SECURITY, EMOTIONALITY, AND PARENTAL DEPRESSION - A COMMENTARY

New studies suggest that changes in family environments due to parental depression increase children's risk for psychopathology. However, some aspects of family and child functioning may not be adversely affected. Future directions include (a) more precise definition of the response processes that are at risk in children and (b) differentiation of response processes linked with different dysfunctional family processes (e.g., parenting, marital conflict). Little elaboration of conceptual models has occurred in response to recent findings. Emotional security provides an explanatory construct for how certain family environments associated with parental depression increase children's risk for psychopathology. New directions are outlined for the study of relations between family environments associated with parental depression and children's emotional security.