How do maternal psychological well-being (depression, anxiety, somatization) and the child's temperament affect maternal mind-mindedness?

Previous studies highlighted the role of maternal psychopathological symptoms (i.e. depression and anxiety) in difficulties in mentalizing with an infant's internal states, with negative effects on maternal sensitivity, as well as mind-mindedness – defined as the caregiver's ability to perceive the child as an individual with a mind of his or her own and intentionality. In light of this, this study hypothesizes that maternal mind-mindedness may be negatively affected by the presence of depressive, anxiety, and somatization symptoms and that, therefore, mothers who report higher scores on the Depression, Anxiety, and Somatization subscales and higher levels of parenting stress show fewer mind-related comments than mothers with lower scores. Several studies which focused on depressive and anxiety symptoms in mothers have shown mixed results. Thus, the review of these studies on this topic will be made, with a focus on the type of the sample, the age of the child, the questionnaire used, and the time considered for assessment. Furthermore, a comparison will be made between the data found through literature search and the data collected in this study. Regarding the somatization subscale, no study to date explored the influence of maternal somatization on maternal mind-mindedness, so an additional aim of the study will be to fill this gap in the literature. In addition to the mothers' psychological profile, the role of the child's temperament will be also investigated through past literature and the data collected, to observe if certain characteristics contribute to the maternal abilities.