An empirical study of object relations in adult children of depressed elderly mothers

This study used a psychodynamic perspective on psychological functioning, object relations, for understanding coping and emotional distress in (N = 50) sons and daughters providing assistance to an elderly mother hospitalized for major depression. Hypotheses that better maternal object relations would be related to more adaptive coping and less emotional distress received partial support. The hypothesis that an elderly mother's history of depression when a son or daughter was a child would be associated with adult children's poorer object relations received support. Results indicate that object relations may be a useful framework for studying family issues in late life depression.