Exploring Perceived Attachment Experiences in Iranian Adolescents with Depressive symptoms, Suicidal Ideation, and Suicide Attempts

Attachment theory provides a framework to understand the association between insecure attachment and emotional problems. However, most attachment research has focused solely on mother-child attachment relationships to understand the child’s emotional problems, and research accounting for father-child attachment relationships has lagged behind. Recent studies have suggested that paternal attachment, both uniquely and in interaction with maternal attachment, plays an important role in a child’s developmental outcomes. Moreover, most of these studies were conducted in Western societies, and the results might not generalize to non-Western cultures such as the Iranian culture. Therefore, the current dissertation aimed to go beyond the traditional view of mother-child attachment and examine the role of fathers in adolescents’ depression/suicidality in Iran. Three studies were conducted. First, a survay study investigated the role of parental attachment in depression and suicide ideation in female adolescents. Secondly, we qualitatively explored insecure attachment-related experiences with both parents. Third, a questionnaire study examined whether the cognitive (reflective functioning) and interpersonal (loneliness) mechanisms that explain the link between insecure attachment and depression are the same for maternal and paternal attachment in Iran.