Sixty five year olds and their mothers were given the semiprojective, picture-based Separation Anxiety Test (SAT), which was scored to reflect attachment, self-reliance, and avoidance. Ratings were correlated with observed attachment status during a brief laboratory separation-reunion procedure. (DR)

Assessed the effects of relationship duration on 61 teacher-child dyads. Found that 91% of children who had been with their teacher for more than 1 year had secure attachments, compared to 67% who had been with their teacher for 9-12 months and 50% who had been with their teacher for 5-8 months. (MDM)

Reviews the construct of attachment, its role as a motivational system in infancy, and its development in the first three years. Emphasizes that attachment must be assessed in the context of particular infant-parent relationships, and reviews specific infant and caregiver behaviors salient to the assessment of attachment. (Author/CR)

Discusses the application of emotionally focused marital therapy (EFT) with couples for which one or both of the partners have experienced significant trauma. EFT, in the context of trauma, incorporates the nine steps of conventional EFT and the three stages of the constructivist self-development theory of trauma treatment. (Author/MKA)

Asserts that sociocultural assumptions underlying items in the Parental Investment in the Child Questionnaire (PIC) are outdated and gender biased. Reviews the underlying logic of attachment theory and the PIC portrait of appropriate childrearing. Parental investment is shown to be maternal investment. The model provides debatable and unrealistic…

Children whose severe attachment problems arise from abuse and rejection pose major challenges to caregivers, teachers, and therapists but should not be viewed from an unduly pessimistic perspective. Describes a ten-step comprehensive treatment strategy designed to create positive bonds between adults and troubled children who carry the diagnosis…

Examined the differential predictive power and effects of representations of child/mother and child/father attachment for children's representation of self and socioemotional competence. Found that the child's positiveness of self was better predicted by quality of child/mother attachment representation than child/father attachment representation.…

Based on life span attachment perspective and on identity status paradigm, this study investigated the relationship between attachment and identity in a sample of 361 Portuguese late adolescents as a function of parental and adolescent gender. The results indicated gender differences in the association between attachment variables and identity…

Investigated the influence of school context in predicting high school students' risk taking behaviors (e.g., truancy, substance use and sexual behaviors), hierarchically examining school attachment, school involvement, and future orientation as potential predictors of risky behaviors. Surveys indicated that the hierarchical model held true for…

Examines means of human connection from a career development perceptive: attachment, eye-to-eye validation, identification, mutuality, embeddedness, boundedness, and tending. Discusses how relational experiences foster, circumscribe, and guide explorational experiences.(Contains 54 references.) (SK)

Examines the factor pattern of parental attachment measures as well as the relationship of the resultant oblique factors to emotional functioning and perceived stress. Results reveal that individuals who reported higher levels of parental attachment reported lower levels of perceived stress and greater confidence in their ability to attend to and…

Describes one of the units of the children's home operated by the Borough of Knowsley, England. This unit, which serves adolescents with emotional and social problems, is based on six models that address attachment, environment, education, responses to stress, and grief. The unit's key functions are to support children, investigate children's…

Developmental theories can be augmented by incorporating knowledge about atypical ontogenesis. Examination of individuals with high-risk conditions and psychopathological disorders can shed light on system organization, disorganization, and reorganization. Child maltreatment is examined to illustrate benefits from studying individuals subjected to…

A survey of 301 male college students found that occasional sexual dysfunction was frequent in young male adults, and long-lasting adverse familial relationships to attachment figures were more influential in later sexual dysfunction than were childhood sexual abuse experiences. (Author/DB)

Investigated the degree to which individual differences in child-parent attachment were mediated by genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental influences. Found an overall concordance rate of 67 percent at the secure/insecure level. Twin similarity on the continuous measure of attachment security was consistent with a modest role…