Attachment representations in Dutch veterans with and without deployment-related PTSD

In this study we tested for a protective effect of secure attachment representations in the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a design with a control group, we replicated and extended a recent study that found no underrepresentation of secure attachment representations in veterans with PTSD (Nye, Katzman, Bell, Kilpatrick, Brainard, & Haaland, 2008 Nye, E. C., Katzman, J., Bell, J. B., Kilpatrick, J., Brainard, M. and Haaland, K. Y. 2008. Attachment organization in Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Attachment & Human Development, 10(1): 41–57. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Furthermore, we examined the association of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) classification of unresolved loss or trauma and PTSD symptomatology. The Adult Attachment Interview and the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) were administered with 31 veterans with PTSD and 29 trauma-exposed veterans without PTSD of similar age and country of deployment. Patient and control groups did not differ in the prevalence of secure attachment representations, neither did unresolved and not unresolved subjects differ in prevalence of secure attachment representations. Unresolved state of mind with respect to deployment related trauma was found to correlate strongly with total CAPS score. This study shows no protective effect of secure attachment representations in the development of PTSD. AAI unresolved state of mind with respect to deployment related trauma and PTSD correlate strongly, due to the common core phenomenon of lack of integration.     

Narrative story stems with high risk six year-olds: Differential associations with mother- and teacher-reported psycho-social adjustment

Children's responses on a Narrative Story Stem Technique (NSST) were coded using scales reflecting essential attachment constructs, specifically, attachment, exploratory, sociability, and caregiving behavioral systems, as originally conceived by Bowlby (1973 Bowlby, J. 1973. Attachment and loss, Vol. II: Separation: Anxiety and anger, New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar], 1982 Bowlby, J. 1982. Attachment and loss, Vol. I: Attachment , (2^nd ed.), New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar]) and elaborated upon by his followers (Cassidy, 2008 Cassidy, J. 2008. “The nature of the child's ties”. In Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications , (2nd ed., Edited by: Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R. 3–22. New York: Guilford Press.  [Google Scholar]). NSST responses were examined in relation to both mother- and teacher-reported psycho-social adjustment and risk using the MacArthur Health & Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ). Forty-six children participated (average age 6 years 10 months), 19 of whom had high-risk backgrounds, and the rest demographically matched. Findings indicate that NSST scales were associated with behavior on certain HBQ scales, in expected directions. NSST responses appeared to differentiate socially competent children from children with the specific psycho-social risks of externalizing behavior problems and social isolation, according to mother-reports, on the one hand, and peer vulnerability and internalizing problems, according to teacher-reports, on the other. Implications for clinical applications are discussed.     

Pet in the therapy room: An attachment perspective on Animal-Assisted Therapy

John Bowlby's (1973 Bowlby, J. 1973. Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation: Anxiety and anger, New York, NY: Basic Books. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1980 Bowlby, J. 1980. Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Sadness and depression, New York, NY: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar], 1982 Bowlby, J. 1982. Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment, New York, NY: Basic Books. Original work published 1969 [Google Scholar]) attachment theory is one of the most influential theories in personality and developmental psychology and provides insights into adjustment and psychopathology across the lifespan. The theory is also helpful in defining the target of change in psychotherapy, understanding the processes by which change occurs, and conceptualizing cases and planning treatment (Daniel, 2006 Daniel, S. I.F. 2006. Adult attachment patterns and individual psychotherapy: A review. Clinical Psychology Review, 26: 968–984. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Obegi & Berant, 2008 Obegi, J. H. and Berant, E. 2008. Attachment theory and research in clinical work with adults, New York, NY: Guilford Press.  [Google Scholar]; Sable, 2004 Sable, P. 2004. Attachment, ethology, and adult psychotherapy. Attachment & Human Development, 6: 3–19. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Wallin, 2007 Wallin, D. J. 2007. Attachment in psychotherapy, New York, NY: Guilford Publications.  [Google Scholar]). Here, we propose a model of Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) based on attachment theory and on the unique characteristics of human–pet relationships. The model includes clients' unmet attachment needs, individual differences in attachment insecurity, coping, and responsiveness to therapy. It also suggests ways to foster the development of more adaptive patterns of attachment and healthier modes of relating to others.     

