Objectives: This article reports on results from a randomized experimental trial of the effects of the Family Bereavement Program (FBP) on multiple measures of grief experienced by parentally bereaved children and adolescents over a 6-year period. Method: Participants were 244 youths (ages 8-16, mean age = 11.4 years) from 156 families that had…

Home visiting programs for at-risk mothers and their infants have proliferated nationally in recent years, yet experimental studies of home visiting have yielded mixed findings. One promising strategy for explicating the effects of early home visiting is to examine moderators of program impacts. This study assessed the roles of maternal depression…

Relations between marital aggression (psychological and physical) and children's health were examined. Children's emotional insecurity was assessed as a mediator of these relations, with distinctions made between marital aggression against mothers and fathers and ethnicity (African American or European American), socioeconomic status, and child…

education and psychotherapy that is based on attachment theory. The purpose of this study was to track changes in children's attachment classifications pre- and immediately postintervention. Participants were 65 toddler- or preschooler- caregiver dyads recruited from Head Start and Early Head Start programs. As predicted, there were significant…

Discusses the relationship between insecurity and attachment to soft, inanimate objects. Because attachments to nonsocial objects are common, there is agreement that they do not presage maladjustment. An investigation with 20- to 41-month-olds indicated that attachment to blankets was not associated with general fearfulness, however, certain…

Investigated the relationship between maternal alcohol consumption and infant attachment behavior at one year of age. Infants were classified as secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent/resistant, or insecure-disorganized/disoriented. More infants of mothers who had consumed more alcohol were insecure in comparison with infants whose mothers…

Two experiments were performed to test whether high as compared to low insecurity leads to greater acceptance of diagnostic feedback. In both experiments, the positively worded interpretation was more accepted than the negatively worded interpretation. Possible explanations for insecurity results are discussed, and implications are drawn for…

Clinicians and researchers are beginning to acknowledge the importance of integrating a developmental perspective into the understanding of clinical disorders. Major gaps still exist between basic research on attachment processes and clinical issues regarding mental disorders. Reflecting growth in this direction, National Institute of Mental…

Anxiety and avoidance dimensions of adult attachment insecurity were tested as moderators of treatment outcome for interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Fifty-six participants with major depression were randomly assigned to these treatment conditions. Beck Depression Inventory-II, Six-Item Hamilton Rating Scale…

Examined differences in self-reported psychiatric symptomatology on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 according to the Adult Attachment Interview in first-time mothers from a high-risk poverty sample. Different symptom patterns were consistent with adult attachment status as an index of self-representation and as a set of…

Examines the relationship between attachment strategies and symptom reporting among college women (N=61). The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was administered and interview transcripts were rated with the Attachment Interview Q-Sort. Findings support the hypothesis that secondary or defensive attachment strategies predispose individuals toward…

Assessed association between interspousal aggression and child problems after controlling for parents' general marital discord among 87 couples requesting marital therapy. Spouses completed measures of marital aggression, marital discord, child problems, and family demographics. Results showed that marital aggression contributed unique variance to…

Reviews and critiques the approaches of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases to attachment disorders and finds that they have not made use of findings from developmental research on attachment in developing their criteria. Presents an alternative system of classifying attachment…

In relationships among attachment classification, psychopathology, and personality, traits were examined in a group of 60 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. Attachment was examined in 27 adolescent-mother pairs. Both adolescent and maternal attachment status were overwhelmingly insecure and were highly concordant. Results support a model of…

Examined long-term sequelae of severe adolescent psychopathology from the perspective of adult attachment theory. Compared 66 upper-middle-class adolescents who were psychiatrically hospitalized at age 14 for problems other than thought or organic disorders, to 76 socio-demographically similar high school students. When reviewed at age 25,…