Multiple Attachment Representations in Clinical Practice: Case Study of a Six-Year-Old Maltreated Child

Research on attachment predominantly traces the effect of a single or primary attachment and/or attachment style on working models and behavior. However, most children form multiple attachments. This article reviews research on multiple attachment representations in children and considers how such information can usefully be applied to clinical settings. Through the case study of a six-year-old adopted boy with a history of maltreatment, it explores how those internal working models can be assessed in treatment and the clinical value of recognizing different attachment representations and styles. Implications for treatment interventions are explored.     

Mapping the intimate relationship mind: comparisons between three models of attachment representations

This study compared three models of how attachment working models might be cognitively represented. Model 1 posits that attachment representations consist of a single global working model summarizing attachment across specific relationships and domains. Model 2 proposes three independent working models for the relationship domains of family, platonic friendships, and romantic partners. Model 3 postulates that specific relationship models are nested under relationship domain representations that are, in turn, nested under an overarching global working model. Participants completed standard attachment scales for the relationship domains of family, platonic friendships, and romantic partners and also provided attachment ratings for three specific relationships within each domain. As expected, confirmatory factor analyses showed that Model 3 attained the best fit, regardless of analysis strategy, measurement strategy, gender, and relationship status. Implications are discussed.     

Transference and attachment: how do attachment patterns get carried forward from one relationship to the next?

This research investigated how working models of attachment are carried forward from one relationship to the next. A two-part study was conducted in which participants learned about two potential dating partners: one that was constructed to resemble a romantic partner from their past and one that resembled a partner from another participant's past. Results showed that people applied their attachment representations of past partners to both targets but did so to a greater degree when the target resembled a past partner. People also tended to feel more anxious and less avoidant toward the target that resembled their past partner. Overall, the findings were consistent with the hypothesis that working models of attachment are transferred in both general and selective ways in new relationships.     

从母亲的敏感性到学步儿的依恋安全性：内部工作模式的桥梁作用

采用视觉习惯化实验程序、陌生情境技术及母亲行为Q分类方法对41名14个月的学步儿及其母亲进行了学步儿内部工作模式、学步儿在陌生情境中的依恋类型以及母亲在母婴互动中的敏感性的评估。结果发现：(1)不安全型的学步儿预期看护者对他们痛苦的信号是无回应的。(2)以自身为中心的母亲的学步儿预期看护者是无回应的。(3)潜类别分析的结果发现母亲敏感性影响学步儿依恋行为的2种关系模式：类别1, 以孩子为中心的母亲的学步儿更容易形成看护者是有回应的预期, 持这种预期的学步儿在陌生情境程序中表现出安全依恋行为; 类别2, 以自身为中心的母亲养育出的学步儿更容易对看护者形成无回应的预期, 并在陌生情境中表现出不安全依恋行为。研究表明：内部工作模式在母亲的敏感性和学步儿的依恋安全性之间起着重要的内部机制作用—— 母亲的敏感性行为的累积促进了学步儿内部工作模式关于母亲的预期, 这种预期又进一步引导着学步儿的依恋行为。     

The Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures questionnaire: a method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships

Most research on adult attachment is based on the assumption that working models are relatively general and trait-like. Recent research, however, suggests that people develop attachment representations that are relationship-specific, leading people to hold distinct working models in different relationships. The authors report a measure, the Relationship Structures questionnaire of the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-RS; R. C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), that is designed to assess attachment dimensions in multiple contexts. Based on a sample of over 21,000 individuals studied online, it is shown that ECR-RS scores are reliable and have a structure similar to those produced by other measures. In Study 2 (N = 388), it is shown that relationship-specific measures of attachment generally predict intra- and interpersonal outcomes better than broader attachment measures but that broader measures predict personality traits better than relationship-specific measures. Moreover, it is demonstrated that differentiation in working models is not related to psychological outcomes independently of mean levels of security.     

La mise en place des représentations d'attachement au sein du couple : parts relatives à l'enfance et au conjoint

The aim of the present study is to compare childhood attachment representations with representations relative to present love relationships, and examine the possible role of the partner's representations when differences are found between the two types of representations. Twenty-two couples passed the Adult Attachment Interview (George et al., 1985), as well as an attachment interview on their present love relationship. Statistical analyses revealed a stronger concordance between childhood and adult representations among insecure people, compared with secure participants. Also, men seemed more inclined to maintain the same type of attachment representations regarding their love relationship as those developed with respect to parents. These findings suggest that defensive exclusion prevents the formation of new attachment representations and the updating of internal working models. The role played by gender remains unclear and warrants further research.     

