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PubMed2000

Romantic acts and depression.

The aim of the present study was to provide an examination of the relationship between the importance individuals attach to romantic acts and depressive symptoms. Among 140 male and 160 female English undergraduate students, the importance individuals attach to romantic acts is significantly negatively correlated with higher scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Depression symptoms subscale of the General Health Questionnaire among the men only.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Adult attachments and sexuality: implications for understanding risk behaviours for HIV infection.

In response to the AIDS epidemic, there has been an intensification of interest in human sexuality research in general and "safe sex" practices in particular. Most research models have been somewhat mechanistic in focus, however, with little recognition of the significance of affectional needs in the formation and maintenance of sexual relationships. In this paper we propose that relationship issues are central to an understanding of the expression of sexuality, and that attachment theory provides a useful perspective on human sexual bonds. It is suggested that future research could usefully extend the conceptualisation of adult attachment styles by exploring the meaning of attachment relationships for gay and heterosexual couples, and the implications of attachment style for the behaviours associated with sexual relationships, including the negotiation of safe sex practices. Such research would have direct relevance for prevention programs relevant to HIV/AIDS.

HIV Infections↗

PubMed1999

The nature of the mother's tie to her infant: maternal bonding under conditions of proximity, separation, and potential loss.

Attachment has generally been examined from the infant's perspective. We focused on mothers' post-partum thoughts and behaviors. Guided by an ethological approach, maternal bonding was examined under conditions of proximity, separation, and potential loss. Ninety-one mothers were interviewed: mothers of full-term infants who maintained continuous proximity to the infant, mothers of healthy premature infants who were separated from the infant, and mothers of very low birthweight infants who experienced potential loss and prolonged separation. Mothers of term infants reported medium-to-high levels of preoccupations with thoughts of infant safety and well-being. Preoccupations increased with separation (Group 2) and significantly decreased with impending loss (Group 3). Attachment behaviors and representations were the highest among mothers of term infants and declined linearly with the duration of mother-infant separation. Maternal trait anxiety and depression were related respectively to higher levels of preoccupations and reduced attachment behaviors and representations, independent of the infant medical condition and mother-child separation. Discussion focused on the comparability of maternal and infant attachment in relation to the neurobiological system underlying bond formation.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

[Disturbed early bonding and its consequences].

During the course of its first year of life, the infant develops a strong attachment to the person with whom it has most contact (usually the mother), to whom it turns for consolation when in pain, or protection when threatened. If the infant's bonding needs are not adequately met, rage, disappointment, or ambivalent feelings towards that person may result. The trauma of separation or loss, pronounced emotional deprivation, and abusive experiences are a major reason for disordered bonding. Early diagnosis, psychotherapeutic treatment of children with attachment problems and parent counseling or treatment are essential to prevent the problem from becoming chronic and to promote the development of adaptive bonding patterns.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Parental and peer attachment of hospitalized adolescent patients--pilot study].

AIM: In the context of Bowlby's theory of attachment authors made an attempt to assess parental and peer attachment in different clinical subgroups of hospitalised adolescents. METHOD: 142 patients--58 with the diagnosis of neurotic disorders, 49 eating disorders and 35 patients with schizophrenic disorders, as well 34 untreated, healthy adolescents were assessed by The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment by Armsden and Greenberg. RESULTS: The group of schizophrenic patients was characterised by disturbed attachment with peers and normal attachment with parents.Two other diagnostic subgroups, neurotic and eating disorders were similar as far as nature of attachment was concerned. The attachment was disturbed both with parents and peers, but the level of alienation in relations with peers in the group of eating disorder patients was similar to the level in the group of schizophrenic patients. This conclusion allows us to put the group of eating disorders closer to the group of schizophrenic, than neurotic patients, as far as attachment is concerned. CONCLUSIONS: The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, used for the first time in Poland, can be seen as a promising instrument in assessing three dimensions of attachment: communication, trust and alienation in relations with parents and peers.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1980

Hospital and home support during infancy: impact on maternal attachment, child abuse and neglect, and health care utilization.

Effects of early and extended postpartum contact and paraprofessional home visits on maternal attachment, reports of child abuse and neglect, and health care utilization were determined by random assignment of 321 low-income women to intervention or control groups immediately after delivery. Observations of maternal attachment were made at four months and 12 months. Hospital, health and welfare agency records, and interviews were used to determine reports of child abuse and neglect and health care utilization. After establishing a control for maternal background variables, early and extended contact explained statistically significant but small amounts of variance in several of the attachment measures. There were no statistically significant effects of the home visit interventions on maternal attachment, and neither intervention was related to reports of child abuse and neglect and health care utilization. Although the study supported earlier findings that early and extended contact has a significant effect, additional interventions are needed to support mother-infant attachment.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Maternal-infant attachment of experienced and inexperienced mothers during infancy.

