Parenting Practices Associated with Specific Parental Mental Illnesses

There is a general recognition that, when a parent has a mental illness, their illness might influence their own functioning, including the parenting they provide for their children. This chapter provides a model of healthy parenting, and then reviews research about how different parental mental disorders can influence parenting practices and impact on children. Research about specific impacts on parenting practices associated with parental anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder is discussed. The chapter discusses how each parental mental illness impacts on parenting practices and produces a tendency for parents to use specific inadequate parenting practices, where inadequate parenting practices influence interactions with children and are associated with disorders in children. Placing a focus on inadequate parenting practices highlights ways that therapies can intervene to improve parenting practices when parents have a diagnosed mental disorder.