The Spanish and Catalan Versions of the Parent Development Interview-Revised (PDI-R): Adaptation and Validation Process

Abstract

The reflective function (RF) or mentalization is nowadays considered a concept with a great explanatory and therapeutic potential. In this article we present the adaptation and validation of Parent Development Interview-Revised (PDI-R) to the Spanish and Catalan languages. It was performed by a cross-sectional design with a non-clinical sample of 61 Spanish and Catalan speaking mothers of under five mentally healthy children. The same sample responded to an Adult Attachment Questionnaire and to the Child Behavior Check List. The construct hypothesis based on attachment theory and mentalization research, expected a positive correlation between the parental RF level and adult attachment. Other hypothesis did not predict significant differences in the results of the two subsamples depending on sociodemographic characteristics. The results do confirm the hypothesis considered in a concordance way with the literature. The discussion provides some qualitative analysis closer to what is expected of the PDI-R’s clinical uses as a frame to work with parents. This study represents the PDI-R’s introduction in the Spanish and Catalan speaking population over the world. We think it opens the door to further research assessing the parental RF with Spanish speaking parents’ samples as well as to guide the clinical work with them.

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Vol:.(1234567890)
Contemporary Family Therapy (2018) 40:338–345
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-018-9457-y
1 3
ORIGINAL PAPER
The Spanish andCatalan Versions oftheParent Development
Interview-Revised (PDI-R): Adaptation andValidation Process
MartaGolanóFornells1 · CarlesPérezTéstor1· ManelSalameroBaró1
Published online: 3 February 2018
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract
The reflective function (RF) or mentalization is nowadays considered a concept with a great explanatory and therapeutic
potential. In this article we present the adaptation and validation of Parent Development Interview-Revised (PDI-R) to the
Spanish and Catalan languages. It was performed by a cross-sectional design with a non-clinical sample of 61 Spanish and
Catalan speaking mothers of under five mentally healthy children. The same sample responded to an Adult Attachment
Questionnaire and to the Child Behavior Check List. The construct hypothesis based on attachment theory and mentaliza-
tion research, expected a positive correlation between the parental RF level and adult attachment. Other hypothesis did not
predict significant differences in the results of the two subsamples depending on sociodemographic characteristics. The results
do confirm the hypothesis considered in a concordance way with the literature. The discussion provides some qualitative
analysis closer to what is expected of the PDI-R’s clinical uses as a frame to work with parents. This study represents the
PDI-R’s introduction in the Spanish and Catalan speaking population over the world. We think it opens the door to further
research assessing the parental RF with Spanish speaking parents’ samples as well as to guide the clinical work with them.
Keywords Parental reflective function· Early intervention· Early child development· Mentalization clinical uses·
Intergenerational transmission of attachment
Introduction
Why a baby needs a mother? From Shaver and Cassidy’s
(2008) point of view, this is the question that answers the
attachment theory. What the mother (or whoever takes care
of the child for the first years) provides to the child, is not
merely a behavior but the challenge to develop the child
mentalization capacity (Berthelot etal. 2015; Slade and
Sadler 2007) and other emotional and cognitive capaci-
ties as Bowlby predicted (Bretherton 1992). The parental
mentalization or RF during early child’s life is decisive to
construct a secure or insecure attachment between them,
mother or father, and child. Slade and colleagues (Fonagy
and Target 2005; Grienenberger etal. 2005; Slade 2005)
demonstrated that parental reflective functioning corre-
lated with mother’s and father’s attachment and with child’s
attachment. These authors focused on the relevance of the
parental mentalization as a mediator of the child attachment
through parenting. These premises have been demonstrated
recently (Ensink etal. 2016). But as Slade (2005) pointed
out, it is important to note that the parental mentalization
or RF emphasizes the centrality of the interaction between
the child and the parents, more than the parent as an indi-
vidual subject or the child as other individual subject. For
this reason the parental mentalization or reflective function-
ing capacities refer to this interaction, and it emerges within
that specific context.
The conceptual comprehension implies that the way the
parents understand and feel themselves as parents, as per-
sons, and understand their own attachment experiences dur-
ing their own childhood, it influences the way they are par-
ents nowadays (Johnson etal. 2003; Whitefield and Midgley
2015). The way the mother understands her own feelings as
a child and afterwards as a mother, influences the way she
understands her son or daughter as a child. In this sense, the
parental RF or the parental mentalization is understood as
the representation of the child’s mental states and his/her
own mind as a mother or as a father, in a specific interaction
and in a specific moment. The parental RF is the capacity
* Marta Golanó Fornells
martagf5@blanquerna.url.edu
1 FPCEE – Blanquerna, Carrer del Císter, 34,
08022Barcelona, Spain
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