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Featured researches published by Howard Steele.


Tradition | 1991

The capacity for understanding mental states: The reflective self in parent and child and its significance for security of attachment

Peter Fonagy; Miriam Steele; Howard Steele; George S. Moran; Anna C. Higgitt

Epidemiologists and psychoanalysts have been equally concerned about the intergenera-tional concordance of disturbed patterns of attachment. Mary Mains introduction of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) has provided the field with an empirical tool for examining the concordance of parental and infant attachment patterns. In the context of a prospective study of the influence of parental patterns of attachment assessed before the birth of the first child upon the childs pattern of attachment to that parent at 1 year and at 18 months, the Anna Freud Centre—University College London Parent-Child Project reported a significant level of concordance between parental security and the infants security with that parent. In the context of this study, a new measure, aiming to assess the parents capacity for understanding mental states, was developed and is reported on in this paper. The rating of Reflective-Self Function, based upon AAI transcripts, correlated significantly with infant security classification based on Strange Situation assessments. The philosophical background and clinical importance of the measure are discussed.


Social Development | 2001

Infant-mother attachment at one year predicts children's understanding of mixed emotions at six years

Howard Steele; M Steele; Carla Croft; Peter Fonagy

Data from the six-year follow up of a longitudinal study investigating intergenerational patterns of attachment and the effects of early relationships upon subsequent social, emotional and cognitive development are presented. Around the rime of their sixth birthday, 63 children participated in an affect understanding task, involving cartoon diagrams depicting social and emotional dilemmas. As predicted, performance on this task, assessed in terms of mixed-emotion understanding, was predicted by security of the infant-mother attachment relationship las assessed in the Strange Situation at one-year) and security, or autonomy in the mothers representations of and reflections upon, her attachment history (as assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview, of AAI-during pregnancy) prior to the childs birth. Regression analyses suggested that the infant-mother attachment data significantly, enhanced the prediction of an advanced understanding of mixed emotions at six-years, even after controlling for variations in the childrens age at time of testing, as well as child and parent verbal skills. The inclusion of earlier assessments of the child-father Strange Situation assessment (at 18-months) did not enhance the model; nor did the attachment status of the mothers or fathers as observed in their prenatal AAIs. Discussion concerns the contributions of early attachment processes, including family, conflict, to the ability to verbally, express an understanding of mixed emotions in a task depicting hypothetical social and emotional dilemmas.


Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry | 2002

Maternal predictors of children's social cognition: an attachment perspective

M Steele; Howard Steele; Martin Johansson

BACKGROUND This paper assumes that the capacities to (1) openly acknowledge, and (2) elaborate a resourceful plan for coping with distress in the self and others are central features of social cognition. METHOD These capacities were assessed in a sample (N = 51) of 11-year-old children whose mothers and fathers had previously provided Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs) before their children were born. The children were shown six line-drawn sequences of child(ren), with peer(s) and/or family in diverse situations involving some moderate distress. The experimenter described the adversity shown in the sequence (e.g., bully pushing over another school-aged child in the presence of onlookers) and then invited the child to attribute thoughts and feelings to the characters, and comment upon what might happen next. RESULTS Children whose responses scored highly for acknowledgement of the distress, and elaborating a resolution, were significantly more likely to have had mothers (but not fathers) whose AAIs were judged autonomous-secure as opposed to insecure (i.e., dismissing, preoccupied and/or unresolved). The significant influence of maternal representations of attachment upon the 11-year outcome remained even after taking account of concurrent parenting attitudes, childrens verbal intelligence, as well as the previously assessed infant-parent attachment patterns. CONCLUSIONS Discussion concerns the differential predictive power of maternal responses to the Adult Attachment Interview as related to the domain of childrens social and emotional understanding.


