Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:851-855
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
Effects of childhood relationships on the adult's capacity to form social supports
JA Flaherty and JA Richman
Social supports have been viewed as central to psychological well- being,
but little attention has been directed to the capacity to form supportive
relationships. Psychoanalytic perspectives suggest that the quality of
adult relationships is derived from earlier childhood attachment
experiences. The authors tested this thesis by correlating medical
students' perceptions of their earlier relationships with their parents
with the perceived quality of their current social support networks. The
data suggest the need for a more complex and psychodynamically relevant
conceptualization of social supports, which has implications for
therapeutic interventions to ameliorate support deficits.
