Although pregnancy loss--especially miscarriage--is a relatively common experience among reproductive-aged women, much of our understanding about the experience has come from small clinic-based or other nonrepresentative samples. We compared fertility-specific distress among a national sample of 1,284 women who have ever experienced a stillbirth…

Little is known about attachment security and disorganization in children who are at genetic risk for an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) prior to a possible diagnosis. The present study examined distributions of attachment security and disorganization at 15-months of age in a sample of infant siblings of older children with (ASD-sibs; n = 51) or…

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span-encompassing theoretical model to explain the…

Background and methods: In two birth cohort studies with genetic, sensitive parenting, and attachment data of more than 1,000 infants in total, we tested main and interaction effects of candidate genes involved in the dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin systems ("DRD4", "DRD2", "COMT", "5-HTT", "OXTR") on attachment security and disorganization.…

Most research on adult attachment is based on the assumption that working models are relatively general and trait-like. Recent research, however, suggests that people develop attachment representations that are relationship-specific, leading people to hold distinct working models in different relationships. The authors report a measure, the…

This article aims to explore the key concept of religious representations that reflect an individual's relational world and indicates the individual's religious maturity. While the term "representations" is originally used in psychodynamic studies, the article discusses the idea that religious representations provide important indications of an…

Background: Evidence show that school connectedness is important to youth wellness. However, considerable inconsistency in the concepts and measures of school connectedness exists across studies. In addition, many measures do not capture the multifaceted dimensions of the school connectedness construct. This study examined the psychometric…

With growing disconnection from the natural world, educators who work in the outdoors need to philosophically rethink their "modus operandi". Past efforts by adventure and outdoor educators to promote connection with nature have often centred upon risk-centric approaches incorporating adventure-fuelled and high-adrenalin activities. This…

This study aims to investigate the association between the mental state talk of mothers and their preadolescent children, with the hypothesis that an intergenerational transmission of mentalizing abilities may extend beyond early childhood. The participants were 41 mother-preadolescent child nonclinical dyads. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)…

This research supports the value of maintaining the family ties of persons in prison. Family healing work will likely affect multiple relationships within the family, especially for the children of prisoners, and increase the possibility of healthy and productive life choices for all family members. The Family Matters course is grounded in family…

How individuals construct narratives involving attachment figures (e.g., parents) should reflect their representation of those individuals as either comforting or unsupportive (Bowlby, 1969). Similarly, how individuals talk about parents' childhood experiences may also reflect their attachment representation. Sixty-five 13- to 16-year-old…

An evolving relational dynamic approach to psychotherapy and counselling education is described. Key themes integrated within the approach are the learning community and transformational relationships. Learning is a reciprocal change process involving students, teachers, supervisors and therapists in overlapping learning communities. Drawing on…

Attachment theory is presented in this article as involving embodied relational processes within complex relational systems. Two narrative-like "events" are represented to illustrate very young children playfully relating -- connecting and communicating inter- and intrasubjectively. The ethnographic-inspired research methods included…

The symptoms, assessment, and treatments of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been empirically investigated to the extent that there is a breadth of valid and reliable instruments investigating this psychopathological syndrome. There, too, exists a substantial evidence base for various treatment models demonstrating effectiveness in…

While associations between exposure to marital conflict and child development have been documented extensively in middle childhood and adolescence, few studies have examined the developmental consequences of conflict exposure in infancy. Moreover, those that have examined marital conflict in infancy tended to focus on consequences of conflict…