Commentary: Comprehending the incomprehensible

Abstract

Bowlby's (1969/1982 Bowlby, J. 1969/1982. Attachment and loss. Vol. 1: Attachment , (2nd ed.), New York: Basic Books. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) ideas of attachment as an interactional system provide the basis for an understanding of the development of adaptive and maladaptive working models of the self and other. More specifically, attachment theory can offer an in-depth understanding into the development of a depressotypic self-schema. Attachment theory is set alongside research into adolescent depression in order to illustrate the importance of the primary attachment relationship in protecting adolescents in our society from developing depressive symptomatology. Therefore, current research in adolescent depression is viewed through the lens of attachment theory. This view is complemented by an exploration of the role of culture in the production of gender differences in depression. Thus, a tripartite model of adolescent depression, including the individual, family relationships, and socio-cultural factors is offered as being of potential value for clinicians and researchers in this area.     

Becoming bonded through Developmental Movement Play: review of a parent and child movement group incorporating the theory,practice and philosophy of Sherborne Developmental Movement

This paper is a reflection on a Developmental Movement Play (DMP) programme based on Sherborne Developmental Movement (SDM) for parents and their young children experiencing emotional, behavioural and/or mental health difficulties. A focus on embodiment through movement experiences, dance and relationship play (Sherborne, 2001 Sherborne, V. (2001) Developmental movement for children: Mainstream, special needs and pre-school (2nd ed.). London: Worth Publishing  [Google Scholar]) is described within the programme. This is then discussed in relation to the bonding between parent–child, which takes place through shared movement experiences. Participants in the programme were referred through multi-disciplinary agencies with concerns for the parent–child relationship. The final group comprised 10 children (aged 18 months to eight years) and their mothers. The study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to investigate the effectiveness of using DMP/SDM to facilitate changes in attitudes, feelings, moods and parenting styles. Results of the research are discussed and an examination of theory underpinning SDM explores Laban's principles of human movement (1998) and attachment theories (Ainsworth, Bell, Blehar, & Main, 1971; Bowlby, 1951 Bowlby, J. (1951). Maternal care and mental health. World Health Organization, 3, 355--534  [Google Scholar]) in order to identify the psychotherapeutic nature of the programme. The limitations of the study are recognised alongside recommendations for further work.     

Pathways to earned-security: The role of alternative support figures

This study explored the kinds of relationship experiences associated with earned-security, i.e., the extent to which mothers who report early negative relationship histories with their parents are later able to form a secure working model of attachment (indicated by the ability to speak clearly and coherently about these histories). Mothers from a low-risk sample (N = 121) expecting their first child completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), which was used to assess earned-security retrospectively using the stringent definition recommended by Main and Hesse (Hesse, 2008 Hesse, E. 2008. “The Adult Attachment Interview: Protocol, method of analysis, and empirical studies”. In The handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications, Edited by: Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R. 552–598. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.  [Google Scholar]; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2002 Main, M., Goldwyn, R. and Hesse, E. 2002/2008. Adult attachment scoring and classification system, Unpublished scoring manual, University of California at Berkeley.  [Google Scholar]), as well as to identify alternative support figures. Participants also completed self-report measures of depressive symptomatology, questionnaires concerning their experiences in therapy, and later, when their babies were 12 to 15 months old, the Strange Situation procedure. Sixteen mothers were classified as earned-secure (25% of those classified as secure-autonomous and 13% of the whole sample). Women who were earned-secure (vs. insecure and continuous-secure) reported significantly higher levels of emotional support, but not instrumental support, from alternative support figures. They also spent more time in therapy than did insecure and continuous-secure women and were more likely to form secure attachments with their infants than insecure women. These findings were obtained even after controlling for depressive symptoms.     

Measurement of adult attachment: The place of self-report and interview methodologies

This study investigates long-term effects on adult attachment due to temporary childhood separation as a result of the British evacuation of children during World War 2. A total of 859 respondents, aged 62–72 years, were recruited who had childhood homes in the county of Kent during the war. Of these, 770 had been evacuated and 89 remained at home and formed a non-evacuated control group. They participated in this retrospective survey of possible associations between childhood experiences of the evacuation, early upbringing, and later life-course variables, with adult attachment style assessed by the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew &; Horowitz, 1991 Bartholomew, K. and Horowitz, L. M. 1991. Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61: 226–244. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Reflecting the wartime concerns of Bowlby, male and female respondents evacuated between the ages of 4 and 6 years showed low incidences in secure attachment style of 38% and 27%, compared to those not evacuated at 64% and 44%, respectively, with a corresponding increase in the fearful category. The quality of care received during evacuation and the frequency of parental visits were also found to be significantly associated with attachment style for female respondents. Irrespective of experience of evacuation, both male and female respondents who reported poor home nurture showed a similar low incidence of secure attachment of 23% compared to those from homes with good quality care of 45% and 43%, respectively, with concomitant increases in proportions in the dismissing category for males and the fearful category for females. The clinical implications of the study are briefly discussed.     

