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Similarities and Differences of the ABCD Model and the DMM Classification Systems for Attachment: A Practitioner’s Guide
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... An approach with greater utility for practitioners is the dynamic maturational model (DMM) of attachment developed by Patricia Crittenden (2015) which offers a wider range of strategies and has shown greater power to discriminate risk from non-risk populations Shah and Strathearn, 2014). Correspondence between the two systems is low, particularly outside of the normative range, making any meaningful comparison between ABC+D and DMM studies very difficult (Baldoni et al., 2018). ...
... In Figure 1 these are A1-2 B and C1-2. The ABC+D model has tended to view attachment behaviour as a trajectory so that while change is possible the basic ABC patterns are used to denote the strategic range of attachment throughout the lifespan (Shah and Strathearn, 2014). The disorganised category was introduced following observed lapses in strategic ABC behaviour in infants; i.e., behaviours which disrupt the elicitation of protection from attachment figures; e.g. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to determine the attachment strategies of prospective adoptive parents and any correlation between attachment and the defensive strategies they used when talking about loss of fertility. The study also examined whether attachment strategy of the applicants had a bearing on the decision by the local authority to place a child.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was comprised of 48 respondents (21 couples) representing 84 per cent of all people who applied to one UK Social Services Department in a 12-month period. Placement of a child was reviewed two years following the assessment. The study used the dynamic maturational model version of the adult attachment interview (DMM-AAI), together with added questions on loss of fertility to assess the applicants’ attachment strategies together with unresolved loss and trauma and the DMM modifiers.
Findings
Unlike adoption studies using the Main and Goldwyn system, this study rated very few of the applicants’ AAIs as secure (13 per cent), 48 per cent were in the normative low-risk range and 52 per cent of the AAIs were coded in the more complex DMM insecure strategies. There was a significant bias towards marriages where the partners deployed opposite low-risk/DMM strategies (13 (62 per cent) of couples). Compared with data on non-clinical populations the AAIs showed a high level of unresolved loss or trauma (58 per cent). Using a six-way distribution (A1-2, C1-2, B, A3-4, C3-6 and A/C) there was an 87 per cent correspondence between discourse about loss of fertility and that about attachment, thereby supporting the established proposition that reproduction is part of the attachment system. Twenty one per cent of the AAIs were coded as “disorientated” and this is discussed in terms of conflict for adoptive of parents concerning the raising of a child who carries their own genes or those of strangers. A case is made to conceptualise negative impact of infertility in terms of unresolved trauma rather than loss.
Research - limitations/implications
This study adds to research showing that the DMM approach is more finely calibrated than the ABC+disorganised model with the latter likely over coding for security. The results emphasise that fertility and reproduction are legitimate subjects for attachment studies and that AAI discourse analysis is a valid methodology for future research. However coder agreement as to whether or not loss of fertility was resolved was only fair (64 per cent) κ. 0.25 (po0.33). More work is required in order to determine what constitutes unresolved loss of fertility and what impact, if any, this has on parenting an adopted child.
Practical implications
The practice implications are considered in a separate paper.
Social implications
The findings are contentious in that they suggest a significant number (48 per cent) of adoptive parents have needs not dissimilar to other clients of psychological services.
Originality/value
This is the first DMM-AAI study with prospective adoptive parents and the findings show significant differences when compared with previous studies using the Main and Goldwyn AAI. It is also the first study to establish fertility as a legitimate area for attachment studies by using AAI discourse analysis.
... However, considering the theoretical differences between the Berkeley and the DMM systems, and the previous empirical literature examining the different classifications resulting from the application of the two coding systems (Shah et al., 2010;Shah & Strathearn, 2014;Crittenden & Spieker, 2009;Zachrisson et al., 2011), we also tested an alternative hypothesis that organized states of mind (Ds, F, and E) at the Berkeley system would correspond to normative strategies at the DMM (B, low-index A and low-index C), while disorganized states of mind (U and CC) at the Berkeley would correspond to non-normative attachment strategies at the DMM (high-index A, high-index C, high-index A/C or AC). ...
... For Main, the infant's disorganized behavior in the SSP reflects a lack of a strategy to manage fear associated with a frightened or frightening parent and, in the Berkeley system, significant trauma and loss are considered to potentially foster dysregulated and painful feelings that may temporarily disorganize the individual and that may even prevent him or her from developing coherent mental states with respect to such experiences (Main & Hesse, 1990). Conversely, fear is conceived in the DMM as an organizing affect (Shah & Strathearn, 2014) that fosters a self-protection strategy. For example, according to the DMM system, the child may develop a Type C self-protective strategy when relating with a predictable unresponsive and depressed Type A caregiver. ...
