Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:35:28.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Parental psychiatric disorder and the attachment relationship

from Part I - Basic issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2009

Jonathan Hill
Affiliation:
Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, Liverpool, UK
Michael Göpfert
Affiliation:
Webb House Democratic Therapeutic Community, Crewe
Jeni Webster
Affiliation:
5 Boroughs Partnership, Warrington
Mary V. Seeman
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

Introduction

In contrast to the attachment of children to their parents and other important adults, the attachment of parents to their children has received little attention. Indeed it is not clear that the term ‘attachment’ should be used in the same way when referring to parents. However, consideration of the attachment of children to parents will lead to some indicators of the parental contribution to the attachment relationship, and to ways in which this might be threatened by parental mental illness, and what might be protective processes in the face of such threats.

Attachment – background

Bowlby's attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969) proposed that the child's early relationships with parents are internalized as ‘working models’ for later relationships. These early attachment relationships are characterized by attachment (proximity seeking) behaviour by the infant when there is a perceived threat or stressor such as the presence of a stranger, unfamiliar circumstances, tiredness or illness; and exploration from the ‘secure base’ of the parent, in general when the level of perceived threat is low. Although children's parents and other important caregivers are often referred to as attachment figures, it should be borne in mind that many other kinds of interaction take place between parents and children. These include ensuring safety and providing structure and discipline, and participating in joint activities such as play, games or conversation about each others' lives.

Type
Chapter
Information
Parental Psychiatric Disorder
Distressed Parents and their Families
, pp. 50 - 61
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E. & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Bifulco, A., Brown, G. W. & Adler, Z. (1991). Early sexual abuse and clinical depression in adult life. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 115–22Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Attachment. New York: Basic Books
Brittlebank, A. D., Scott, J., Williams, J. M. G. & Ferrier, I. N. (1993). Autobiographical memory in depression: state or trait marker?British Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 118–21Google Scholar
Champion, L. A., Goodall, G. & Rutter, M. (1995). Behaviour problems in childhood and stressors in early adult life. I. A 20 year follow-up of London school children. Psychological Medicine, 25, 231–46Google Scholar
Crittenden, T. M. (1992). Quality of attachment in pre-school years. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 209–42Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M. & Davies, P. T. (2002). Effects of marital conflict on children: recent advances and emerging themes in process-orientated research. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 31–64Google Scholar
Doody, G. O., Gotz, M., Johnstone, E. C., Frith, C. D. & Owens, D. G. (1998). Theory of mind and psychoses. Psychological Medicine, 28, 397–405Google Scholar
Fonagy, P., Steele, H. & Steele, M. (1991). Maternal representations of attachment during pregnancy predict the organisation of infant–mother attachment at age one. Child Development, 62, 891–905Google Scholar
Fonagy, P. E., Leigh, T., Steele, M. et al. (1996). The relation of attachment status, psychiatric classification and response to psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 22–31Google Scholar
Gorrel Barnes, G. (1996). The mentally ill parent and the family system. In Parental Psychiatric Disorder: Distressed Parents and their Families, ed. M. Göpfert, J. Webster & M. V. Seeman, pp. 42–59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Gray, V. A., Feldon, J., Rawlins, J. M. P., Hensley, D. R. & Smith, A. D. (1991). The neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 14, 1–84Google Scholar
Hall, A. (1996). Parental psychiatric disorder and the developing child. In Parental Psychiatric Disorder: Distressed Parents and their Families, ed. M. Göpfert, J. Webster & M. V. Seeman, pp. 17–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Harris, T., Brown, G. W. & Bifulco, A. (1990). Loss of parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: a tentative overall model. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 311–27Google Scholar
Hill, J., Pickles, A., Burnside, E. et al. (2001). Child sexual abuse, poor parental care and adult depression: evidence for different mechanisms. British Journal of Psychiatry, 179, 104–9Google Scholar
Hill, J., Fonagy, P., Safier, E. & Sargent, J. (2003). The ecology of attachment in the family. Family Process, 42, 205–21Google Scholar
Johns, L. C., Rossell, S., Frith, C. et al. (2001). Verbal self-monitoring and auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine, 31, 705–15Google Scholar
Kuyken, W. & Brewin, C. R. (1995). Autobiographical memory functioning in depression and reports of early abuse. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 585–91Google Scholar
Lyons-Ruth, K. & Jacobvitz, D. (1999). Attachment disorganisation: unresolved loss, relational violence, and lapses in behavioural and attentional strategies. In Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Application, ed. J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver. New York: Guilford Press
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E. & Parsons, E. (1999). Atypical attachment in infancy and early childhood among children at developmental risk. IV. Maternal frightened, frightening, or atypical behavior and disorganized infant attachment patterns. In Atypical Patterns of Infant Attachment: Theory, Research and Current Directions, ed. J. Vondra & D. Barnett, Vol. 64, pp. 67–96. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development
Main, M. & Goldwyn, R. (1984). Adult attachment scoring and classification system. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkley
Main, M. & Hesse, E. (1990). Adult lack of resolution of attachment-related trauma related to infant disorganized/disorientated behaviour in the Ainsworth Strange Situation: linking parental states of mind to infant behaviour in a stressful situation. In Attachment in the Pre-school Years: Theory, Research and Intervention, ed. M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti & M. Cummings pp. 339–426. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Moffitt, T. E. & Caspi, A. (1998). Annotation: implications of violence between intimate partners for child psychologists and psychiatrists. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 137–44Google Scholar
Murray, L. (1992). The impact of post-natal depression on infant development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 543–61Google Scholar
Patrick, M., Hobson, R. T., Castle, D., Howard, R. & Maughan, B. (1994). Personality disorder and the mental representation of early social experience. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 375–88Google Scholar
Quinton, D., Pickles, A., Maughan, B. & Rutter, M. (1993). Partners, peers, and pathways: assortative pairing and continuities in conduct disorder. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 763–83Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B. & Kreutzer, T. (1990). The fate of early experience following developmental change: longitudinal approaches to individual adaptation in childhood. Child Development, 61, 1363–73Google Scholar
Stern, D. (1985). The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books
Strauss, J. S. (1991). The person with delusions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (Suppl. 14), 57–61Google Scholar
Vondra, J. I., Shaw, D. S., Swearingen, L., Cohen, M. & Owens, E. B. (2001). Attachment stability and emotional and behavioural regulation from infancy to pre-school age. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 13–34Google Scholar
Webster-Stratton, C. & Hammond, M. (1999). Marital conflict management skills, parenting style, and early-onset conduct problems: processes and pathways. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 917–28Google Scholar
Weinfeld, N. S., Sroufe, L. A. & Egeland, B. (2000). Attachment from infancy to early adulthood in a high risk sample: continuity, discontinuity, and their correlates. Child Development, 71, 695–702Google Scholar
Williams, J. M. G. (1996). Autobiographical memory in depression. In Remembering our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory, ed. D. Rubin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Winnicott, D. (1956). Primary maternal preoccupation. In Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalyses. (Reprinted 1992.) Carnac Books

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×