A special section for a special scientist: L. Alan Sroufe

This study examined associations between mother–infant nighttime interactions and mother–infant attachment when infants were 12 months old. Forty-four mother–infant pairs participated in this study. For three consecutive nights at home, babies were observed in their cribs using a digital video system. Mothers reported on their nighttime interactions with their babies using a self-report diary and completed a questionnaire regarding child temperament. Attachment was assessed in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, &; Wall, 1978 Ainsworth, M. D.S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. 1978. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  [Google Scholar]). Mothers of securely attached infants had nighttime interactions that were generally more consistent, sensitive and responsive than those of insecurely attached infants. Specifically, in secure dyads, mothers generally picked up and soothed infants when they fussed or cried after an awakening.     

Independent influences upon mother–toddler role reversal: infant–mother attachment disorganization and role reversal in mother's childhood

In role reversal a child takes an inappropriate parental, spousal, or peer role with the caregiver. The study assessed attachment disorganization with mother in infancy in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978 Ainsworth, M. D.S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. 1978. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar]) and role reversal at 2 years old in videotaped mother–child interactions. By closely observing role reversal at this early age, results fill in the picture concerning the link between disorganized infant–mother attachment and controlling role reversal at 6 years old (Main & Cassidy, 1988 Main, M. and Cassidy, J. 1988. Categories of response to reunion with the parent at age 6: Predictable from infant attachment classifications and stable over a 1-month period. Developmental Psychology, 24: 415–426. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985 Main, M., Kaplan, N. and Cassidy, J. C. 1985. “Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation”. In Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Edited by: Bretherton, I. and Waters, E. 50(Serial No. 209, 1–2), 66–104[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). As hypothesized, infant–mother disorganization significantly predicted mother–toddler role reversal. The study also deepened research that predicted role reversal from parent Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) role reversal assessed before the child was born (Macfie, McElwain, Houts, & Cox, 2005 Macfie, J., McElwain, N. L., Houts, R. M. and Cox, M. J. 2005. Intergenerational transmission of role reversal between parent and child: Dyadic and family systems internal working models. Attachment & Human Development, 7: 51–65. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). As hypothesized, mother AAI role reversal with her mother in childhood significantly predicted mother–toddler role reversal over and above infant–mother disorganization. Results are discussed within a developmental psychopathology framework including opportunities for developmentally sensitive interventions.     

Mathematical Difficulties in Nonverbal Learning Disability or Co-Morbid Dyscalculia and Dyslexia

The main goal of the present study was to shed further light on the weaknesses of children with different profiles of mathematical difficulties, testing children with nonverbal learning disability (NLD), co-morbid dyscalculia and dyslexia (D&D), or typical development (TD). Sixteen children with NLD, 15 with D&D, and 16 with TD completed tasks derived from Butterworth (2003 Butterworth, B. 2003. Dyscalculia screener: Highlighting pupils with specific learning difficulties in maths, London, , England: NFER Nelson.  [Google Scholar]) and divided into: a capacity subscale (i.e., a number–dots comparison task, a number comparison task, and a dots comparison task); and an achievement subscale (i.e., mental calculations and arithmetical fact retrieval). Children with NLD were impaired in the dots comparison task, children with D&D in the mental calculation and arithmetical facts.     

Nouns,verbs, objects,actions, and the animate/inanimate effect

We report an aphasic patient, Z.B.L., who showed a significant advantage for verbs compared to nouns in picture-naming tests. Within the object class, he performed better on animate things than on nonliving things in picture naming as well as in an “attribute judgement task”. This pattern of performance is contrary to the central prediction of a recent proposal (Bird, Howard, & Franklin, 2000 Bird, H., Howard, D. and Franklin, S. 2000. Why is a verb like an inanimate object? Grammatical category and semantic category deficits. Brain and Language, 72: 246–309. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), which attributes noun–verb dissociation in aphasic patients to deficits in processing certain kinds of semantic features. This model proposes that conceptual representations of verbs have a lower proportion of sensory features than do representations of nouns; the same is proposed for inanimate versus animate items within the noun category. Noun deficits are assumed to arise due to impairment for the processing of sensory features. The model predicts that if a patient is more impaired for nouns than for verbs, he will also display more difficulty with animate than with inanimate objects. Contrary to predications derived from this theory, Z.B.L. performed better with animate than inanimate nouns.     