Differences between maternal-infant attachment and variables affecting attachment were studied for 136 experienced mothers (one or more previous children) and 166 inexperienced (first-time) mothers during the postpartal hospitalization and at 1, 4, and 8 months. Experienced mothers did not differ from inexperienced mothers in maternal-infant attachment at any test period. Fetal attachment explained decreasing amounts of the variance in inexperienced mothers' attachment to their infants over the first 4 months, explaining 11% during postpartal hospitalization, 7% at 1 month, and 4% at 4 months. Fetal attachment entered the experienced mothers' regressions during the early postpartal period only, explaining 3% of the variance. Findings showed that explained variance in maternal-infant attachment for the four test periods ranged from 23% to 43% for experienced mothers and from 13% to 38% for inexperienced mothers.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[First grade students in former East and West Berlin: socio-emotional adjustment and relation to attachment patterns of the children].

Adaptation to school of two samples of children (45 from East and 43 from West Berlin) grown up in two different political systems until the "Mauerfall" was studied over the first two school years using information from teachers in school and kindergarten, parents, and the children themselves. Cluster analysis revealed 3 patterns of adaptation behavior: the first subgroup (61% of the sample) showed no problems at all, for a second subgroup (22%) teachers reported more adaptation difficulties, whereas the third subgroup (17%) was rated by their mothers as distractible, hard to motivate and less sociable. Sex differences turned out to be more significant than political-system differences. Adjustment patterns to school were also related to the child's quality of attachment, to the reported number of stressful life events happened to the family, as well as to mother's and teacher's existential anxiety.

Affective Symptoms↗

PubMed2004

Attachment-related strategies during thought suppression: ironic rebounds and vulnerable self-representations.

The authors conducted 2 studies of attachment-related variations in thought suppression. Participants were asked, or not asked, to suppress thoughts about a relationship breakup and then to perform a Stroop task under high or low cognitive load. The dependent variables were the rebound, of previously suppressed separation-related thoughts (Study 1) and the accessibility of self-traits (Study 2). Under low cognitive load, avoidant individuals did not show any rebound of separation-related thoughts and activated positive self-representations. Under high cognitive load, avoidant participants failed to suppress thoughts of separation and were more likely to activate negative self-representations. Attachment anxiety was associated with high activation of negative self-representations and unremitting separation-related thoughts. The results are discussed in terms of the hidden vulnerabilities of avoidant individuals.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Runaway and homeless youth: the effects of attachment history on stabilization.

The effects of attachment antecedents on response to stabilization were examined in a group of runaway and homeless youth aged 12 to 17 years. The attachment histories of those who were not responsive to stabilization showed significant differences on several measurable criteria from the attachment histories of those who were responsive. The clinical and programmatic relevance of these findings is discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Depressive affect among health care seekers: how it is related to attachment style, emotional disclosure, and health complaints.

The present cross-sectional questionnaire survey investigated depressive affect among persons visiting their general practitioner (GP). It examined the impact of a number of factors likely to be associated with depressive affect, including demographic variables, severity of medical condition, and personal factors such as ease in disclosing personal information, and attachment style. Results showed that among the sample of patients (N = 198) visiting their GP, depressive affect was generally quite high. In particular, those reporting more depressive affect were the elderly, those with more severe health problems, more psychological problems, and a lower level of emotional disclosure frequency. As expected, attachment style was also related to lack of well-being among patients: those with a less avoidant but more anxious attachment style reported higher levels of depressive affect. In total, 38% of the variance of depressive affect was predicted by this model. Security of attachment was also related to reasons why patients consulted their GP, with avoidant attachment related to physical problems and anxious attachment to mental problems. Theoretical relevance of the findings and implications for medical help-seeking are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Involved fathers of preschool children as seen by themselves and their wives: accounts of attachment, socialization, and companionship.

Studies of infant-father attachment and other aspects of father-child relationships burgeoned during the 1980s and 90s, in step with new expectations for greater father participation in childrearing, but less is known about how involved fathers experience themselves as attachment figures, socialization agents, and playmates/companions of their young children. In an attempt to investigate these topics from a relationship perspective, we administered the Parent Attachment Interview (PAI) to 49 married fathers from dual career families who, based on current literature, were expected to be active participants in caring for and interacting with their preschool children. The 22 open-ended PAI questions were designed to probe fathers' thoughts and feelings about parent-child attachment, but also elicited extensive descriptions of other aspects of fathering, including socialization and companionship. In addition, fathers reflected on similarities and differences between the father- and mother-child relationships, and these accounts were compared with corresponding discussions by their wives. Among new issues raised by the study were the role of affection in attachment relationships, evidence for the attachment hierarchy construct, issues of parental self-control in relation to discipline, conceptual overlaps between attachment and other aspects of parenting, and the diverse meanings of father-mother differences and disagreements in the three domains of parenting addressed in this study.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Housing quality and psychological well-being among the elderly population.

