Comparison Of Parental Depression And The ABCX Model

Parental Depression and the ABCX Model

Dionna Weixel

University of Central Oklahoma

Parental Depression and the ABCX Model Parental depression has been correlated with many negative effects for offspring (Parys and Rober, 2013). Evidence has shown that genetic and environmental factors play a significant role in the development of depression for a child of a parent with depression (Silberg, Maes, and Eaves, 2010). Children of parents with depression may be exposed to unique stressors throughout their life. Unfortunatley, these children are ill prepared to face such stressors, but there successful adaptation and coping to such stressors is vital. The Double ABCX family stress model may be useful in determining how a

Also, children of depressed parents had difficulty in distinguishing when to internalize or externalize problems. They also faced exclusion from peer groups and showed reduced socialization behaviors. Other studies showed that children of depressed parents had higher levels of anxiety and depression. Champion et al. (2009) found that children of depressed parents had significantly higher rates of self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms than children without a depressed parent. This study focused on children with a depressed mother. It was found that said children reported withdrawn maternal behavior patterns. Because of this, children sought to care for and take some of the roles and responsibilities of their depressed parent, but were not sure how to do this. This confusion was found to occur when the child took on caregiving responsibilities for their father as

This theory has four components, which are represented by the letters in the title. The letter A represents the event or stressor that has occurred. A stressor can be defined as “a situation for which a family has no prior preparation and must therefore be viewed as problematic (p. 139). The family also possessed crisis-meeting resources, which is represented by the letter B. These resources could keep a family from crisis, but if they are absent, then they could lead a family to crisis. These resources interacted with the family’s interpretation of the event, which is represented by the letter C. Families that viewed stressor events as crisis producing as opposed to challenging were more likely to face crises (Hill, 1958). The event, family resources, and the definition the family gives the crises event lead to the crisis, which is represented by the letter