Recall of parental behaviors in female neurotic depressives.

Twenty-four neurotic depressive females and 24 female anxiety neurotics were compared on a 90-item questionnaire that concerned recall of parental behavior. Relative to anxiety neurotics, the neurotic depressives recalled fathers as unloving disciplinarians and recalled mothers as difficult to please, intrusive and controlling, and possibly more concerned with their own than with their children's needs. Previous findings that parents of depressives are recalled as depriving were supported, and a methodology for differentiating neurotic depressives from anxiety neurotics was described.