Clinical experience in a perinatal psychiatric disorders aroused concern that the needs of the male partner of the depressed woman were not adequately addressed and that failure to do so was potentially deleterious for the man, the parent-child relationship, the marital relationship and the woman's clinical course. A pilot study of a psychotherapeutic group for these men was undertaken in 1998.

Participants were recruited from a survey sent to all men, whose partners had accessed the Brisbane Centre for Postnatal Disorders, Belmont Private Hospital, Brisbane, in the previous twelve months. The six men recruited were married and each had one or two children, aged three months to five years.

The group was a psychodynamically informed, psychotherapeutic group, held for one and a half hours, weekly, for six sessions, facilitated by two psychiatrists. An evaluative focus group was conducted by the third researcher two weeks after the conclusion of the therapeutic group.

The study employed repeated measures and descriptive clinical data. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck et al 1961), General Health Questionnaire-30 (Goldberg and Williams 1988), Significant Others Scale (Power et al 1988), Parenting Stress Index (Abidin 1983), and Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier 1976) were administered pre-intervention, immediately post-intervention, and three months post-intervention. The female partners were also asked to complete the BDI, SOS, and DAS at the same intervals.

Findings: Whilst no statistical conclusions could be drawn, the review of the measures administered indicated significant psychopathology in all domains assessed. The GHQ-C drew attention to the chronicity of this pathology. There was no significant change in these measures following the group intervention. This conflicted with the men's self-report at the focus group of significant benefit, but supports the researchers clinical view that six sessions were inadequate for a group of this nature. Themes which emerged in the sessions included the extent to which the men's lives were dominated and constricted by their spouse's depression, their sense of confusion and powerlessness, and their lack of and need for support for themselves.

Conclusion: The clinical concern that the needs of male partners of women with postnatal depression require specific attention was confirmed. A short-term psychotherapeutic group was of limited benefit.

Recommendations: More research is needed into the experience and needs of the male partners of women with postnatal depression. Evaluation of a longer-term psychotherapeutic group intervention is proposed. Alternative interventions, such as a cognitive-behavioural therapy group need consideration.