A Guide for Assessing Clients’ Attachment to the Sacred: The Spiritual Attachment History

Current research supports that many people relate to God or a higher power in ways consistent with attachment theory, yet nothing exists assisting therapists in gathering attachment-focused background information regarding their clients’ spiritual lives. This paper fills that gap with the Spiritual Attachment History (SAH), a semi-structured interview guide adapted from an ICEEFT Training in Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy attachment history handout, to help the authors meet their clients’ spiritual and relational clinical concerns. We describe how we developed the SAH and provide a case study of its incorporation into two treatment plans. We also discuss implications for training, for use by marriage and family therapists, for cross-cultural research, and the ethics of addressing spirituality as a cultural issue.     

Attachment and women’s faith development

This article explores the relationship between human attachment and God attachment, particularly in Christian women’s experiences of faith. It is based on the attachment perspective as a conceptual framework. The main aim was to evolve an attachment‐theoretical approach to women’s faith development and to offer a complementary path to interpret women’s faith development. The method was qualitative, as the data were collected via biographical narrative depth interviews. The findings suggest that an early attachment experience is a significant factor in the women’s faith development; three patterns of women’s faith are presented in which the differences in their images of self and God are represented accordingly.     

Parents’ Attachment Styles and Adolescents’ Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy: The Mediating Role of Adolescents’ Attachment to Parents in China

Guided by attachment theory, this longitudinal study examined the mediating role of parent-adolescent attachment on the relation between parents’ attachment styles and adolescents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE, including managing negative affect and expressing positive affect). Five hundred seventy-three Chinese junior high school students (46% male; aged 11–14 years, M = 12.76 years, SD = 0.74) completed measures of RESE at T1, parent-adolescent attachment at T2 (six months later), and RESE at T3 (another six months later), while 573 students’ parents (one student only has a parent, 241 fathers and 332 mothers) completed measures of adult attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance) at T1. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that father-adolescent attachment mediated the association between fathers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect, while mother-adolescent attachment marginally mediated the relation between mothers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect and expressing positive affect. These findings suggest that parents’ attachment anxiety could predict their children’s attachment to parents, in turn, impacting their children’s regulatory emotional self-efficacy.

     

Do Partner Attachment Behaviors Moderate Avoidant Conflict-Resolution Styles and Relationship Self-Regulation?

ABSTRACT

Relationship self-regulation refers to the “work” partners put in to keep their relationships healthy. Past relationship self-regulation research has not taken into account distal variables that may affect it, such as respondents’ own and parental avoidant couple conflict-resolution styles. Using data from 4,456 people in their first marriages who completed the RELATionship Evaluation (RELATE) (Busby, Holman, & Taniguchi, 2001 Busby, D. M., Holman, T. B., & Taniguchi, N. (2001). Relate: Relationship evaluation of the individual, family, cultural, and couple contexts. Family Relations, 50, 308–316.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the current study found a positive correlation between parents’ couple avoidant conflict-resolution style and respondents’ avoidant couple conflict-resolution style. Respondents’ avoidant couple conflict-resolution style was also negatively correlated with relationship self-regulation. Perception of partners’ secure attachment behaviors, however, had a significant strong relationship with respondents’ ability to do relationship self-regulation.     

Leader–Follower Attachment: Implications for Personality Assessment in Organizational Contexts

As a life-span theory of personality that is supported by more than 40 years of empirical research, attachment theory and associated measures have contributed immensely to our understanding of emotion regulation, social dynamics, and behavior. Nevertheless, little attention has been given to how attachment dynamics influence relationships at work or the extent to which adult attachment patterns are mirrored in leaders' perceptions and behaviors toward their direct reports. Moreover, attachment measures that use romantic relationships as their referent might not be appropriate for use in organizational settings with executive clients. Thus, a measure that directly references direct reports and that could be put to use in organizational contexts is needed. The two studies reported here supported the two-factor orthogonal structure of such a measure and results from a sample of Fortune 500 executives reveal that leader attachment relates in theoretically consistent ways with general adult attachment, the Big Five, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking. Results are discussed in terms of integrating attachment measures into organizational personality assessment to inform work with organizational clients.     

Attachment—Past and Present. But What About the Future?

This essay acknowledges the seminal contribution of the founders of attachment theory and research as a paradigm shift in understanding the importance of the socioemotional foundation of developmental processes. However, it is surprising that attachment theory has been treated as a closed system by its students with remarkable resistance to change and further development of theory and methodology. Especially three dimensions are identified that would help to advance attachment theory as a valid conception also for the future. The context specificity of evolutionary theorizing, the different socialization goals and parenting strategies across cultures and the new insights in infant development need to be taken into consideration in order to develop a valid theory of socioemotional development as the culturally informed solution of universal developmental tasks.