Attachment & Human Development | 2001

Attachment representations in adolescence: Further evidence from psychiatric residential settings

Paul Wallis; Howard Steele

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) has afforded the opportunity to profile the various ways in which people make sense of early experience. While the initial research with the AAI was primarily based on non-clinical populations, this paper extends the growing body of knowledge concerning attachment representations in clinical samples, specifically among severely emotionally disturbed adolescents. The study investigated 39 adolescents resident on five regional adolescent units in the south-east of England. As predicted, the number of adolescents presenting as securely attached was low (n = 4), whilst the incidence of insecure attachment patterns in the sample was high (n = 35). When interviews were rated additionally in terms of lack of resolution, 59% of the sample were unresolved with respect to experiences of trauma or loss. Discussion addresses the possible uses of the AAI in therapeutic interventions for severely disturbed adolescents, which are centrally based on the formation of a secure, safe relationship with a non-threatening adult.


British Journal of Development Psychology | 2001

Children's play narrative responses to hypothetical dilemmas and their awareness of moral emotions

Matthew Woolgar; Howard Steele; M Steele; Susan Yabsley; Peter Fonagy

Five-year-old childrens moral development was assessed using a projective doll-play technique (the MacArthur Story Stem Battery; MSSB), an emotion-understanding task, concurrent maternal reports of behaviour problems and child performance in a cheating task. Three narrative scales were derived from the childrens MSSB play themes: a non-physical punishment scale, a prosocial scale and an antisocial scale. Thechildrens use of non-physical discipliningthemes was related to their awareness of moral emotions. The antisocial and prosocial narrative scales were related to concurrent maternal ratings of externalizing and internalizing problems, respectively. Although the emotions children anticipated in the emotion-understanding task did not predict behaviour in the cheating task, their justifications for the different emotions tended to do so, as did the prosocial play narrative scale. The findings suggest a degree of coherence across the assessments of moral development, and are discussed with reference to childrens script-based understanding.


Journal of Personality Disorders | 2011

Attachment, Borderline Personality, and Romantic Relationship Dysfunction

Jonathan Hill; Stephanie D. Stepp; Ming Wai Wan; Holly Hope; Jennifer Q. Morse; Miriam Steele; Howard Steele; Paul A. Pilkonis

Previous studies have implicated attachment and disturbances in romantic relationships as important indicators for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The current research extends our current knowledge by examining the specific associations among attachment, romantic relationship dysfunction, and BPD, above and beyond the contribution of emotional distress and nonromantic interpersonal functioning in two distinct samples. Study 1 comprised a community sample of women (N = 58) aged 25-36. Study 2 consisted of a psychiatric sample (N = 138) aged 21-60. Results from both Study 1 and Study 2 demonstrated that (1) attachment was specifically related to BPD symptoms and romantic dysfunction, (2) BPD symptoms were specifically associated with romantic dysfunction, and (3) the association between attachment and romantic dysfunction was statistically mediated by BPD symptoms. The findings support specific associations among attachment, BPD symptoms, and romantic dysfunction.


Attachment & Human Development | 2003

Unrelenting catastrophic trauma within the family: when every secure base is abusive.

Howard Steele

This paper will present illustrations from Adult Attachment Interviews conducted with adult female survivors of chronic ritual abuse in their family of origin. A model of multiple personality disorder informed by the Adult Attachment Interview coding and classification system will be presented. A range of victim, perpetrator and bystander personalities may be identified in the same interview, indeed in the same speaker. For the speaker who believes herself to be one of a number of co-existing personalities, integration and coherence means death of a loved one, indeed death of the sense of self. Possibilities of re-birth into a single integrated self are posited.


Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology | 1996

The relation of attachment status, psychiatric classification, and response to psychotherapy

Peter Fonagy; Tom Leigh; M Steele; Howard Steele; Roger Kennedy; Gretta Mattoon; M Target; Andrew Gerber


Child Development | 1991

Maternal Representations of Attachment during Pregnancy Predict the Organization of Infant-Mother Attachment at One Year of Age

Peter Fonagy; Howard Steele; Miriam Steele


Child Development | 1996

Associations among Attachment Classifications of Mothers, Fathers, and Their Infants

Howard Steele; M Steele; Peter Fonagy

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M Steele

University College London

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Peter Fonagy

University College London

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Adrian Furnham

BI Norwegian Business School

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Anna Higgitt

University College London

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M Target

University College London

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