Roger Kobak

Psychophysiology in Attachment Interviews: Converging Evidence for Deactivating Strategies

By asking the subject to consider a host of potentially threatening attachment-related issues, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) allows an assessment of different strategies for regulating the attachment system. These strategies can be assessed along the 2 dimensions of security/anxiety and deactivation/hyperactivation. The greatest inferential leaps may be in characterizing strategies as deactivating. For example, individuals using deactivating strategies often report extremely positive relationships with parents, display restricted recall of attachment memories, and play down the significance of early attachment experiences. If these descriptive features are guided by a strategy that requires diverting attention from attachment information, subjects employing this strategy should experience conflict or inhibition during the Attachment Interview. In the present study, skin conductance levels were monitored for 50 college students during a baseline period and throughout the Attachment Interview. Subjects employing deactivating strategies showed marked increases in skin conductance levels from baseline to questions asking them to recall experiences of separation, rejection, and threat from parents. This finding supports the notion that individuals employing deactivating attachment strategies experience conflict or inhibition during the Attachment Interview.

Attachment Processes in Eating Disorder and Depression.

This study examines the relationship between attachment strategies and symptom reporting among college women. Sixty-one college women were selected who reported high or low levels of depressive and eating disorder symptoms. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was administered, and interview transcripts were rated with the Attachment Interview Q-Sort. The results indicated that women with hyperactivating AAI strategies were prone to reporting elevated levels of depressive symptoms, whereas women with deactivating strategies were prone to reporting elevated levels of eating-disorder symptoms, when depression was statistically controlled. These findings support the hypothesis that secondary or defensive attachment strategies predispose individuals toward different forms of symptom expression.

Emotional Security With Teachers and Children's Stress Reactivity: A Comparison of Special-Education and Regular-Education Classrooms

Examined childrens exposure and reactivity to negative peer and teacher events in special-education and regular-education classrooms. Participants were 40 children in regular classrooms and 20 children classified as seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) in special-education classrooms. Children completed 7 days of diary data over the course of the school year. SED children reported higher rates of exposure to negative teacher and peer events than comparison children. The self-esteem of both SED and comparison children was reactive to negative peer events in the classroom, but emotional security with teacher (EST) reduced this reactivity. The self-esteem of SED children was also reactive to negative teacher events but, EST, once again, reduced reactivity to negative events. Finally, SED childrens perception of maternal warmth moderated their self-esteem reactivity and was concordant with their views of teachers. Results are discussed in light of treatment implications for SED children.

Consensus Statement on Group Care for Children and Adolescents: A Statement of Policy of the American Orthopsychiatric Association

Group care for children and adolescents is widely used as a rearing environment and sometimes used as a setting in which intensive services can be provided. This consensus statement on group care affirms that children and adolescents have the need and right to grow up in a family with at least 1 committed, stable, and loving adult caregiver. In principle, group care should never be favored over family care. Group care should be used only when it is the least detrimental alternative, when necessary therapeutic mental health services cannot be delivered in a less restrictive setting.

Teacher-student interactions and attachment states of mind as predictors of early romantic involvement and risky sexual behaviors

Adolescents’ capacities to negotiate sexual behavior in romantic relationships have important implications for their reproductive and health outcomes. This study examined adolescents’ interactions with teachers and attachment states of mind as predictors of their romantic involvement and risky sexual behavior in an economically disadvantaged sample. Negative interactions with teachers predicted increased sexual risk-taking behaviors and females’ early romantic involvement. Preoccupied states of mind increased risk for early romantic involvement and the likelihood that females would engage in risky sexual behavior. The findings demonstrate how adolescents’ school experiences contribute to adaptation in romantic relationships in mid to late adolescence above and beyond representations of parent–child attachment.

Defining and measuring of attachment bonds: comment on Kurdek (2009)

Kurdeks study of dog owners raises a series of provocative questions about the nature of attachment bonds and whether dogs can serve as attachment figures for their owners. This commentary suggests that it is important to distinguish attachment from other types of affectional bonds that are motivated by caregiving, reproductive or affiliative concerns. It is suggested that preferences for attachment figures are best tested in situations involving danger and in situations in which preferences are not confounded with immediate physical proximity. Using these distinctions as a guide, this commentary concludes that although dog owners undoubtedly form affectional bonds with their pets, these bonds are more likely to meet criteria for caregiving rather than attachment bonds.

