Disorganized Attachment and Caregiving
Edited by Judith Solomon and Carol George
Hardcovere-bookprint + e-book
Request a free digital professor copy on VitalSource ?In this volume, leading authorities provide a state-of-the-art examination of disorganized attachment: what it is, how it can be identified, and its links to behavioral problems and psychological difficulties in childhood and beyond. The editors offer a fresh perspective on disorganized attachment, not as a characteristic of the infant or child but as the product of a dysregulated and disorganized parent–child relationship. They present cutting-edge research and exemplary treatment approaches. With attention to the subjective experiences of both mothers and children, the book shows how focusing on the caregiving system can advance research and clinical practice.
“Theory and the practical application of research findings are firmly linked throughout the book....For researchers and counsellors generally, this is an essential read. Those working in the field of adoption and fostering will find it a valuable contribution to their work, both in developing and updating their understanding of disorganized attachment and in knowing how to apply this new knowledge in a practical way.”
—Therapy Today
“Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.”
—Choice
“This is an exciting follow-up to the editors' influential prior volume on attachment disorganization, which was published when the concept was relatively new. Disorganized attachment has been researched broadly in the intervening years. This volume summarizes important current findings and takes a significant next step toward defining the disorganized caregiving system. It features chapters from many of the leading researchers in the field.”
—Mary Dozier, PhD, Unidel Amy E. DuPont Endowed Chair in Child Development,Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware
“This compelling book demonstrates the power of the disorganized attachment construct for giving meaning to behavioral and interactional patterns that may appear random, bizarre, or inconsequential. The volume combines conceptual elegance, research rigor, and clinical sensitivity. It elucidates the complex interplay of factors that shape the intergenerational transmission of disorganized patterns of attachment and caregiving. The thoughtful use of clinical material serves to substantiate and clarify the theoretical premises. This is a major contribution that will facilitate dialogue among theorists, researchers, and clinicians.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman, PhD, Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair in Infant Mental Health and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco
“Disorganized attachment is of greatest relevance to clinicians, as it provides the primary link connecting early history with later mental disorder. This definitive volume presents the most recent advances in this area, with careful attention to both the mechanisms and clinical implications of disorganization. It is an invaluable contribution to every researcher's and clinician's library.”
—Peter Fonagy, OBE, FMedSci, FBA, FAcSS, Head, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, United Kingdom; Chief Executive, Anna Freud Centre
Table of Contents
I. Core Questions: Etiology, Continuity, and Developmental Transformation1. The Disorganized Attachment–Caregiving System: Dysregulation of Adaptive Processes at Multiple Levels, Judith Solomon and Carol George
2. Disorganization of Maternal Caregiving across Two Generations: The Origins of Caregiving Helplessness, Judith Solomon and Carol George
3. Understanding Disorganized Attachment at Preschool and School Age: Examining Divergent Pathways of Disorganized and Controlling Children, Ellen Moss, Jean-François Bureau, Diane St-Laurent, and George M. Tarabulsy
4. Continuity and Change in Unresolved Classifications of Adult Attachment Interviews with Low-Income Mothers, Susan Spieker, Elizabeth M. Nelson, Michelle DeKlyen, Sandra N. Jolley, and Lisa Mennet
5. Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Attachment Disorganization, Gottfried Spangler
II. New Directions
6. Caregiving Helplessness: The Development of a Screening Measure for Disorganized Maternal Caregiving, Carol George and Judith Solomon
7. Pathways from Disorganized Attachment to Later Social–Emotional Problems: The Role of Gender and Parent–Child Interaction Patterns, Nancy L. Hazen, Deborah Jacobvitz, Kristina N. Higgins, Sydnye Allen, and Mi Kyoung Jin
8. Disorganized Attachment Behavior Observed in Adolescence: Validation in Relation to Adult Attachment Interview Classifications at Age 25, Katherine H. Hennighausen, Jean-François Bureau, Daryn H. David, Bjarne M. Holmes, and Karlen Lyons-Ruth
9. Maternal Solicitousness and Attachment Disorganization among Toddlers with a Congenital Anomaly, Douglas Barnett, Melissa Kaplan-Estrin, Julie Braciszewski, Lesley Hetterscheidt, Jaclyn Issner, and Christine M. Butler
III. Clinical Applications
10. Viewing Young Foster Children’s Responses to Visits through the Lens of Maternal Containment:Implications for Attachment Disorganization, Teresa Ostler and Wendy Haight
11. An Exploratory Investigation of the Relationships among Representational Security, Disorganization, and Behavior Ratings in Maltreated Children, Linda Webster and Rachelle Kisst Hackett
12. The Circle of Security Intervention:Using the Therapeutic Relationship to Ameliorate Attachment Security in Disorganized Dyads, Caroline A. Zanetti, Bert Powell, Glen Cooper, and Kent Hoffman
13. Attachment Disorganization in Borderline Personality Disorder and Anxiety Disorder, Anna Buchheim and Carol George
14. Attachment Disorganization and the Clinical Dialogue: Theme and Variations, Giovanni Liotti
About the Editors
Judith Solomon, PhD, is Director of Training for the Child FIRST Program at Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering research in attachment and caregiving, including (with Mary Main) the discovery and delineation of the disorganized attachment classification group and the first longitudinal study of infants in separated and divorced families. With Carol George, she developed key representational measures of caregiving and child attachment, including the Caregiving Interview and the Attachment Doll Play Projective Assessment. In addition to her research and theoretical contributions, Dr. Solomon is also a practicing clinical psychologist, providing consultation, supervision, and training in attachment-based assessment and intervention for infants and young children.Carol George, PhD, is Lee Mirmow Professor of Psychology at Mills College in Oakland, California. The author of numerous research articles and book chapters on adult and child attachment and caregiving, Dr. George has been at the forefront of developing attachment assessments for children and adults, including the Attachment Doll Play Projective Assessment, the Caregiving Interview, the Adult Attachment Interview, and the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System. She teaches courses in development and attachment, codirects a master’s degree program in infant mental health, and trains and consults on the application of attachment assessment in research and clinical settings.