Different letter-processing strategies in diagnostic subgroups of developmental dyslexia also occur in a transparent orthography: Reply to a commentary by Spinelli et al.

The article was motivated by a commentary of Spinelli et al. (2010) Spinelli, D., Brizzolara, D., De Luca, M., Gasperini, F., Martelli, M. and Zoccolotti, P. 2010. Subtypes of developmental dyslexia in transparent orthographies: A comment on Lachmann and van Leeuwen (2008). Cognitive Neuropsychology, 26: 752–758.  [Google Scholar], who commented on our experimental study with dyslexic children (Lachmann & van Leeuwen, 2008). They questioned the unusually large reversed lexicality effect we reported for three of our dyslexic children for which word reading times were considerably longer than nonword reading times. We argued that, in principle, in a transparent orthography, such as German, children exist who have significant problems in word reading, but for whom nonword reading is normal. The extreme reversed lexically effect, however, may not be representative for the dyslexic population. Since we do not want to give the impression that our results were based on these three participants, we reran analyses on reaction times presented in Lachmann and van Leeuwen, this time excluding the data from the three individuals. Results were replicated. The constructive criticism has helped put both the diagnostics and our experimental results on even firmer ground. Both yield a consistent interpretation, in which two subgroups of dyslexics can be distinguished: one with generic activation problems; the other with a specific problem in phoneme-grapheme conversion.     

Working Memory and New Learning Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury

Working memory (WM), the ability to monitor, process and maintain task relevant information on-line to respond to immediate environmental demands, is controlled by frontal systems (D'Esposito et al., 2006 D'Esposito, M., Cooney, J. W., Gazzaley, A., Gibbs, S. E. and Postle, B. R. 2006. Is the prefrontal cortex necessary for delay task performance? Evidence from lesion and fMRI data.. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 12: 248–260.  [Google Scholar]), which are particularly vulnerable to damage from a traumatic brain injury (TBI). This study employed the adult-based Working Memory model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Baddeley, A. D. and Hitch, G. 1974. “Working memory”. In The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. VIII Edited by: Bower, G. H. 47–90. New York: Academic Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] to examine the relationship between working memory function and new verbal learning in children with TBI. A cross-sectional sample of 36 school-aged children with a moderate to severe TBI was compared to age-matched healthy Controls on a series of tasks assessing working memory subsystems: the Phonological Loop (PL) and Central Executive (CE). The TBI group performed significantly more poorly than Controls on the PL measure and the majority of CE tasks. On new learning tasks, the TBI group consistently produced fewer words than Controls across the learning and delayed recall phases. Results revealed impaired PL function related to poor encoding and acquisition on a new verbal learning task in the TBI group. CE retrieval deficits in the TBI group contributed to general memory dysfunction in acquisition, retrieval and recognition memory. These results suggest that the nature of learning and memory deficits in children with TBI is related to working memory impairment.     

Masculinity/Femininity Predicts Brain Volumes in Normal Healthy Children

Previous research has shown sex differences in brain morphology (De Bellis et al., 2001 De Bellis, M. D., Keshavan, M. S., Beers, S. R., Hall, J., Frustaci, K., Masalehdan, A., … and Boring, A. M. 2001. Sex differences in brain maturation during childhood and adolescence. Cerebral Cortex, 11: 552–557. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). However, these studies have not taken gender into account. Gender is a phenotype that describes behavior. In this study, we examined the relationship between gender, sex, and brain volumes in children. One hundred and eight children ages 7 to 17 were administered the Children's Sex Role Inventory (Boldizar, 1991 Boldizar, J. 1991. Assessing sex typing and androgyny in children: The children's sex role inventory. Developmental Psychology, 127: 505–515. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and obtained volumetric brain data via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We found that, in the frontal lobe, higher masculinity predicted greater volumes of white matter. Also, in the temporal lobe, higher femininity predicted greater volumes of gray matter.