A discussion of current attachment research and its clinical applications

Abstract

This article highlights Stern's recent conceptualization of the infant's development of internal working models of attachment and the relationship between internal working models and the narrative self. Research studies, including Ainsworth's and Main's seminal work on types of infant attachment models, are reviewed. These include secure, avoidant insecure, ambivalent insecure, and disorganized-disoriented types of infant attachment. Later research supports the continuation of these same attachment patterns in the children at age six. A clinical case, a sixteen year old and her infant, is presented to illustrate how the client's working model of attachment plays out in the treatment process.In reviewing infancy research, social work theoreticians Saari (1991) and Palombo (1992) have stated that the concept of meaning is central to the process of clinical treatment. The process of constructing meaning begins in the non-verbal discourse between mother and infant. The infant and the mother have lived, shared experiences; and the mother helps the infant to affectively integrate, or make sense, of these experiences through the process of affect attunement (Stern, 1985). Thus, experiences begin to be organized into meaningful patterns from infancy. These lived interactive experiences would include mother-infant attachment experiences.

Loss and Grief in Adoption: The Impact of Contact

“…Further information about abused and neglected children's internal working models has been produced experimentally by using story-stem techniques, eg Fish and Condon (1994). These models were very persistent, even when children's behaviour had matured (Main et al, 1985).…”

III. Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment and Loss: A Feminist Reconsideration

“…Recently, John Byng-Hall (1990) reported that he uses the theory as a way to conceptualize relationships in terms of shared scripts or working models of attachment behavior that have transgenerational implications. Several authors have argued, in fact, that attachment theory does not suggest a new school of psychotherapy or counseling practice, but rather that it provides a theoretical framework for understanding the principles which underlie all effective therapies (Biringen, 1994;Farber et al, 1995;Fish and Condon, 1994;Jones, 1983;Lopez, 1995).…”