Attachment--and loss.

Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

The chapter begins with a distinction made between the interactions children have with peers, the relationships they form with peers, and the groups and networks within which peer interactions and relationships occur. From this conceptual overview, a review of relevant theories is presented. Thereafter, a developmental perspective of peer interactions, relationships, and groups is presented covering the periods of infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Subsequently, methods and measures pertaining to the study of children's peer experiences are described. Next, we examine factors that may account for peer acceptance and rejection as well as qualitatively rich and poor friendships. Among the factors discussed are included temperament (biological factors), sex of child, parenting, parent-child relationships, and culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extent to which individual differences in peer acceptance, rejection and friendship (prevalence and quality) predict adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes and a suggested agenda for future research.


Keywords:

friendship;
peer interactions;
peer relationships;
peer rejection;
social acceptance;
social competence

Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups

The cultural origins of human cognition

Without exception, sadomasochistic subjects (n =48), unlike controls (n =35), are found to have developed insecure internal models of personal attachment, as a result of childhoods which were all problematic in one way or another. Their capacity for metacognition and their coherence of mind are found to be, on average, less than that of controls.

The Adult Attachment Interview

This longitudinal study of forty-four families explored fathers’ as compared to mothers’ specific contribution to their children's attachment representation at ages 6, 10, and 16 years. In toddlerhood, fathers’ and mothers’ play sensitivity was evaluated with a new assessment, the sensitive and challenging interactive play scale (SCIP). Fathers’ SCIP scores were predicted by fathers’ caregiving quality during the first year, were highly consistent across 4 years, and were closely linked to the fathers’ own internal working model of attachment. Qualities of attachment as assessed in the Strange Situation to both parents were antecedents for children's attachment security in the Separation Anxiety Test at age 6. Fathers’ play sensitivity and infant–mother quality of attachment predicted children's internal working model of attachment at age 10, but not vice versa. Dimensions of adolescents’ attachment representations were predicted by fathers’ play sensitivity only. The results confirmed our main assumption that fathers’ play sensitivity is a better predictor of the child's long-term attachment representation than the early infant–father security of attachment. The ecological validity of measuring fathers’ sensitive and challenging interactive play behavior as compared to infant proximity seeking in times of distress is highlighted. Findings are discussed with respect to a wider view on attachment in that both parents shape their children's psychological security but each in his or her unique way.

The Uniqueness of the Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers’ Sensitive and Challenging Play as a Pivotal Variable in a 16‐year Longitudinal Study

This cross-cultural study examined continuity in parent-child relationships from infancy to middle childhood in a sample of German families. Connections were traced between individual differences in a composite of markers of the parent-child attachment relationship system (including classification of the infant via the Strange Situation and parent via the Adult Attachment Interview and for mothers' ratings of sensitivity) and later parent-child communications. Findings within the mother-child relationship revealed modest links between the composite and communications and were taken to suggest that the divergent fields of attachment and family communication research are addressing similar underlying relationship processes involving the interplay between relatedness and autonomy. Further findings revealed that the composite modestly predicted variability in children's competence in forming friendships and that differences in concurrent child-mother communications significantly added to and possibly mediated these effects. Results were interpreted as supporting a process model of development, whereby adaptation is influenced by both current and past relationship status.

Continuity in Parent‐Child Relationships from Infancy to Middle Childhood and Relations with Friendship Competence

Insecure attachment and deficits in self-regulation as personality traits are risk factors for the development of psychopathological symptoms from infancy on. This study examines differences in attachment and personality in late childhood, comparing children from non-clinical families, from a child guidance center, and child psychiatry units with in-patient care. Children's attachment representations, their attachment behavior strategy, reported distressing parental behavior, their emotional openness, and attachment coherency were assessed with the Late Childhood Attachment Interview (LCAI). Ego-resiliency, ego-undercontrol, field-independence, aggressiveness, and anxiety were assessed by means of the California Child Q-Sort. The results show clear attachment differences, with the child guidance group showing more attachment insecurity in the LCAI compared to the control group, and the psychiatric in-patient group even more attachment insecurity, more distressing parenting from both mother and father, and more attachment disorganization than the other two groups. Whereas children from the child guidance center and the child psychiatry unit did not differ in personality, both groups were significantly different from the control group in all personality dimensions. The results suggest that personality differences may be a risk factor for behaviour problems, however problem severity and the choice of the treatment institution seem to be influenced by attachment security.