Contributors
Sydnye Allen, PhD, is an early childhood professional who has experience in laboratory schools, child development centers, Head Start, and private child care.Douglas Barnett, PhD, is Professor, researcher, and clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychology at Wayne State University.
Julie Braciszewski, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Psychiatry and Human Behavior Training Program at Brown University.
Anna Buchheim, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Jean-François Bureau, PhD, is Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Christine M. Butler, PhD, is a clinical psychologist serving in Connellys Springs, North Carolina.
Glen Cooper, MA, is a marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, and a designated child mental health specialist.
Daryn H. David, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at the Program for Recovery and Community Health in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Michelle DeKlyen, PhD, is Associate Research Scholar at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, and a child clinical psychologist and visiting faculty in the Department of Psychology.
Carol George, PhD, is Lee Mirmow Professor of Psychology at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Rachelle Kisst Hackett, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Educational and School Psychology Department at the Gladys L. Benerd School of Education at the University of the Pacific.
Wendy Haight, PhD, is Professor of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nancy L. Hazen, PhD, is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Katherine H. Hennighausen, PhD, is Clinical Instructor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.
Lesley Hetterscheidt, MA, is finishing her doctorate in clinical psychology at Wayne State University.
Kristina N. Higgins, PhD, is a lead teacher at Loyola University Preschool in Chicago.
Kent Hoffman, BA, RelD, is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
Bjarne M. Holmes, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Psychology and the Director of the Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Jaclyn Issner, MA, is finishing her doctorate in clinical psychology at Wayne State University.
Deborah Jacobvitz, PhD, is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mi Kyoung Jin, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Child Welfare at Namseoul University.
Sandra N. Jolley, PhD, ARNP, is a Pediatric and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner at the University of Washington Medical Center Pediatric Care Center, and Clinical Assistant Professor, Family and Child Nursing, at the University of Washington.
Melissa Kaplan-Estrin, PhD, is retired from four decades of teaching and research on infant assessment and development at Wayne State University.
Giovanni Liotti, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who teaches in the APC School of Cognitive Psychotherapy and in the Postgraduate School of Clinical Psychology of the Salesian University, Rome, Italy.
Karlen Lyons-Ruth, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Lisa Mennet, MEd, is a doctoral candidate in Infant Mental Health at the University of Washington, and in private practice in Seattle.
Ellen Moss, PhD, is Full Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal and Director of the Centre for Study of Attachment and the Family.
Elizabeth M. Nelson, EdD, is a researcher and lecturer in the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development at the University of Washington.
Teresa Ostler, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a clinical psychologist.
Bert Powell, MA, is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Counseling Psychology at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
Judith Solomon, PhD, is Director of Training of the Child FIRST Program at Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Gottfried Spangler, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.
Susan Spieker, PhD, is Director of the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development and a Professor of Family and Child Nursing at the University of Washington.
Diane St-Laurent PhD, is Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières.
George M. Tarabulsy, PhD, is a developmental research psychologist at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.
Linda Webster, PhD, is Associate Professor and Department Chair of the School Psychology Program at the Gladys L. Benerd School of Education at the University of the Pacific.
Caroline A. Zanetti, MBBS, FRANZCP, is Director of Psychiatry at the Raphael Centre at St. John of God Hospital, Subiaco, Western Australia, and Adjunct Associate Professor at Notre Dame University, Perth,Western Australia.