Mother's of Children with ADHD

Considerable investigation has been undertaken to examine treatment for childhood ADHD.The difficulty in treating children with this disorder is that the efficacy of conventional treatment is highly variable, with no treatment showing enduring effects on ADHD behavior once the intervention is withdrawn. It has been hypothesized that an explanation for treatment failure may be found through the examination of a child s family dynamics, focusing on the relationship between child and mother. Although there is a huge body of literature documenting the many important issues concerning ADHD, little has been written about maternal object relations. This study investigates the impact of a mother s object relations on her ADHD child by combining information gathered through clinical interviews, projective testing and objective measures. Several themes were consistent:(1) a pattern of enmeshment and separation anxiety between mother and ADHD child; (2) maternal anger and guilt; (3) the child s ADHD triggering a narcissistic injury for the mother, leading to depression; (4) a mothers consistent use of defenses such as projective identification in relating to her ADHD child.