What does the research tell us about the impact of parental mental illness on children?
Two decades of research indicate that children who have a parent with mental illness are at a greater risk for the development of psychosocial problems. (See Nicholson et al., 2001 for additional references.) The research on child outcomes has been limited in several ways. Most studies focus on mothers with a diagnosis of depression. Our understanding of the process of risk and resilience in children is limited with respect to other parental diagnoses. The pathways between parental psychiatric disorder and child outcomes involve multiple mediating and moderating processes (Goodman & Gotlib, 1999).