/pdf/unterschiede-in-bindung-und-personlichkeit-bei-kindern-in-25uiurxyb9.pdf

Unterschiede in Bindung und Persönlichkeit bei Kindern in Erziehungsberatung, in Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und in Kontrollfamilien

Der Begriff Vertrauen als Bestimmungsmerkmal von Beziehungen und individuellem Selbst ist bislang in der entwicklungspsychologischen Fachliteratur wenig gebrauchlich. Im deutschen Worterbuch (Wahrig, 1997, S. 1317) wird das Verb mit folgenden Begriffen umschrieben: „Das Vertrauen zu jemandem haben, das er sich in bestimmter Weise verhalt“; „jemanden fur zuverlassig halten“; „auf etwas hoffen, etwas bestimmt erwarten“. Damit stellt Vertrauen zunachst eine Erwartung an eine andere Person im Rahmen einer Beziehung dar. Inhaltlich ist der Begriff eng verknupft mit der Zuversicht auf Geborgenheit, Sicherheit, Schutz, Verlaslichkeit und Einschatzbarkeit. Erikson (1971, S. 241f.) pragte im Zusammenhang mit seinem Stufenmodell der Ich-Entwicklung den Begriff des Ur-Vertrauens (trust) als Gegenpol zu einem empfundenen Ur-Mistrauen: „Das Erleben des Konstanten, Kontinuierlichen und Gleichartigen der Erscheinungen liefert dem Kind ein rudimentares Gefuhl von Ich-Identitat“, insbesondere die Mutter werde dem Kind als „zuverlassig zu erwartende ausere Erscheinung“ und auch „innere Gewisheit“ vertraut. Erikson postuliert den Aufbau einer „inneren Welt erinnerter und voraussehbarer Empfindungen und Bilder in fester Korrelation mit der auseren Welt vertrauter, zuverlassig wiedererscheinender Dinge und Personen“; er nennt dies den „allgemeinen Zustand des Vertrauens“, sich auf die „Gleichwertigkeit und die Dauer der auseren Versorger zu verlassen“ und auch „sich selbst... zu trauen“. Damit beschrieb Erikson — noch ohne empirische Befunde — wesentliche entwicklungspsychologische Ablaufe und Denkmodelle, die in den letzten zwanzig Jahren im Rahmen der modernen Bindungsforschung entwickelt wurden. John Bowlby, der Begrunder der Bindungstheorie, verweist im Zusammenhang mit der fruhkindlichen Bindungsbeziehung auf den bereits bestehenden Begriff der „Vertrauensbeziehung“ des Psychoanalytikers Benedek (1938), und er empfahl als Meswert einer solchen Beziehung das Ausmas der Sicherheit einer kindlichen Bindung heranzuziehen, wie es Mary Ainsworth, die Protagonistin der entwicklungspsychologischen Bindungsforschung, vorschlug (Bowlby, 1975).

Vertrauensentwicklung in Kindheit und Jugend

Zusammenfassung. Die Bindungstheorie beschaftigt sich mit den Entstehungsbedingungen der Qualitat enger emotionaler Beziehungen im Lebenslauf und deren Folgen fur psychische Gesundheit oder Fehlanp...

Hermann Scheuerer-Englisch

Papers

The Uniqueness of the Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers’ Sensitive and Challenging Play as a Pivotal Variable in a 16‐year Longitudinal Study

Continuity in Parent‐Child Relationships from Infancy to Middle Childhood and Relations with Friendship Competence

Unterschiede in Bindung und Persönlichkeit bei Kindern in Erziehungsberatung, in Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und in Kontrollfamilien

Vertrauensentwicklung in Kindheit und Jugend

Bindung und Anpassung von der frühen Kindheit bis zum Jugendalter