Few studies have compared different systems in classifying Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) transcripts. In this study, the AAI was administered to 90 Italian parents (45 couples), and the AAI transcripts were independently classified according to Main, Goldwyn, and Hesse’s (Berkeley) and Crittenden’s (Dynamic-Maturational Model [DMM]) criteria. The two classification systems were not significantly associated, with some limited convergent results only when the interviews resulted in organized (Berkeley) and normative (DMM) attachment classifications. Otherwise, the Berkeley system identified more secure individuals than the DMM system, and many texts judged secure on the Berkeley system were identified as insecure on the DMM system. Since the Berkeley and the DMM systems rest on remarkably different conceptualizations of the nature and functioning of the attachment behavioral system (e.g. fear is conceived as organizing in the DMM and as potentially disorganizing in the Berkeley), the attachment classifications resulting from their applications should not be considered measurements of the same phenomena.
... This is to do with the developmentally expected dependence on their caregivers, which lessens with ongoing neurological, emotional, and social maturation. While children solely depend on their caregivers for comfort and protection in early childhood, their use of self-protective behaviours is organised around their primary attachment figures to maximise their chance of having these needs met (26). ...
Caring for a young child exposed to early trauma, along with caregiving stress and heightened by the impact of lockdowns as a result of the COVID-19 response, may compromise the development of the parent-child relationship. Understanding a foster carer's attachment history and considering relational dynamics through an attachment lens may shed light on areas they need support in, to enhance their parenting capacity for vulnerable children. The feasibility of collecting and coding observational data and attachment interviews of foster carers and their children, when conducted remotely during COVID-19, needs to be explored. This perspective piece considers the impact on infant and perinatal health in the context of COVID-19 with particular emphasis on relational dynamics and attachment assessments, using a case study of a foster carer and her child in an out-of-home-care placement. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for safeguarding the well-being of both caregivers and vulnerable children during this challenging time.
... The decisive factor for attachment classification is the child's behavior at the reunion with the caregiver. The SSP is videotaped and the child's behaviors concerning the caregiver are coded on a 7point Likert scale for the presence of proximity and contact-seeking, maintaining contact, resistance, avoidance, distance interaction, and search behaviors (Shah & Strathearn, 2014). ...
Introduction
Extensive evidence indicates that the quality of parent-child attachment is related to later socio-emotional and physical health outcomes. Yet, despite its clinical relevance, the parent-child attachment concept has been inconsistently applied across the disciplines of nursing, medicine and psychology and is often conflated with parent-child bonding in nursing literature.
Objectives
To provide readers with a critical analysis of the concept of parent-child attachment. Using a principle-based concept analysis, we clarify how parent-child attachment is understood from a multidisciplinary perspective to advance the use of this concept in nursing practice. Concept Description: Attachment is an affectionate, mutually satisfying relationship between a child and a caregiver that serves the purpose of making the child feel safe, secure, and protected.
Discussion
In this principle-based concept analysis, each definitional (i.e., epistemological, pragmatic, linguistic, and logical) principle contributes to an understanding of the strengths and limitations of the state of science about this concept. The discussion highlights how applying the concept of parent-child attachment security may offer exciting and promising opportunities for nursing clinical work with families.
Conclusion
The understanding of the concept of parent-child attachment differs among disciplines of nursing, medicine and psychology and offers exciting and promising opportunities for clarity and collaborative, multi-disciplinary work.
... (DRs are cognitive entities, like internal working models. However, they are complex and may change across time and context (see Shah & Strathern, 2014 for discussion of differences)). Crittenden (2008Crittenden ( , 2015 extends the original Ainsworth A/avoidant patterns, stating that in higher risk situations children not only inhibit negative affect but also falsify positive affect (A+, compulsive strategies). ...
This study provides evidence of validity of the School-age Assessment of Attachment (SAA) through longitudinal comparison with the Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA) and with concurrent attachment assessments and measures of risk and parenting. Determining which assessment had the greatest validity with this moderate-risk sample would be of benefit to those working with troubled young people and their families.
Children's SAA classifications were expected to correspond to their PAA, a behavioral attachment assessment, parenting, and risk. An attachment questionnaire was predicted to not accurately indicate children's risk status.
The design was an 8-year longitudinal follow-up of rural Appalachian American preschoolers.
The participants were 21 children and their caregivers. The PAA was completed at age 4. The SAA, a self-report questionnaire, and a parent-child conflict resolution task were completed at age 12. Parents completed assessments of depression, trauma, stress, and perceptions of helplessness.