Internal working models of caregiving and security of attachment at age six

This study describes the relation between internal working models of caregiving, child attachment, and maternal behavior in the home. Thirty-two mothers of 6-year-old children were observed in the home and subsequently interviewed regarding experiential and affective dimensions of parenting. Interviews were examined in order to assess the quality of the mother's thinking regarding two dimensions of caregiving (secure base, competence) which we hypothesized to be related to attachment security. Results indicated a strong correspondence between internal working models of caregiving and child mental representations of attachments as measured from the child's response to a laboratory reunion. The correspondence between mental representations of caregiving and maternal behavior in the home was limited. Representation ratings were most strongly associated with competence-supporting behavior. Implications for infant mental health research and program evaluation are discussed.     

The rooting of the mind in the body: new links between attachment theory and psychoanalytic thought

The relationship between psychoanalysis and attachment theory is complex indeed. A brief review of the psychoanalytic literature as it concerns attachment theory and research, and of the attachment literature as it pertains to psychoanalytic ideas, demonstrates an increasing interest in attachment theory within psychoanalysis. Some of the difficulties that attachment theory faces in relation to psychoanalytic ideas are traced to its links to the now dated cognitive science of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, however, a second-generation cognitive neuroscience seeks neurobiologically plausible accounts in which links with brain and body are seen as shaping mind and consciousness, which increasingly are seen as "embodied", as emerging from or serving the needs of a physical being located in a specific time, place, and social context. This idea has also been at the core of much psychoanalytic thinking, which has historically affirmed the rootedness of symbolic thought in sensory, emotional, and enacted experience with objects. Now neurobiological advances supporting the concept of embodied cognition offer an opportunity to forge powerful links between the hitherto separate domains of attachment theory and psychoanalysis. Speculations about the nature of language are presented that emphasize the origin of internal working models (and of representations in general) in early sensorimotor and emotional experiences with a caregiver. It is argued that language and symbolic thought may be phylogenetically and ontogenetically embodied, built on a foundation of gestures and actions, and are thus profoundly influenced by the experience of early physical interaction with the primary object. Finally, the clinical and research implications of these ideas are discussed.     

Working models of romantic attachment and the subjective quality of social interactions across relational contexts

Two diary studies examined the effects of domain‐specific representations of romantic relationships (assessed using the Relationship Questionnaire in Study 1 and the Revised Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire in Study 2) on the subjective quality of social interactions across four relational contexts: those with a romantic partner, family member, platonic friend, or acquaintance/other. In both studies, domain‐specific romantic attachment, particularly attachment avoidance, was more strongly related to subjective experiences of social interactions involving a romantic partner than those with family members, platonic friends, or acquaintances/others. These results complement previous diary research using earlier categorical measures of attachment and elaborate upon the contextual effects of the attachment behavioral system in naturally occurring social interactions with different relational partners. The conditions under which working models of different relationship domains should influence interpersonal functioning are discussed, and a context‐congruence hypothesis of attachment effects, which encompasses the current findings and generates further predictions, is detailed.     

依恋内部工作模式的社会认知研究

社会认知取向的成人依恋研究,在验证依恋理论的核心假设和探索与情绪调节策略、依恋系统活动有关的心理活动过程方面取得了长足的进步。这种把当前社会认知理论特别是心理表征这一重要概念运用到理解依恋的内部工作模式（internalworkingmodel）中去的价值已经逐渐显露。文章概述了关于内部工作模式与心理表征的关系及其在启动效应、可得性与通达性、记忆、情绪、归因等五个重要方面的研究进展,并对将来的研究进行了思考与展望     

On Attachment to Internal Objects

This paper considers some clinical implications of attachment theory from the perspective of the theory of internal object relationships and the unconscious phantasies that derive from such relationships. The paper focuses on the contributions of Bowlby and his followers, particularly Mary Main, who has developed a language-based methodology to study representational processes in adults and children, bridging the gap between the systematic study of human behavior and clinical psychoanalysis. The theory of inherent role responsiveness in the internal object world—mental representations of self and other in interaction and externalized in complementary role relationships through exchanges of unconscious and conscious messages—is presented as the psychoanalytic complement of Bowlby's theory of internal working models of attachment. Role responsiveness occurs internally as well as externally, so that one can speak of attachment to phantasy objects as well as external objects. Clinical examples illustrate how the therapist, through maintaining a free-floating responsiveness to the patient's enactments, may reconstruct the internal working models of attachment and their origins in the transference. The paperthus illustrates the way in which the origins of phantasy derive from the wished for and feared states related to early experiences of felt security, or lack of it, in relation to the attachment objects, thereby integrating the psychoanalytic theory of phantasy with attachment theory.     