Patterns of Attachment in Frequently and Infrequently Reading Mother—Child Dyads

This study explored the relationship between the quality of the mother–child attachment and how often mothers read to their children. Eighteen children who were read to infrequently were matched to a group of children who were read to daily, for sex, age, and socioeconomic status. The children's mothers read them a booklet, mother and child were observed in a reunion episode, the children completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn, 1965) and Frostig's (1966) test for spatial orientation, and the mothers were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984). The mothers in the frequently reading dyads did not need to discipline their child to focus on the reading task as often as the mothers in the infrequently reading dyads did. Mothers whose attachment to their child was less secure spent less time reading to their child and had more troublesome episodes during the reading session than mothers whose attachment to their child was more secure. The security of the mother-child attachment was related to the mothers' representation of their relationship with their parents, and mothers who had a secure relationship with their child read more frequently to their child than did mothers who had an insecure relationship with their child.     

Can't Shake It Off? Attachment Moderates the Link Between Hostility and Forgiveness

ABSTRACT

Although previous research has indicated that forgiveness is an essential part of relationships that thrive, forgiveness tends to become increasingly difficult as the intensity and duration of hostility rises. Understanding conditions that help make forgiveness more possible, as well as those that actually make forgiveness more difficult, then becomes an important asset for clinicians promoting healthier relational dynamics and longevity. Using data from 257 participants across two time points, we measured the association between hostility and forgiveness to test the moderating role of attachment. Greater hostility was linked with less benevolent forgiveness and more resentment. Moreover, anxious attachment moderated the association between hostile interactions and resentment—the inability to forgive. Implications for helping professionals and clinicians are discussed.     

Moving Toward a Secure Attachment Style: Can Repeated Security Priming Help?

Despite the abundant literature on attachment processes and the development of a secure or insecure attachment orientation during childhood, it is still unclear whether adult attachment style can be changed through systematic interventions, and if so how the change process works. One way to learn more about such change is to create it, on a small scale, in the laboratory. It is already known that a person's sense of security can be momentarily changed in the laboratory ( Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007a ). But there is clearly a difference between very short‐term and longer‐term change. According to Bowlby (1982) , the development of an attachment orientation in childhood is based on many encounters and interactions with caregivers, which gradually create a mental network of relatively stable expectations and concerns. Thus, it may take many episodes of security priming in a laboratory to begin to affect a young adult's attachment style in a lasting way. Here, we explore this possibility, review existing evidence from our own and other researchers’ laboratories, and discuss directions for future research.     

Can Couple Level Attachment Mediate the Influence of Depressive Symptoms on Health?

This study examined whether couple attachment behaviors, as measured by the BARE (Brief Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement Scale), can mediate the influence of depressive symptoms on health for men and women. Data were gathered from the Relate Institute (www.relateinstitute.com) from 797 couples who were in a romantic relationship. Results showed depressive symptoms negatively predict daily eating habits and activity level and positively predicted total health problems and healthcare utilization for both females and males. For partners, female depression negatively predicated both male physical activity and total health problems, and also positively predicted healthcare utilization for men. Results also suggest that attachment behaviors mediated the association between depressive symptoms and total health problems. Findings are discussed from both a clinical and systemic perspective. It may be that fostering secure attachment behaviors in romantic relationships would be a helpful tool for providers working to address the depressive symptoms patients face.     

Why do they hook up? Attachment style and motives of college students

Attachment style may be related to variations in hookup experiences; however, we do not know if attachment style is associated with hookup motives. College students (N = 266) completed questionnaires that assessed attachment style and hookup motives. Avoidant attachment was negatively associated with intimacy motives, while anxious attachment was positively related to intimacy. Insecure attachment styles were positively related to coping motives and self‐affirmation motives, but gender interacted with attachment style. Anxious attachment was positively associated with peer pressure motives in men only. The role of attachment style and hookup motives in understanding young adults' hookup experiences will be discussed.     

Predictors of Female College Students’ Relationship Satisfaction: Attachment and Sexual Assertiveness

We examined attachment and sexual assertiveness to contribute uniquely to female college students’ relationship satisfaction. Results revealed that (a) attachment anxiety contributed negatively and uniquely to female college students’ relationship satisfaction and that (b) sexual assertiveness contributed positively and uniquely to relationship satisfaction after controlling the variances accounted by attachment. This study has an implication for noting the importance of women’s sexual assertiveness in their relationship satisfaction.     

