Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions: Co-construction of narratives in light of maternal trauma

The article focuses on detailed examination of the co-construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6-year-old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co-construction processes. To better understand these difficulties, the article also provides vignettes from interviews with mothers about children's inner worlds and show how examining the interviews may help explain the unfolding of the dialogues and particularly points of difficulty. The dialogues between the mothers and their children were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue procedure (Koren-Karie, Oppenheim, Chaimovich, & Etzion-Carasso, 2000). The maternal interviews were obtained using the Insightfulness Assessment procedure (Oppenheim & Koren-Karie, 2002). The discussion focuses on the significance of mother-child dialogues in shaping children's inner world, and points to the importance of providing intervention for adults who experienced childhood traumas that address not only their own personal issues but also their functioning as parents.