Parental bonding: can obsessive symptoms and general distress be predicted by perceived rearing practices?

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between obsessivity and reported parental rearing style (care and protection) in non- clinical subjects, controlling for anxiety and depression. One hundred and seventy subjects filled in four inventories: the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), the Padua Inventory Revised (PI-R), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results showed a relationship between the STAI and the PBI, with high anxiety scores corresponding to low care and high protection. The same pattern was found for the BDI, with high depression scores corresponding to low care and overprotection. Concerning the PI-R, we observed the absence of a significant relationship between parental care and protection and total obsessivity scores. A significant correlation was found for the ‘rumination’ subscale of the PI-R, with high rumination scores corresponding to maternal overprotection and low parental care. Multiple regression analyses showed that there was no significant portion of variance unique to obsessive symptoms explained by parental rearing style. These results suggest that obsessivity is not linked to a specific parental rearing style, and that a poor parental bonding, especially regarding care, could constitute a general factor for emotional distress in adulthood, rather than acting as a precursor to a specific disorder. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.