Parent–Adolescent Attachment and Academic Adjustment: The Mediating Role of Self-Worth

Within the theoretical framework of attachment theory, this study examined associations between adolescents’ attachment relationships with both mother and father and their academic adjustment, and explored the potential mediation role of self-worth in the associations. Participants were 384 Chinese adolescents (49.6% male, average age?=?15.13 years) from public schools in Shanghai, China. They completed self-report measures of mother–adolescent attachment, father–adolescent attachment, general self-worth, academic engagement and school grades. The results indicated that adolescents’ attachments to both parents were associated with higher levels of academic engagement. There was partial support of the mediating role of self-worth, as adolescents who had high levels of parent–adolescent attachment were more likely to have high levels of self-worth, which in turn enhanced their academic engagement and then improved high school grades. The findings highlighted the importance of parental attachment-based intervention strategies to promote and maintain academic adjustment among adolescents.     

Interplay between Attachment to Peers and Parents in Korean Adolescents’ Behavior Problems

The present study investigated the relative contribution of style of peer attachment (secure, anxious, avoidant) and quality of attachment to parents on behavior problems in Korean adolescents. In addition, we examined the role of paternal and maternal attachment separately as a potential moderator in the relationship between style of peer attachment and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Middle school students (245 males, 209 females) completed the Korean version of the Adolescent Friendship Attachment Scale, Inventory of Parental and Peer Attachment-Revised, and Youth Self-Report. Attachment to peers and parents as predictors of behavior problems were tested via hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results revealed that anxious peer attachment remained the strongest predictor of behavior problems among adolescents (internalizing behavior problems β?=?.18, p?<?.01; externalizing behavior problems β?=?.21, p? <?.001), indicating the relative importance of peer relationship compared to attachment to parents. Paternal attachment significantly moderated the relationship between avoidant peer attachment and externalizing behavior problems (β?=?.15, p?<?.05), even when the main effect of avoidant peer attachment on externalizing behavior problems was not significant. Results highlight the role of both attachments to peers and parents on adolescents’ psychological adjustment.     

Mothers’ Prementalizing Psychic Functioning and Reactive Attachment Disorder: Two Clinical Cases

This article explores the relationship between maternal reflective functioning (MRF) and Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) from both a theoretical and clinical perspective. A new scoring system that evaluates the predominance in the mother of prementalizing modes of psychic functioning (psychic equivalence and pretend mode) has been developed and applied to the Parent Development Interview-Revised. The theoretical foundations of this system are presented and its scoring criteria are briefly described. The protocols of two mothers whose children suffer from RAD are analyzed using the RF scoring system (Slade, Bernbach et al., 2005) and the new scoring system developed for this study (Leroux & Terradas, 2012) in order to demonstrate their complementary use. Some theoretical and clinical thoughts about the impact of MRF on the development of RAD are revealed. This being a small-scale exploratory study, further research is needed to establish the psychometric properties of this new coding system.     

Longitudinal Analysis of Early Semantic Networks: Preferential Attachment or Preferential Acquisition?

ABSTRACT— Analyses of adult semantic networks suggest a learning mechanism involving preferential attachment: A word is more likely to enter the lexicon the more connected the known words to which it is related. We introduce and test two alternative growth principles: preferential acquisition—words enter the lexicon not because they are related to well-connected words, but because they connect well to other words in the learning environment—and the lure of the associates—new words are favored in proportion to their connections with known words. We tested these alternative principles using longitudinal analyses of developing networks of 130 nouns children learn prior to the age of 30 months. We tested both networks with links between words represented by features and networks with links represented by associations. The feature networks did not predict age of acquisition using any growth model. The associative networks grew by preferential acquisition, with the best model incorporating word frequency, number of phonological neighbors, and connectedness of the new word to words in the learning environment, as operationalized by connectedness to words typically acquired by the age of 30 months.     

“Let's Do It Again”: Further Reflections on Eros and Attachment

Stephen Mitchell (1997) wrote that “Psychoanalysis and the Degradation of Romance,” the paper on which the book Can Love Last was based, provoked the most feedback, both intellectual and personal, of anything he had ever written. These reverberations have continued, unabated by his passing. One of the many responses to his work in this area took the form of a 3-week International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) online symposium (March 2003), which also addressed a paper of mine, “Attachment and Eros: Opposed or Synergistic?” (Goldner, 2004 Goldner, V. 2004. Attachment and eros: Opposed or synergistic?. Psychoanal. Dial, 14: 381–396. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) that proposed an alternative thesis about the fate of romantic love over the long term. Many on the IARPP colloquium took the position that although Mitchell and I used different intellectual strategies, our relational solution to the (apparent) opposition between attachment and eros was reductive because it occluded a full reckoning with the one-person aspects of sexuality. By contrast, my position argued that Mitchell's work was reductive because he gave short shrift to the two-person aspects of romantic intimacy (especially to the importance of the third). Those primarily concerned with sexuality argued that Mitchell under estimated the foundational irreconcilability between eros and attachment, but my concern with relationality lead me to argue that he over estimated this antagonism, and I ultimately proposed a means to deconstruct this opposition altogether