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PubMed2005

The relationship between perceived parenting, adult attachment style and alexithymia in alcoholic inpatients.

In this paper we examine the understudied relationship between alexithymia on the one hand, and adult attachment and perceived parenting on the other hand, in a clinical sample of alcoholic inpatients (N=101). We test whether differences between a high and a low scoring group on trait alexithymia can be predicted on the basis of attachment style and perceived parenting. We observed that the avoidant attachment style is a strong predictor. Subsequently we test whether three dimensions of alexithymia - affective, cognitive and social - are meaningfully linked to adult attachment and perceived parenting. We noticed that cognitive alexithymia especially was predicted by the avoidant attachment style and a lack of warmth perceived in the relationship to the father.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Strengths and difficulties as correlates of attachment style in institutionalized and non-institutionalized children with below-average intellectual abilities.

The current study examined attachment style, strengths, and difficulties in institutionalized and non-institutionalized children with below-average intellectual abilities. Parents/caregivers and teachers of the children completed a brief measure of attachment style and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, which assesses the most important domains of child psychopathology (i.e., emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity-inattention, and peer problems) as well as personal strengths (i.e., prosocial behavior). Results indicated that institutionalized children were more frequently insecurely attached and generally displayed higher levels of difficulties and lower levels of strengths than non-institutionalized children. Furthermore, within both groups of children, insecure attachment status was linked to higher levels of difficulties but lower levels of strengths.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

Romantic jealousy and adult romantic attachment.

Research on romantic jealousy is consistent with the idea that jealousy is, at least in part, the product of threats to attachment relationships. Attachment theory was used as a framework for examining individual differences in the ways in which people experience and express jealousy. Emotional, behavioral, and cognitive concomitants of romantic jealousy were related to differences in attachment style in ways consistent with attachment theory. For example, anxious participants were relatively more likely than others to resist expressing their anger, avoidant participants were especially likely to turn their anger and blame against the interloper, and securely attached participants were especially likely to express anger toward the partner and to maintain their relationship. Differences in attachment style, not just differences in level of security, are predictive of qualitative individual differences in jealousy experiences.

Affect↗

PubMed2001

Attachment style classification and posttraumatic stress disorder in former prisoners of war.

Adult attachment style and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology were investigated in 107 former prisoner of war veterans. Those with secure attachment styles scored significantly lower on measures of PTSD than did those with insecure styles, and attachment style was a stronger predictor of PTSD symptom intensity than was trauma severity. The suggested association between attachment style and PTSD's development and persistence are discussed in relation to research and clinical practice.

Aged↗

PubMed2006

Maternal sensitivity to infant distress and nondistress as predictors of infant-mother attachment security.

In considering Bowlby's (1969/1982) conceptualization of attachment as a "biobehavioral safety-regulating system," Goldberg, Grusec, & Jenkins (1999) proposed that maternal sensitivity to infant distress may be particularly relevant to the formation of a secure attachment relationship. Data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care provided a unique opportunity to address this question as maternal sensitivity to nondistress and distress were each coded for 357 mother-infant dyads at 6 months and 230 dyads at 15 months from videotaped observations of mother-infant play sessions. Attachment security was assessed in the Strange Situation at 15 months. Logistic regression analyses indicated that greater sensitivity to distress (but not greater sensitivity to nondistress) at 6 months was associated with increased odds of being classified as secure. The 15-month sensitivity measures were nonsignificant predictors of security. The results support the notion that the protective function of the child-mother attachment relationship may be especially salient during early infancy.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Assessing children's representational attachment models: links to mother-child attachment quality in infancy and childhood.

The authors examined whether the finding of a correspondence between specific behavioral patterns of attachment in infancy and childhood and specific representational patterns in childhood could be replicated using children's responses to a story depicting an imagined parent-child separation experience. The participants were 33 German mothers and their children (16 girls, 17 boys). Attachment quality was assessed via standard and exploratory attachment observations at ages 12 months, 18 months, and 6 years. Chi-square analyses indicated that there was a good level of concordance between the behavioral and representation attachment patterns in infancy and childhood.

Anxiety, Separation↗

PubMed2000

Maternal attachment and sensitivity in an at-risk sample.