With exponential growth in the number of elderly Americans living independently in the community, it is important to better understand the implications of living conditions for psychological well-being among the elderly population. In a cross-sectional study, housing quality is associated with positive affect among the older adults living independently in the community. Moreover, this relation is mediated by place attachment. Elderly residents of higher quality homes, independent of multiple sociodemographic factors (e.g., income, gender), feel more attached to their home, which, in turn, appears to account for the relation between housing quality and positive affect.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Feedback seeking in children and adolescents: associations with self-perceptions, attachment representations, and depression.

Because the feedback children and adolescents receive is important to their development, 2 experimental studies were designed to examine children's (M = 12 years) and adolescents' (M = 17 years) active selection of the quality of feedback they wish to receive. In both studies evidence emerged that participants' self-perceptions influence their feedback seeking. Participants with positive self-perceptions sought more positive feedback than participants with negative self-perceptions and sought more positive feedback than expected by chance. Participants with negative self-perceptions lacked this tendency to seek positive feedback and sometimes sought less positive feedback than expected by chance. As expected, depression and attachment-related measures were also associated with participants' feedback seeking. Contributions of feedback-seeking patterns to stability and change in children's and adolescents' development are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Attachment and affect regulation: a framework for family treatment of conduct disorder.

Conduct disorder (CD), a pervasive adolescent disorder with clinically significant antisocial behaviors, has been a difficult syndrome to treat successfully. Recently, research on affect regulation and attachment has suggested that attachment and affect regulation strategies may underlie the development of conduct disorder in adolescents, implying that attention to these factors might improve family treatment for CD. In this review of the research literature, I discuss the role of attachment and affect regulation in the development and treatment of CD. In addition, I present information about the framework, intervention protocol, and preliminary evidence of effectiveness of an attachment- and affect regulation-based intervention that has been developed and implemented with multiple-family groups of parents and incarcerated adolescents.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Physical, emotional, and behavioral reactions to breaking up: the roles of gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style.

Associations between gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style and reactions to romantic relationship dissolution were studied in a survey of more than 5,000 Internet respondents. It was hypothesized that individual reactions to breakups would be congruent with characteristic attachment behaviors and affect-regulation strategies generally associated with attachment style. Attachment-related anxiety was associated with greater preoccupation with the lost partner, greater perseveration over the loss, more extreme physical and emotional distress, exaggerated attempts to reestablish the relationship, partner-related sexual motivation, angry and vengeful behavior, interference with exploratory activities, dysfunctional coping strategies, and disordered resolution. Attachment-related avoidance was weakly and negatively associated with most distress/proximity-seeking reactions to breakups and strongly and positively associated with avoidant and self-reliant coping strategies. Security (low scores on the anxiety and avoidance dimensions) was associated with social coping strategies (e.g., using friends and family as "safe havens"). Attachment insecurity, particularly anxiety, was associated with using drugs and alcohol to cope with loss.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2004

Adapting to the challenge of psychosis: personal resilience and the use of sealing-over (avoidant) coping strategies.

BACKGROUND: Avoidance coping (e.g. sealing over) is common in people recovering from psychosis, but it is not understood why some individuals 'seal over'. AIMS: We examined the hypothesis that individuals who 'seal over' do not have the personal resilience to withstand this major life event. METHOD: Fifty participants were interviewed during an acute episode of psychosis and reassessed at 3-month and 6-month follow-up. Measures included psychotic symptoms, recovery style, service engagement, parental and adult attachment and self-evaluative beliefs. RESULTS: Sealing-over recovery styles are associated with negative early childhood experience, insecure adult attachment, negative self-evaluative beliefs and insecure identity. Insecure adult attachment was associated with less engagement with services. CONCLUSIONS: Sealing over was associated with multiple signs of low personal resilience in adapting to psychosis.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Sensory sensitivity, attachment experiences, and rejection responses among adults with borderline and avoidant features.

Both avoidant and borderline personality disorder (APD and BPD) are theoretically associated with temperamental vulnerabilities, adverse attachment experiences, and negative (pessimistic or catastrophic) reactions to the threat of perceived rejection; however, more work is needed to differentiate how these processes account for the etiology and maintenance of both disorders. In this study, 156 adults completed questionnaires measuring APD and BPD features, temperament (sensory-processing sensitivity), mood, and attachment experiences. A vignette task was devised to examine pessimistic cognitive-affective reactions in situations signaling potential rejection. Both APD and BPD were associated with temperamental sensitivity, but BPD was uniquely linked with a subscale measuring sensitivity to mental and emotive stimuli, whereas APD was uniquely linked with a subscale measuring the control and avoidance of aversive stimulation. Compared to APD, BPD was more strongly linked with negative moods (anxiety, anger, sadness) and insecure attachment to parents, whereas APD was more strongly linked (than BPD) to pessimistic cognitive-affective responses to rejection-related situations.

Adult↗