Modern Attachment Theory: The Central Role of Affect Regulation in Development and Treatment

Abstract

Over the past decade attachment theory has undergone an intense expansion of both its original scientific foundations as well as its applications to clinical work. Bowlby's original description occurred during a period of behaviorism and an emphasis on the strange situation and secure base behaviors, which then gave way to a dominance of cognition and an emphasis on attachment narratives and reflective capacities. We will argue that in line with Bowlby's fundamental goal of the integration of psychological and biological models of human development, the current interest in affective bodily-based processes, interactive regulation, early experience-dependent brain maturation, stress, and nonconscious relational transactions has shifted attachment theory to a regulation theory. This emphasis on the right brain systems that underlie attachment and developmental change has in turn forged deeper connections with clinical models of psychotherapeutic change, all of which are consonant with psychoanalytic understandings. Modern attachment theory can thus be incorporated into the core of social work theory, research, and practice.

Disorganized attachment and defense: exploring John Bowlby’s unpublished reflections

“…Schore, 2001; Schore & Schore, 2008; Siegel, 2017). Seeking proximity to their caregiver is a common and coherent strategy in infants for regulating distress.…”

“…Optimal self-organization results from links between differentiated elements of a system that are coordinated and balanced through “ integration, ” the same term Bowlby used for this process (Bowlby, c. 1986). Reflecting Bowlby’s emphasis on the importance of early traumatic experience, childhood trauma has been situated by studies in Interpersonal Neurobiology as a relational impediment to experiential and neurological integration (Schore & Schore, 2008; Siegel, 2012; Teicher, 2007), which is then reflected in a child’s attentional processes, expectations, affects, and behavior.…”

Italian translation and cross-cultural comparison with the Childhood Attachment and Relational Trauma Screen (CARTS)

“…Research has emphasized the difference between intra-familial and extra-familial traumatic experiences. Indeed, the importance of the relationship between parent and child is crucial for successful social and emotional development of the developing child (Schore & Schore, 2008; Sheeringa & Zeanah, 2001), and several studies have documented that individual differences in the interaction between parent and child are predictive of subsequent social and emotional adjustment (Apter-Levy, Feldman, Vakart, Ebstein, & Feldman, 2013; Bowlby, 1969; Schore, 2002; Simpson, Collins, Farrell, & Lee Raby, 2015), as well as of the child’s long-term ability to regulate intense emotions and stressful states (Van der Kolk, 2008, 2014). As a consequence, traumatic experiences of abuse and maltreatment within the family are likely to produce deeper effects, since they impact the attachment system and the caregiving function of providing the child with regulatory strategies for stress.…”

Being together – Exploring the modulation of affect in improvisational music therapy with a man in a persistent vegetative state – a qualitative single case study

“…Attachment styles begin to develop during early childhood in interactions with primary caregivers, and can change, subtly or dramatically, depending on the current context and recent relational experience over a lifespan (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2014). Schore and Schore (2008) state that within a shared culture and environment the mother initially provides an external regulating mechanism for many of the physiological mechanisms that the infant possesses, but is not yet able to regulate on his or her own. Over the course of infancy, a child becomes increasingly self-regulated as a result of neurophysiological development.…”