This study investigated the relationship between adult attachment status and maternal sensitivity in a sample of 30 at-risk mother-child dyads. The children were 18-42 months old with an equal distribution of boys and girls that were at risk for compromised development due to a number of social, emotional and environmental factors. Using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) it was found that only 17% of the mothers were classified as autonomous, while 83% were classified as anxious regarding attachment. Sensitivity was measured using the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) (Biringen, Robinson, & Emde, 1993). Each mother-child pair was video-taped in their home during a 30-minute interactional sequence in which they played with a given set of toys. Only the results from the Maternal Sensitivity Scale are reported here. Mothers who were free to evaluate their attachment experiences on the AAI were most sensitive. Mothers who showed anxiety in evaluating attachment, as a group, while undoubtedly caring and concerned, were less sensitive. There was, however, wide variability within the group of mothers with anxious attachment representations, Preoccupied mothers showing the least optimal interactions.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Attachment and emotion experience in later life: the view from emotions theory.

Despite the large volume of research on attachment over the past three decades based on work with children and young adults, there has been scant attention to later life. As such, Bowlby's claim that attachment theory has implications for the entire lifespan remains relatively untested. In this paper we present exploratory data documenting the relations between attachment and emotion in older adults. A sample of 1118 community-dwelling adults ranging in age from 65 to 86 years completed measures of attachment and Izard's (1972) Differential Emotions Scale. Consistent with a developmental-functionalist theory of emotions, different dimensions of attachment were associated with different emotion profiles, even when background variables were controlled. Attachment security was associated with less guilt, contempt, and shame, and with greater joy, sadness interest, fear and anger. Dismissingness, in contrast, was associated with greater interest and with less joy, shame, and fear. Finally, fearful avoidance was associated with greater joy, disgust, shame and anxiety. Taken together, our data suggest that the later life relations between emotion and attachment are similar to those documented in younger samples, although there appear to be some important developmental differences. The data are interpreted in the context of developmental-functionalist theories of emotions and implications for how emotions function within attachment systems and moderate social relations across the lifespan are discussed.

Affect↗

PubMed1992

The relation between attachment and knowledge of self and mother in one to three-year-old infants.

The relation between attachment to mother and knowledge of self and mother in 2 domains was assessed in 1- to 3-year-old infants. Infants' featural knowledge was measured by featural recognition, name, possession, and gender. In this domain, no difference between the 2 attachment classifications was obtained at 1 year of age, but significant and increasingly large differences between securely and insecurely attached infants were found at 2 and 3 years of age. The second domain measured infants' actions on self and mother in the context of symbolic play. Regardless of age, infants who were securely attached to mother acted on self and mother with greater complexity than did infants who were insecurely attached. Attachment was related equally to the complexity of infants' knowledge of self and mother. These data were discussed in the context of the development of infants' internal working models of attachment and the onset of representational ability.

Child, Preschool↗

PubMed1994

Adult attachment styles: some thoughts on closeness-distance struggles.

Difficulty with distance regulation is a central source of controversy in couples' relationships. This article describes how attachment theory can contribute to the understanding and treatment of closeness-distance struggles. Discussion focuses on (a) closeness-seeking as a feature of the attachment system, (b) individual differences in adult attachment styles, and (c) the working model that governs how salient interpersonal information is processed and is responded to both emotionally and behaviorally. These elements of the attachment system not only contribute to understanding closeness-distance disturbance but also provide access points for therapeutic intervention.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Pulling on the heart strings: an emotionally focused approach to family life cycle transitions.

Transitions through the family life cycle can be stressful because they challenge attachment bonds between family members. Open communication and the processing of primary attachment emotions are crucial when family systems change. When family members are insecurely attached, such open communication is difficult, and people tend to get stuck in absorbing states of secondary defensive affect. Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) can be particularly helpful by encouraging family members to express primary emotions. This expression then fosters renegotiation of bonds and the clarification of attachment needs and concerns. Case examples illustrate how EFT can be applied to each family life cycle stage.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

A composite formulation of agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia is a disabling disorder with many diverse views about its genesis, maintenance, and treatment. In this paper three perspectives--attachment and misattribution, safety signal, and interpersonal context--are described in a composite formulation of the condition.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Attachment style, excessive reassurance seeking, relationship processes, and depression.