Attachment and coparenting representations in men during the transition to parenthood

Coparenting is based on parents’ representations of themselves as coparents. Attachment theory can be a useful framework to understand the way that different coparenting representations are developed during the transition to parenthood. This study aimed to analyze the association between men's attachment and coparenting representations at the first trimester of pregnancy and from the first trimester of pregnancy to 6 months’ postpartum. A sample of 86 men was recruited and completed self-report measures of attachment and coparenting representations at the first and third trimester of pregnancy and at 1 and 6 months’ postpartum. At the first trimester of pregnancy, higher attachment avoidance was associated with higher lack of coparenting support. From the first trimester of pregnancy to 6 months’ postpartum, higher attachment avoidance was associated with (a) a steeper increase on lack of coparenting support, (b) an increase on coparenting conflict (while low attachment avoidance was associated with a decrease), and (c) a lower decrease on coparenting disagreement. This study may contribute to coparenting research by showing new evidence on attachment theory as a useful framework to understand how different coparenting representations are developed in men during the transition to parenthood.     

Chinese college students' general and relationship‐specific representations of adult attachment: Variable‐centred and person‐centred analysis

Formerly, researchers often treated adult attachment as a trait‐like construct with consistency across relationship contexts. However, recent studies have shown that people possess multiple relationship‐specific attachment representations, and inter‐correlations among them are only in a small‐to‐medium range. The aim of this study is to test whether these variable‐centred results could be replicated in China and further supplement them with a person‐centred analysis focusing on identifying prototypical patterns of multiple working models across relationships. We administrated measurements of general and four relationship‐specific (mother/father/best friend/romantic partner) working models and indicators of psychological adjustment upon 302 Chinese college students. Results from variable‐centred analysis demonstrated the cross‐relationship variability in working models. Furthermore, global indicators of psychological adjustment were better predicted by general models, while relationship‐specific indicators were better predicted by corresponding relationship‐specific models. These results largely replicate previous Western studies, supporting the existence of multiple attachment representations in China. In person‐centred analysis, a latent profile analysis identified four typical classes of working model profiles: all‐average, all‐secure, romantic‐insecure and peer‐secure. These classes differed not only in the cross‐relationship variability of their working models, but also in their levels of psychological adjustment. These interesting patterns may have theoretical implications and are worthy of further examination.     

Attachment and Autism: Parental Attachment Representations and Relational Behaviors in the Parent-Child Dyad

While attachment research has demonstrated that parents’ internal working models of attachment relationships tend to be transmitted to their children, affecting children’s developmental trajectories, this study specifically examines associations between adult attachment status and observable parent, child, and dyadic behaviors among children with autism and associated neurodevelopmental disorders of relating and communicating. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was employed to derive parental working models of attachment relationships. The Functional Emotional Assessment Scale (FEAS) was used to determine the quality of relational and functional behaviors in parents and their children. The sample included parents and their 4- to 16-year-old children with autism and associated neurodevelopmental disorders. Hypothesized relationships between AAI classifications and FEAS scores were supported. Significant correlations were found between AAI classification and FEAS scores, indicating that children with autism spectrum disorders whose parents demonstrated secure attachment representations were better able to initiate and respond in two-way pre-symbolic gestural communication; organize two-way social problem-solving communication; and engage in imaginative thinking, symbolic play, and verbal communication. These findings lend support to the relevance of the parent’s state of mind pertaining to attachment status to child and parent relational behavior in cases wherein the child has been diagnosed with autism or an associated neurodevelopmental disorder of relating and communicating. A model emerges from these findings of conceptualizing relationships between parental internal models of attachment relationships and parent-child relational and functional levels that may aid in differentiating interventions.     