The PAA was related to the SAA and the dyadic behavioral task. The SAA was consistently associated with measures of parenting and family risk. The attachment questionnaire performed poorly for children with higher risk status, suggesting more (not less) sensitive and responsive parenting.
© The Author(s) 2015.
... The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; Crittenden and Landini, 2011;George et al., unpublished manuscript) is a semi-structured 1½-2 h-long interview comprised of questions which highlight childhood relationships with attachment figures, usually parents. A modified version of the AAI was chosen because of its expanded questions that contain more direct probes into potential life traumas and losses (Shah and Strathearn, 2014), and validation from previously published data (Strathearn et al., 2009). Through analysis of the discourse, an overall attachment strategy is determined [labeled in the Crittenden model as A, B, or C, paralleling the infancy model of attachment from the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP)], along with discourse modifiers, including "unresolved trauma or loss," and those meeting the classification of "reorganization." ...
A mother's unresolved trauma may interfere with her ability to sensitively respond to her infant, thus affecting the development of attachment in her own child, and potentially contributing to the intergenerational transmission of trauma. One novel construct within the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) coding of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) is “reorganization,” a process whereby speakers are actively changing their understanding of past and present experiences and moving toward attachment security. We conducted a study of mothers with unresolved trauma, exploring their own attachment classification, attachment outcomes of their children, and the potential effects of reorganization on child attachment. Forty-seven first-time mothers participated in the AAI during pregnancy, and returned with their child at 11 months to assess child attachment using the Strange Situation Procedure. Mothers with and without unresolved trauma were compared. We found that mothers with unresolved trauma had insecure attachment themselves and were more likely to have infants with insecure attachment. However, the one exception was that all of the mothers with unresolved trauma who were reorganizing toward secure attachment had infants with secure attachment. These preliminary findings suggest that mothers who are reorganizing may be able to more sensitively respond to their child's cues, contributing to the development of secure attachment. While our results need to be replicated in a larger cohort, this study is the first to explore the construct of reorganization and its potential relationship with child attachment. If confirmed in future studies, it may provide clinical insight into the intergenerational transmission of insecure attachment within the context of unresolved trauma.
... The AAIs were audiorecorded, transcribed, and blindly coded by reliable raters in accordance with the Dynamic Maturational Model (DMM) of Attachment and Adaptation (Crittenden and Landini, 2011;Landa and Duschinsky, 2013). The DMM method was chosen because of its focus on clinical phenomena, with expanded questions relating to past trauma (Shah and Strathearn, 2014), and validation from previously published neuroimaging data (Strathearn et al., 2009). The intraclass correlation for the unresolved trauma classification was .86. ...
While the neurobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder has been extensively researched, much less attention has been paid to the neural mechanisms underlying more covert but pervasive types of trauma (e.g., those involving disrupted relationships and insecure attachment). Here, we report on a neurobiological study documenting that mothers' attachment-related trauma, when unresolved, undermines her optimal brain response to her infant's distress. We examined the amygdala blood oxygenation level-dependent response in 42 first-time mothers as they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, viewing happy- and sad-face images of their own infant, along with those of a matched unknown infant. Whereas mothers with no trauma demonstrated greater amygdala responses to the sad faces of their own infant as compared to their happy faces, mothers who were classified as having unresolved trauma in the Adult Attachment Interview (Dynamic Maturational Model) displayed blunted amygdala responses when cued by their own infants' sadness as compared to happiness. Unknown infant faces did not elicit differential amygdala responses between the mother groups. The blunting of the amygdala response in traumatized mothers is discussed as a neural indication of mothers' possible disengagement from infant distress, which may be part of a process linking maternal unresolved trauma and disrupted maternal caregiving.
It is well known that there are several psychological predisposing factors that play a role in developing and maintaining pain, especially—but not only—in chronic pain. Mostly in the last 15 years, several studies have suggested that attachment is a specific and sensitive construct that we should keep in mind to better explain individual differences between recurrent pain and chronic experiences.
Over the years, several models have been developed for conceptualizing and studying attachment patterns in different pain conditions, which are useful in better understanding patients’ experiences and their needs. Given that attachment theory is a lifespan developmental approach, there are different methods for the measurement of differences in the quality of attachment.
The chapter discusses research in the attachment perspective that has begun to explore more relationships with pain (in a broader sense) as well as specific attachment-oriented approaches and shared neural mechanisms that may underlie these relationships.
