Are mothers' protective attachment strategies related to their children's strategies?

作者：Crittenden Patricia M^*; Robson Katrina; Tooby Alison; Fleming Charles

来源：Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2017, 22(3): 358-377.

DOI：10.1177/1359104517704027

• Attachment
• AAI
• DMM-AAI
• school-age children
• SAA
• transgenerational attachment

Aims:We explored the relation between mothers' protective attachment strategies and those of their school-age children.
Methods: In total, 49 child-mother dyads participated in a short longitudinal study when the children were 5.5 and 6.0years old. Their strategies were first assessed with the Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA) and then with the School-age Assessment of Attachment (SAA). Mothers were assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). The Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) was used to classify the assessments.
Results: The validity and precision of the DMM-AAI were supported: Mothers' AAI classifications were related to their referral group (normative or clinical) and measures of stress and distress. The DMM categories were more associated with risk than the Ainsworth categories. Types A, C and A/C were differentiated by trauma, triangulation and depression. Mothers' and children's protective attachment strategies were related, with B mothers having B children and A or C mothers having children using the same or opposite strategy. Children whose classification changed from the PAA to the SAA had mothers with complex traumas.
Conclusion: When psychosocial treatment is needed, knowing whether mother and child use the same or different strategies and whether mothers have complex trauma can affect treatment success.

• 出版日期2017-7