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This attachment style is a combination of anxious and avoidant attachment and participants often have a need for closeness, fear of rejection, and contradictory mental states and behaviors. Disorganized attachment is common amongst children living in institutions such as foster care.
Cassidy's research program focuses on attachment, family relationships, and social and emotional development in children and adolescents. [7] Her work expanded the attachment behavioral system developed by John Bowlby, which described internal working models as organized frameworks for understanding the world, developed by infants through experience with their caregivers.
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed the attachment theory in the 1960s while investigating the effects of maternal separation on infant development. [4] The development of the Strange Situation task in 1965 by Ainsworth and Wittig allowed researchers to systematically investigate the attachment system operating between children and their parents. [5]
Internal working models are considered to result out of generalized representations of past events between attachment figure and the child. [11] [2] [3] Thus, in forming an internal working model a child takes into account past experiences with the caregiver as well as the outcomes of past attempts to establish contact with the caregiver. [3]
Safe Haven: Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of fear or threat. Secure Base: The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment. Separation Distress: Anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.
Treatment for reactive attachment disorder for children usually involves a mix of therapy, counseling, and parenting education. These must be designed to make sure the child has a safe environment to live in and to develop positive interactions with caregivers and improves their relationships with their peers.
According to Bowlby, attachment provides a secure base from which the child can explore the environment, a haven of safety to which the child can return when he or she is afraid or fearful. Bowlby's colleague Mary Ainsworth identified that an important factor which determines whether a child will have a secure or insecure attachment is the ...
Dyadic developmental psychotherapy grounded in Bowlby's attachment theory and is based on the theory that maltreated infants not only frequently have disorganized attachments but also, as they mature, are likely to develop rigid self-reliance that becomes a compulsive need to control all aspects of their environment.