Parenting Representations: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications

The study of parents from their own perspective not just as socializing agents of their children has been long neglected. This book summarizes and presents the new and surging literature on parenting representations namely parents’ views, emotions and internal world regarding their parenting. Within this area, several prominent researchers typically coming from the attachment tradition suggested various ways of assessing parenting representations, mostly by way of semi-structured interviews. This book presents their conceptualizations and includes detailed descriptions of their interviews and their coding schemes. In addition, a review and summary of the growing number of findings in this domain and an integrated conceptualization that serves a theoretical base for future research are presented. Finally, the clinical implications of the study of parenting representations are discussed at large. Clinical notions and conceptualizations regarding parenting representations are presented and thoroughly discussed including detailed case studies that demonstrate among other things intergenerational transmission of representations.