Background and Objectives
Hedonic hunger (HH) occurs when individuals are driven to consume highly palatable food for pleasure, rather than to satisfy a caloric need. Currently, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) does not recognize HH as a use disorder. Previous research has noted physiological, neurobiological, and treatment similarities between HH, binge eating behavior and substance use, leading to the speculation of the existence of food addiction (FA). The purpose of the current review was to explore the literature on the developmental similarities between substance use, HH, binge eating behavior, and other use disorders to provide more evidence for the recognition of FA as an official use disorder, to add to the evidence in favor of a developmental model of use disorders, and to inform the development of interventions that target modifiable symptoms associated with use disorders.
Methods
We provide a narrative review of the literature on developmental factors associated with both HH and substance use.
Results & Discussion
Adverse childhood experiences and attachment have been previously linked to both substance use and maladaptive eating behaviors. Adverse childhood experiences are linked with insecure attachment and emotion dysregulation, which is linked with compulsive behaviors and substance use. Clinical and research implications are discussed in terms of a developmental model of use disorders and the formal recognition of FA in the next edition of the DSM.
Objective:
To build an account of how bereaved Tamil refugee and asylum seeker children, resettled in Australia, had processed the loss of their dead or missing fathers.
Method:
Phenomenological and discourse analysis was applied to attachment narratives of nine children (aged 11-17 years) and their surviving mothers in families that lost fathers in war-related circumstances. The narratives were analysed through the lens of Crittenden's Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) and Klass' cross-cultural model of grief.
Results:
Two divergent pathways - 'burying the past' and 'reifying the past' - emerged, encompassing the children's contrasting patterns of information processing regarding loss and trauma (dismissing or preoccupying) andrepresentation of the past (distant-buried or rich-reconstructed). Each pathway reflected a strategic compromise between the constraints and resources presented to the child by the circumstances of the loss (ambiguous or confirmed), the response of their surviving parent (stricken or stoic) and the collective narrative surrounding the loss (silenced or valorised).
Conclusion:
The DMM's conceptualisation of attachment as self-protective strategies for navigating danger was helpful in explaining the contrasting adaptations of refugee children to loss and trauma. However, to understand the multivalent meanings of these adaptations, there was a need to situate child-parent attachment relationships within the wider sociocultural reconfigurations arising from contexts of political violence.
This article undertakes a systematic exposition and analysis of Patricia Crittenden’s dynamic–maturational model of attachment and adaptation. It traces Crittenden’s information-processing model of attachment behavior to her work with Mary Ainsworth, and shows how this account came to underpin her integration of insights from cognitive science with developmental psychology. The article draws surprising conclusions regarding the differences between the dynamic-maturational model and mainstream attachment theory, clarifying the meaning of contested concepts and identifying important flaws in previous interpretations of Crittenden’s work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
Qualitative differences in videotaped mother-infant interactions were found to differentiate four groups of mothers: abusing, neglecting, problematic, and adequate — based on the mothers' welfare service status. The infants were found to display three patterns of interaction: passive, cooperative, and difficult. Two coding devices (one for maternal behavior and one for infant behavior) were used to categorize the interactions. Two studies are reported: the original investigation and a replication. The interaction categorizations identified by the maternal coding device agreed with the mothers' actual welfare service status in 71% of the cases. The infant patterns of interaction showed a clear relationship between maternal abusiveness and infant difficultness and between maternal neglect and infant passiveness. Less distorted maternal patterns of interactions were typically associated with infant co-operativeness.
The relation between social support and child development was tested in 121 maltreating and adequate mother-child dyads. 3 patterns of social support were identified: (a) stable, open, and cooperative; (b) stable, closed, and withdrawn; and (c) unstable, open, and hostile. The maternal patterns of social support were related to the child's security of attachment but did not account for as much variance as maltreatment status and did not account for any additional variance. The results were interpreted through attachment theory in terms of the concept of working models of relationships.
This article addresses the clinical issue of selecting assessments of attachment that are relevant to decision making for families. The validity of three commonly used methods of assessing attachment in preschool-aged children was compared using a sample of 51 low- income mother-child dyads. Thirty-eight of the children had been abused or neglected. The dyads were seen in a Strange Situation that was classified using each of the three methods: (a) the Ainsworth-extended method, (b) the Cassidy-Marvin (C-M) method, and (c) the Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA). Validity was evaluated in terms of maltreatment status, maternal sensitivity, child DQ, and maternal attachment strategy. The PAA and C-M classifications matched in only 37% of cases. The Ainsworth-extended method differentiated secure versus insecure children on two variables. The C- M method differentiated secure versus insecure children on one variable. The PAA differentiated secure versus insecure children on all four variables and sub- groups on one. Moreover, it was tied to other family relationship variables in meaningful ways. If applied in clinical settings, these three methods would result in very different groups of children being seen as safe and at risk. We argue that clinicians cannot afford to be uninformed about the validity of alternative means of assessing attachment.
