Under the leadership of its founding editor, Dante Cicchetti, Development and Psychopathology has been recognized for decades as the foremost journal integrating developmental theory and clinical research programs. Contributors have often highlighted the implications of attachment theory and research for understanding developmental processes and pathways, and as a testing ground for intervention strategies. In this paper we reflect on the strengths and limitations of the traditional developmental perspective. We suggest that behavioral, cognitive, and emotional development are better understood as a process of bricolage (construction within constraints). This perspective is illustrated in an analysis of change mechanisms, and behavioral and representational changes, in attachment development from pre-locomotor infancy to later adulthood. Special emphasis is placed on ordinary learning and cognitive processes, rather than those specific to attachment, and on the roles that socialization pressures and changing circumstances play in shaping the course of attachment development.

This study evaluated whether Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), a parenting intervention, altered the attachment representations of parents (average age of 34.2 years) who had been referred to Child Protective Services (CPS) due to risk for child maltreatment when their children were infants. Approximately 7 years after completing the intervention, parents who had been randomized to receive ABC (n = 43) exhibited greater secure base script knowledge than parents who had been randomized to receive a control intervention (n = 51). Low-risk parents (n = 79) exhibited greater secure base script knowledge than CPS-referred parents who had received a control intervention. However, levels of secure base script knowledge did not differ between low-risk parents and CPS-referred parents who had received the ABC intervention. In addition, secure base script knowledge was positively associated with parental sensitivity during interactions with their 8-year-old children among low-risk and CPS-referred parents. Mediational analyses supported the idea that the ABC intervention enhanced parents’ sensitivity 7 years later indirectly via increases in parents’ secure base script knowledge.