The authors examined the association between excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) in couple relationships and depression, hypothesizing that this association can be explained by attachment anxiety. In Study 1, 72 couples completed questionnaires about ERS, depression, attachment style, and relationship quality. In Study 2, 61 couples completed the same measures in addition to completing daily diary assessments for 14 days. In both studies, ERS was related to depression, but only because of its association with attachment anxiety. The association between attachment anxiety and depression was not mediated by either partner's relationship quality, even though partners noticed each other's ERS. Instead, relationship quality was related primarily to avoidant attachment. These findings were replicated at a daily level of analysis, where interesting details of the underlying processes were revealed. At least in young unmarried couples, depression is associated with attachment anxiety--and one of its facets, ERS--mostly for intrapsychic reasons.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Parental-fetal attachment and couvade: a study of patterns of human-environment integrality.

The general purpose of the study was to address the difficulty of explaining fathers' prenatal attachments to their unborn children and the difficulty of explaining the phenomenon of couvade. Rogers' principle of integrality was used to derive a theory of the nature of the interactions between fathers and their unborn children as being a human-environment energy field process. The theory held the possibility of fathers having a relationship with their unborn children which was not wholly derivative of their relationship with their pregnant partners; it posited the possible association of fathers' attachment, mothers' attachment, and fathers' couvade experiences. Couvade experiences, previously studied as male pregnancy-like symptoms, were conceptualized as fathers' recognition of changes in themselves and their environments which included their emerging children. Measures of fathers' and mothers' attachments and fathers' ratings of their couvade experiences were obtained during the third trimester for 110 couples' pregnancies. The hypothesized relations among parents' fetal attachments and couvade were not supported. An inverse relation (r = -0.47, p less than 0.001) between fathers' and mothers' attachment scores led to revisions of the interpretation of integrality as used in this study.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Attachment, social support and well-being in young and older adults.

The present study examined the link between attachment, social support and well-being in young and older adults. The results from multi-group path analyses showed significant between-group differences in the links between attachment, perceived support and well-being. Anxious attachment and well-being were inversely associated and this was stronger for the younger group than it was for the older group. Avoidant attachment was negatively related to perceived support satisfaction in the older age group only, and perceived support mediated the effects of avoidant attachment on mental health and loneliness in the older group. Generally, perceived satisfaction with support was more strongly related with well-being in older adults. The results point to differential links of insecure attachment styles with perceived support in different life-stages and to related cognitive, emotional and social processes.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder in women from a psychometric perspective.

Herman's (1992a) formulation of complex PTSD was not incorporated into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), but finds ample confirmation in personality assessment of women in inpatient treatment for trauma-related disorders. This study relates MCMI-III and Adult Attachment Scale scores to a self-report measure of childhood abuse and neglect, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Consistent with Herman's formulation, the data reveal a wide array of symptoms coupled with two facets of relationship disturbance: (a) enmeshment in ambivalence (depressive, dependent, and self-defeating personality as well as ambivalent attachment), and (b) more profound isolation (avoidant and schizoid personality coupled with profoundly insecure attachment). We present a model for using such psychometric findings in patient education and diagnostic evaluations.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Insecure attachment as a predictor of outcome following inpatient trauma treatment for women survivors of childhood abuse.

The role of insecure attachment as a predictor of outcome was investigated in 134 women who reported histories of child abuse and completed an inpatient program for treatment of traumatic stress. Multiple linear regressions were used to predict the change scores on four outcome measures at discharge and 6-month follow-up. Higher levels of feared loss of the attachment figure independent of demographics, symptomatic severity, and trauma exposure consistently predicted poorer outcome at both post-tests. Interventions that focus on internal models of attachment and current attachment relationships may improve outcome in women reporting severe abuse in childhood.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Parental psychological control and attachment in late adolescents and young adults.

The aim of this study was to examine the association between parental psychological control and parental attachment. Another goal was to investigate the differential and combined effects of these two constructs on indices of psychological well-being, namely, self-esteem, positive or negative affect, and personal and interpersonal efficacy. Subjects were 319 males (n = 142) and females (n = 177) with an age range of 15 yr., 9 mo. to 22 yr., 5 mo. (M = 20.0, SD = 1.6). Analysis showed that psychological control was negatively related to attachment. Both psychological control and attachment predicted self-esteem, and there was some indication that psychological control exercised by mothers had a stronger influence on self-esteem. Attachment was also a significant predictor of positive and negative affect and perceived personal efficacy. No sex or age differences were found.

Adolescent↗