Patterns of stability in adult attachment: an empirical test of two models of continuity and change

One of the core assumptions of attachment theory is that attachment representations are stable over time. Unfortunately, the data on attachment stability have been ambiguous, and as a result, alternative theoretical perspectives have evolved to explain them. The objective of the present research was to evaluate alternative models of stability by studying adults in 2 intensive longitudinal investigations. Specifically, we assessed attachment representations in 1 sample (N = 203) daily over a 30-day period and in the other sample (N = 388) weekly over a year. Analyses show that the patterns of stability that exist in adult attachment are most consistent with a prototype model--a model assuming that there is a stable factor underlying temporary variations in attachment. Moreover, although the Big Five personality traits exhibited a pattern of stability that was similar to that of attachment, they did not account for the stability observed in attachment.     

Automatic activation of attachment-related goals

When people encounter threats, their attachment systems are activated and they become motivated to seek protection and support through proximity to their attachment figures. Theoretically, therefore, mental representations of attachment figures should be associated with goals related to attaining proximity and safety. The present studies explore this idea by examining the effects of a person's chronic attachment style and exposure to a particular attachment figure's name on the automatic activation of attachment-related goals. Studies 1 and 2 examine effects of exposure to the name of a security-providing attachment figure on willingness to self-disclose and seek support (two behaviors related to gaining proximity). Study 3 examines how exposure to names of different relationship partners (with whom a participant has felt secure, anxious, or avoidant) affects the mental accessibility of attachment-related goal words. Taken together, the studies support the idea that mental representations of attachment figures are associated with attachment-related goals.     

恋爱受挫对自我—他人工作模型的影响

摘 要 该研究使用内隐联想测验（IAT）考察了成人依恋的主要表现形式恋爱关系中,恋爱受挫对被试自我—他人工作模型的影响。结果表明：（1）虽然实验组与控制组在依恋焦虑、依恋回避得分上均无显著差异,但IAT结果发现,组别、依恋类型在IAT效应（自我积极—他人消极模型指标）上的主效应显著,其交互作用也显著。除了回避型被试,安全型和焦虑型实验组的IAT效应显著高于控制组。（2）控制组中,焦虑型被试相容部分反应时显著大于不相容部分,回避型被试则相容部分反应时显著小于不相容部分,安全型被试无显著差异。     

Looking, language, and memory: Bridging research from the visual world and visual search paradigms

In the visual world paradigm as used in psycholinguistics, eye gaze (i.e. visual orienting) is measured in order to draw conclusions about linguistic processing. However, current theories are underspecified with respect to how visual attention is guided on the basis of linguistic representations. In the visual search paradigm as used within the area of visual attention research, investigators have become more and more interested in how visual orienting is affected by higher order representations, such as those involved in memory and language. Within this area more specific models of orienting on the basis of visual information exist, but they need to be extended with mechanisms that allow for language-mediated orienting. In the present paper we review the evidence from these two different – but highly related – research areas. We arrive at a model in which working memory serves as the nexus in which long-term visual as well as linguistic representations (i.e. types) are bound to specific locations (i.e. tokens or indices). The model predicts that the interaction between language and visual attention is subject to a number of conditions, such as the presence of the guiding representation in working memory, capacity limitations, and cognitive control mechanisms.     

Hope and Internal Working Models of the Self and Others: A Correlational Study on Filipino Adolescents

The study seeks to contribute to research on understanding the antecedents of hope cognitions by exploring how internal models of self and others are related to hope. Correlational analysis of Filipino adolescent students’ responses to the hope scale and life positions scale indicated that internal model of the self is positively associated with hope cognitions, but internal model of others is not. The results are discussed in relation to importance of cognitive representations of the self that emerge from person’s early attachment relationships.     

Validity of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP–64) for Predicting Assertiveness in Role-Play Situations

The Buddhist notion of “nonattachment” (release from mental fixations) is related to but distinguishable from the Western construct of attachment. Secure (or insecure) attachment is based on internal working models related to security (or insecurity), whereas nonattachment is based on insight into the constructed and impermanent nature of mental representations. Based on historical and contemporary Buddhist scholarship, we designed the Nonattachment Scale and evaluated its psychometric properties in various samples. We also present evidence consistent with Buddhist theory that nonattachment is psychologically and socially adaptive, and we offer directions for further research on nonattachment.