Attachment based treatments for adolescents: the secure cycle as a framework for assessment, treatment and evaluation

The emergence of attachment-based treatments (ABTs) for adolescents highlights the need to more clearly define and evaluate these treatments in the context of other attachment based treatments for young children and adults. We propose a general framework for defining and evaluating ABTs that describes the cyclical processes that are required to maintain a secure attachment bond. This secure cycle incorporates three components: (1) the child or adult’s IWM of the caregiver; (2) emotionally attuned communication; and (3) the caregiver’s IWM of the child or adult. We briefly review Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Main’s contributions to defining the components of the secure cycle and discuss how this framework can be adapted for understanding the process of change in ABTs. For clinicians working with adolescents, our model can be used to identify how deviations from the secure cycle (attachment injuries, empathic failures and mistuned communication) contribute to family distress and psychopathology. The secure cycle also provides a way of describing the ABT elements that have been used to revise IWMs or improve emotionally attuned communication. For researchers, our model provides a guide for conceptualizing and measuring change in attachment constructs and how change in one component of the interpersonal cycle should generalize to other components.

Narrative Focus Predicts Symptom Change Trajectories in Group Treatment for Traumatized and Bereaved Adolescents

Growing evidence supports the effectiveness of Trauma and Grief Component Therapy for Adolescents (TGCT-A) in reducing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and maladaptive grief (MG) reactions. This pilot study explored whether the specific focus of students’ narratives (i.e., focus on trauma vs. focus on loss) as shared by TGCT-A group members would predict initial pretreatment levels, as well as pre- to posttreatment change trajectories, of PTSD symptoms and MG reactions. Thirty-three adolescents from three middle schools completed a 17-week course of group-based TGCT-A. PTSD and MG symptoms were assessed at pretreatment, twice during treatment, and at posttreatment. The focus (trauma vs. loss) of each students narrative was coded using transcripts of members’ narratives as shared within the groups. The reliable change index showed that 61% of students reported reliable pre–post improvement in either PTSD symptoms or MG reactions. Students whose narratives focused on loss both reported higher starting levels and showed steeper rates of decline in MG reactions than students whose narratives focused on trauma. In contrast, students whose narratives focused on trauma reported higher starting levels of PTSD than students who narrated loss experiences. However, narrative focus was not significantly linked to the rate at which PTSD symptoms declined over the course of treatment. This study provides preliminary evidence that TGCT-A treatment components are associated with reduced PTSD symptoms and MG reactions. Loss-focused narratives, in particular, appear to be associated with greater decreases in MG reactions.

Introduction to the special issue: attachment-based treatments for adolescents

During the past decade, new attachment-based treatments (ABTs) for adolescents have been developed and tested in both field and randomized control trials. The papers in this special issue represent important contributions to defining a more general model of ABTs for adolescents. Our discussion of these papers is organized by a series of challenges to developing and evaluating these treatments. We first consider how disturbances in the caregiver–adolescent attachment bond are implicated in adolescent psychopathology and family distress. We then describe different potential targets for attachment-based interventions for adolescents and their caregivers. Finally we review the different interventions and change mechanisms that have been used to increase security in the caregiver–adolescent bond. A general model of ABTs for adolescents can be useful in guiding future efforts to measure change in attachment constructs, evaluate the dynamic process of change in attachment bonds, and test the effectiveness of specific treatment elements in reducing adolescents’ symptoms and increasing attachment security.

Promoting Student–Teacher Interactions: Exploring a Peer Coaching Model for Teachers in a Preschool Setting

Peer coaching provides an attractive alternative to traditional professional development for promoting classroom quality in a sustainable, cost-effective manner by creating a collaborative teaching community. This exploratory study describes the development and evaluation of the Colleague Observation And CoacHing (COACH) program, a peer coaching program designed to increase teachers’ effectiveness in enhancing classroom quality in a preschool Head Start setting. The COACH program consists of a training workshop on coaching skills and student-teacher interactions, six peer coaching sessions, and three center meetings. Pre-post observations of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System of twelve classrooms assigned to peer coaching were compared to twelve control classrooms at baseline and following the intervention. Findings provide preliminary support that the peer coaching program is perceived as acceptable and feasible by the participating preschool teachers and that it may strengthen student–teacher interactions. Further program refinement and evaluation with larger samples is needed to enhance student–teacher interactions and, ultimately, children’s adaptive development.