[Development, experience and relationship patterns: psychological health from the object attachment viewpoint]. / Entwicklung, Erfahrung und Beziehungsmuster: Psychische Gesundheit aus bindungstheoretischer Sicht.

In this article the author begins to integrate different theoretical perspectives in order to develop a more comprehensive model of normative and disordered pathways of development, in which genetic heritage, maturation, and individual differences in experience all play a role in the development of individual differences in adaptation. Specifically, differences in early attachment relationships are reconceptualized in terms of learned patterns of processing of cognitive and affective information and learned behavioral strategies for eliciting caregiving from attachment figures. In this model the basic nature of the mind is to be self-correcting so as to yield increasingly sophisticated and adaptive mental and behavioral patterns.

The social ecology of treatment: case study of a service system for maltreated children.

Difficulties in improving services for maltreated children can be attributed in part to misunderstanding of how the forces determining service availability and procedures operate. A case study of an attempt to modify one service delivery system is presented and analyzed in terms of social ecological theory. Recommendations are made for improving services to families, both directly and by means of system interventions.

Children's strategies for coping with adverse home environments: an interpretation using attachment theory.

The coping strategies of four groups of maltreated children were compared with those of adequately reared children. The children were videotaped in a brief play session with their mothers, then in the Strange Situation, and finally during free play while the parent(s) were being interviewed. The coded videotapes of mother-child interaction yielded four scores for the children: cooperation, compulsive compliance, difficultness, and passivity. The coded videotapes of the Strange Situation yielded ten patterns of child attachment to the mother. The coded observations of play during the interview were analyzed in terms of seven child behaviors. The results indicated that abused, and abused-and-neglected children were difficult or compliant in interaction with their mothers, avoidant under stress, and aggressive with siblings; neglected children were cooperative in play with the mother, anxious under stress, and aggressive with siblings; adequately reared children were cooperative with both their mothers and siblings and secure under stress. Older children who had experienced abuse were less difficult and more compulsively compliant. Both marginally maltreated and adequately reared 1-year-olds were more difficult than either older or younger children from those groups but at all ages cooperation was the dominant pattern. The coherencies in the children's coping strategies were interpreted in terms of underlying internal representational models of relationships.

Physical and psychological maltreatment: relations among types of maltreatment.

Maltreatment has serious consequences for the development of children. The reason for the negative outcomes is not, however, fully understood. This study investigated the hypotheses that psychological maltreatment would be present in almost all cases of physical maltreatment and that it would be more related to detrimental outcomes for children than would severity of injury. A sample of 175 maltreated children, 39 children in mental health treatment, and 176 normative children was assessed for type and severity of maltreatment. Both hypotheses were supported. In addition, evidence is provided that psychological maltreatment can occur alone, that assessments of parental psychologically maltreating behavior and negative child outcomes are highly correlated, and that child age and gender are unrelated to psychological maltreatment in young children whereas family income is related. Implications for investigation and treatment are considered.

Compulsive compliance: the development of an inhibitory coping strategy in infancy.

This study explored the development of young children's behavioral strategies for coping with child abuse. It was hypothesized that infants exposed to the controllingness and harshness of interaction with an abusive mother would first learn to inhibit behavior disagreeable to the mother and later learn to comply with maternal demands. It was expected that this developmental change in abused children's behavior would be adaptive in the short term because it would reduce the probability of continued abuse. In the long term, however, compulsive compliance was expected to be maladaptive because it distorted the child's perception of, and response to, reality. In addition, it was hypothesized that the compliant behavior pattern would be used only with controlling interactants during the first 3 years of life. In other words, the descriptions of defensive patterns of behavior applied indiscriminantly by older abused children were not expected to apply to infants and toddlers. Both hypotheses were supported using data drawn from videotapes of mother-child and other adult-child interaction.

Maltreated infants: vulnerability and resilience.

This study of maltreated infants offers evidence supporting a model of bidirectional effects in which the mother initiates the maltreatment but both mother and infant behave so as to maintain the situation. Maltreated infants were found not to differ from control infants in congenital characteristics. They did, however, display deviance in learned behavior patterns. After intervention with the mother the infants showed behavioral improvement. These results suggested that maltreated infants were not inherently different from other children and that they were resilient in response to environmental improvement. Their earlier behavior may, however, have functioned to maintain their mothers' maltreating responses.

Sibling interaction: evidence of a generational effect in maltreating infants.

Theorists have long assumed that an individual's style of child-rearing was based, in large part, on his or her parents' style of parenting. The strongest evidence of such a generational effect comes from retrospective studies of disturbed adults. The present study is an attempt to provide some prospective evidence. Infants, aged 6 to 11 months, were videotaped interacting with their mother, with a sibling, and with a second adult. At each sibling age (from 2 to 10 years) one abused, one neglected, one problematic, and one normally reared infant was seen. The adult/sibling patterns of interaction were coded as abusive, neglecting, inept, or sensitive. Infant patterns were difficult, passive, and cooperative. Siblings were found to interact with the infant in a manner similar to that of their mothers suggesting that they had learned their style of interaction from their mothers. Although adequately reared siblings increased in sensitivity with age, maltreated siblings did not. The possibility that infant temperament had influenced both the mothers' and the siblings' style of interaction (and, therefore, accounted for their similarity) was tested using a second adult interactant. Adults were found to influence infants more than the reverse. These data provide evidence of a generational effect in the learning of parenting styles appearing as early as the third year of life. Moreover, they suggest that the effect is not attributable to infant temperament.

The effect of mandatory protective daycare on mutual attachment in maltreating mother-infants dyads.

Twenty-two children for whom protective daycare was sought were followed for four years. Those placed in daycare had earlier removals for foster care than the children who could not be placed in daycare. At the end of four years the outcomes for the two groups were similar. It was concluded that mandatory protective daycare had hastened, but not caused, the removal of the children. This unexpected outcome was explained in terms of attachment theory. Evidence was cited showing that both maltreating mothers and their infants could be considered anxiously attached and that such individuals would be more than normally vulnerable to experiences of separation. In this study both mothers and infants reacted to the daycare placement with a combination of direct anger and ignoring (repressed anger). These reactions exacerbated the already strained mother-infant relationships leading to increased abuse and neglect of the infants and, therefore, earlier removal.