Stability and change in mother-child relationships are examined in early childhood across a three-year interval, in mother-child dyads with mothers with a diagnosis of bipolar depression and mothers with a diagnosis of unipolar depression, in comparison with normal control mother-child dyads. How mother and child relate to each other is observed in a variety of videotaped situations when the children were between 2 to 3-1/2 years old and, again, about three years later, when the children were about 5 to 6 1/2 years old.