Personality organization and maternal addiction: A structural-developmental psychodynamic contribution.

Motherhood has been deemed a normal crisis given the significant psychological, biological, and neural changes surrounding pregnancy and the postpartum period. These challenges can become more complex because they are closely related to the parent’s own self-development and sense of self-efficacy grounded in their personality prior to parenthood. The normal crisis of motherhood may be further complicated by addiction. Considering the evidence of the negative impact and poor developmental outcomes of children born to mothers with substance use disorders, special attention must be paid to addiction in this context. This paper is a review of evidence on the challenges of parenthood, particularly when affected by addiction. We explore the centrality of object relations in personality development and parenting practices and discuss the problem of maternal addiction from multiple perspectives, particularly Blatt’s (1991a) two-polarities model of personality development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)