Preventive Intervention and Outcome with Anxiously Attached Dyads

Abstract

Anxiously attached 12-month-olds and their mothers as assessed in the Strange Situation were randomly assigned to an intervention and a control group to test the hypothesis that infant-parent psychotherapy can improve quality of attachment and social-emotional functioning. Securely attached dyads comprised a second control group. Intervention lasted 1 year and ended when the child was 24 months. ANOVAs were used to compare the research groups at outcome. Intervention group toddlers were significantly lower than anxious controls in avoidance, resistance, and anger. They were significantly higher than anxious controls in partnership with mother. Intervention mothers had higher scores than anxious controls in empathy and interactiveness with their children. There were no differences on the outcome measures between the intervention and the secure control groups. The groups did not differ in maternal child-rearing attitudes. Within the intervention group, level of therapeutic process was positively correlated with adaptive scores in child and mother outcome measures.

Dispositional mindfulness mediates the relationships of parental attachment to posttraumatic stress disorder and academic burnout in adolescents following the Yancheng tornado

“…Many researchers have theorized and investigated parental attachment as a resiliency factor for traumatized children and adolescents (e.g. Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989; Lieberman, Weston, & Pawl, 1991). Among a sample of 1153 Chinese adolescents 8.5 years after Wenchuan earthquake, Tian, Wu, Wang, and Zhou (2018) found that secure parental attachment negatively predicted PTSD.…”

Recruiting and retaining low-income Latinos in psychotherapy research.

“…This research project assessed the effectiveness of infant-parent psychotherapy that focused on improving the infant-mother attachment bond with a group of 100 Latina mothers from Mexico and Central America, all of whom had been residents in the United States for less than 5 years ( Lieberman, Weston, & Pawl, 1991 ). Mothers were of low socioeconomic status and not acculturated to the United States.…”

Effects of attachment-based interventions on maternal sensitivity and infant attachment: Differential susceptibility of highly reactive infants.

“…In contrast with the large number of interventions aiming at enhancing parental sensitivity, there are few intervention studies that implicitly or explicitly address the issue of changing parental mental representations of attachment (e.g., Lieberman, Weston, & Pawl, 1991). Only one intervention evaluated its effect on parental attachment representations (Egeland, Adam, Ogawa, & Korfmacher, 1995).…”