may be better understood by exploring the long-term associations between depression symptoms and shame with parenting behavior and infant emotion regulation. The current study provides evidence in support of theories that maltreatment-specific shame is related to increased hostile parenting behaviors

Randomized pilot trial of the “Mom Power” trauma- and attachment-informed multi-family group intervention in treating and preventing postpartum symptoms of depression among a health disparity sample

IntroductionPerinatal depression, a common complication related to childbearing, impacts mothers, children, and families. Efficacious interventions reduce perinatal depression symptoms; effort is needed to prevent the onset of perinatal depression. To determine feasibility and preliminary efficacy in reducing perinatal depression, we conducted a community-based, randomized parallel open pilot trial of Mom Power, a group-based intervention to improve mental health and parenting in mothers with young children.MethodsMom Power consists of 10 group sessions, focused on parenting, child development and self-care and three individual sessions, to build rapport and provide personalized referrals. Control group participants received psychoeducational mailings. Computer-based urn randomization assigned mothers with experiences of interpersonal violence, depression, or other traumatic experiences to Mom Power (68) or control (54).ResultsAt 3-months post-treatment, the 31 retained women assigned to Mom Power were half as likely to meet criteria for probable depression (26%) as the 22 women retained in the control group (55%), with treatment predicting lower incidence of probable depression (OR = 0.13, p = 0.015). Moreover, among the 23 women who did not meet criteria for depression diagnosis at baseline, no women in the treatment group developed depression (n = 0, 0%) compared to control group women (n = 3, 30%). Logistic regression controlling for selective attrition confirmed the treatment effect on preventing new onset of depression (OR = 0.029, p = 0.012).ConclusionThese findings support the use of Mom Power for both treatment and prevention of perinatal depression.Clinical trial registrationhttps://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01554215, NCT01554215

Identification and rejection of pile-up jets at high pseudorapidity with the ATLAS detector

The rejection of forward jets originating from additional proton–proton interactions (pile-up) is crucial for a variety of physics analyses at the LHC, including Standard Model measurements and searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. The identification of such jets is challenging due to the lack of track and vertex information in the pseudorapidity range |η| > 2.5. This paper presents a novel strategy for forward pile-up jet tagging that exploits jet shapes and topological jet correlations in pile-up interactions. Measurements of the per-jet tagging efficiency are presented using a data set of 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector. The fraction of pile-up jets rejected in the range 2.5 < |η| < 4.5 is estimated in simulated events with an average of 22 interactions per bunch-crossing. It increases with jet transverse momentum and, for jets with transverse momentum between 20 and 50 GeV, it ranges between 49% and 67% with an efficiency of 85% for selecting hard-scatter jets. A case study is performed in Higgs boson production via the vector-boson fusion process, showing that these techniques mitigate the background growth due to additional proton–proton interactions, thus enhancing the reach for such signatures

Examining nonverbal shame markers among post-pregnancy women with maltreatment histories

Nearly one million children experience childhood maltreatment each year (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). Childhood maltreatment is often accompanied by feelings of shame which, for some, may persist long after the maltreatment ends and is linked to a number of important outcomes including Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (Alessandri & Lewis, 1996; Feiring & Taska, 2005; Toth, Cicchetti, Macfie, & Emde, 1997). Longitudinal research by Feiring and colleagues indicates that among those with histories of child sexual abuse (CSA), the persistence of self-reported CSA-specific shame predicts later symptoms of PTSD (Feiring, Taska, & Lewis, 2005; Feiring, Simon, & Cleland, 2009). Informed by previous studies, this study differed in a number of ways. The current study examines whether nonverbal (observer-rated) indicators of shame are associated with concurrent levels of PTSD symptoms among a sample of women with histories of child maltreatment. Shame may be measured nonverbally or via self-report; however, self-reports of shame may not fully capture shameful emotions (Andrews, 1998a). Therefore, assessments of nonverbal shame may provide a more comprehensive measure. The measure of observed, nonverbal shame created for this study addresses several limitations in the extant literature by integrating multiple indicators used in prior studies into a single comprehensive assessment of the occurrence of maltreatment-specific shame (Bennett, Sullivan, & Lewis, 2005; Bonanno et al., 2002; Lewis, 1992; Lewis & Alessandri, 1996; Negrao, Bonanno, Noll, Putnam, & Tricket, 2005; Stipek, Recchia, McClintic & Lewis, 1992). Observer ratings of nonverbal shame were compared to participants\u27 self-reported ratings of maltreatment-related shame, and with concurrent reports of PTSD symptoms. Moreover, the current study focused on women during the post-pregnancy period, a time when women are re-examining their childhood maltreatment and a time when women are vulnerable for a resurgence of PTSD symptoms (Lev-Wiesel, Daphna-Tekoah, & Hallak, 2009). Six months after the birth of their child, ninety-four women completed a video-taped Trauma Meaning Making Interview discussing their history of childhood maltreatment. The participants\u27 behavior during the interview was rated on a scale of one to five on three nonverbal shame indicators: head down, avoidant posture, and collapsed posture. Women also answered questionnaires regarding current symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Results indicated nonverbal shame can be reliably measured using this new system. Moreover, head down occurred significantly more often than postures. Demonstrating convergent validity, nonverbal shame assessed by head down behaviors and an overall composite of nonverbal shame was significantly correlated with self-reported shame. Nonverbal abuse related shame was associated with concurrent PTSD symptoms and diagnosis, with head down behaviors significantly predicting PTSD symptoms and diagnosis. Replication of these findings is needed to clarify the reasons for the discrepancies between head down behaviors and posture behaviors. This difference could be due to inconsistencies in the thresholds between head downs and postures, or the interview being a social interaction that is likely to elicit more head down behavior than postural behaviors. The current findings suggest that nonverbal shame has a unique effect on PTSD symptoms and diagnosis. The clinical implications of this finding point to the importance of observing and recognizing patient shameful behavior during treatment for childhood maltreatment and PTSD

Longitudinal Relations Between Childhood Maltreatment, Maltreatment-Specific Shame, and Postpartum Psychopathology

The persistence of shame-based reactions to child maltreatment (CM) has been associated with poor posttraumatic adjustment. Despite evidence that the postpartum period is a vulnerable time for women with CM histories, little is known about the consequences of maltreatment-specific (MS) shame for postpartum functioning. The current study examined individual differences in MS shame among a sample of women during the postpartum period (n = 100) as well as prospective relations from MS shame to postpartum psychopathology at 6-, 12-, 15-, and 18-month postpartum. Linear growth curve (LGC) analyses showed that MS shame predicted higher levels of depression symptoms but not post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms at all time points whereas path analyses showed that shame mediated the relations from multi-maltreatment to both depression and PTSD symptoms at all time points. Results point to the long-term consequences of MS shame during postpartum and the importance of attending to shame in clinical care of maltreatment survivors who present with postpartum psychopathology