Attachment anxiety and trauma history uniquely and interactively predict adjustment during and following deployment among military partners.

Abstract

The psychological impact of military deployment on nondeploying partners of service members is only recently gaining attention in the literature, with preliminary findings suggesting that partners of military service members experience significant mental health consequences of deployment, but with little work examining factors that could heighten or attenuate risk for maladjustment in response to deployment. The current study uses attachment theory as a guide to explore the unique and interactive effects of two factors likely to increase risk for maladjustment among nondeploying partners: attachment anxiety and trauma history. Participants (N = 86) completed assessments 2 weeks prior to and 2 weeks following their partners’ deployment departure, as well as 2 weeks following their partners’ return. Attachment anxiety and trauma history independently contributed to adjustment during and following the deployment, with partners high in either factor at greatest risk for maladjustment and partners high in both exhibiting the most linguistic signs of threat orientation. Further, low attachment anxiety was associated with better adjustment when trauma history was low or moderate, but not high; similarly, low trauma history was associated with better adjustment when attachment anxiety was at low or moderate, but not high. In terms of postdeployment adjustment, partners with less trauma history reported less distress. Somewhat surprisingly, among those with more trauma history, higher attachment anxiety was associated with less risk for maladjustment. We discuss these findings in terms of their implication for theory and prevention.

Maternal and Child Sexual Abuse History: An Intergenerational Exploration of Children’s Adjustment and Maternal Trauma-Reflective Functioning

“…In this sense, experiences that violate the expectations of the IWM (particularly those that deviate the IWM’s assumptions by being unexpectedly negative) would be more disruptive to the individual than experiences that confirm the IWM’s assumptions. This reasoning is consistent with recent work suggesting that adults with high attachment anxiety and high trauma exposure exhibit better psychological adjustment than those with low attachment anxiety and high trauma exposure following the conclusion of a stressful life event (end of a military deployment; Borelli et al, 2018b) – in this study, the authors argued their findings may provide evidence of the adaptive nature of attachment insecurity in the face of stress. In other words, although insecure or disorganized attachment in and of itself is associated with negative mental health outcomes in children (see Groh et al, 2012 for a review; Mikulincer and Shaver, 2012), perhaps insecure IWMs protect children from the maladjustment that could stem from their own abuse – if they are expecting others to harm or frighten them, then CSA exposure could be less “disruptive” in terms of shifting children’s world views.…”

Intergenerational Transmission of Violence Among Substance-Abusing Chinese Parents: Roles of Detachment and Social Support

“…Though controversial, this perspective is in line with the core tenets of attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982). It reflects the adaptive nature of attachment insecurity in the face of stress (Borelli et al, 2019).…”

Psychological distress with relationship satisfaction is moderated by anticipatory relational savoring among non‐deployed military partners

“…”, and “ How often do you feel that you lack companionship? ” These items exhibit good reliability and validity in nationally representative samples of older adults (Hughes et al, 2004) and military partners (Borelli et al, 2019). Reliability in our study was high (Study 1 α = .80; Study 2 α = .82).…”