The quality of the mother infant relationship is of critical importance in perinatal psychiatry. We aim to ensure that the infant has a good attachment relationship with the mother, but this can be interfered with by the mother’s mental illness. Working in perinatal psychiatry allows one to see the mother and infant interaction across a broad range of psychiatric disorders. Our observations of what is going on, allow us to make some hypothesis about how a mother interacts with her baby.
Specific issues have been identified among women with schizophrenia; cognitive deficits in schizophrenia that compromise parenting capacity, deficits in social cognition, especially theory of mind that interfere with parenting and the positive and negative symptoms that have a profound impact on the mother-infant interaction. Depression has been considered to be a factor contributing to attachment difficulties in the infant. Two studies will be reported on that suggest personality style (Borderline Personality Disorder and Interpersonal sensitivity) may be of more relevance in attachment than depression.