Preliminary Work

Abstract

The history of psychological research on postpartum depression in North America has been strongly tied to research on cognitive and behavioral models of depression (e.g., Beck, 1970; Lewinsohn et al., 1979). In the late 1970s, the behavioral, cognitive, learned helplessness, and self-control models of depression were all being subjected to numerous experimental tests using cross-sectional designs and college-student subjects (e.g., Craighead, Hickey, & DeMonbreun, 1979; Klein, Fencil-Morse, & Seligman, 1976). Most studies were attempting to link deficits proposed by the various depression models to the presence (or severity) of depression, usually indexed by self-report measures such as the Beck Depression Inventory. Two major limitations of this research led to an interest in studies of postpartum depression.