Granqvist, P;
Sroufe, LA;
Dozier, M;
Hesse, E;
Steele, M;
van Ijzendoorn, M;
Solomon, J;
... Duschinsky, R; + view all
(2017)
Disorganized attachment in infancy: a review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers.
Attachment & Human Development
, 19
(6)
pp. 534-558.
10.1080/14616734.2017.1354040.
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Abstract
Disorganized/Disoriented (D) attachment has seen widespread interest from policy makers, practitioners, and clinicians in recent years. However, some of this interest seems to have been based on some false assumptions that (1) attachment measures can be used as definitive assessments of the individual in forensic/child protection settings and that disorganized attachment (2) reliably indicates child maltreatment, (3) is a strong predictor of pathology, and (4) represents a fixed or static "trait" of the child, impervious to development or help. This paper summarizes the evidence showing that these four assumptions are false and misleading. The paper reviews what is known about disorganized infant attachment and clarifies the implications of the classification for clinical and welfare practice with children. In particular, the difference between disorganized attachment and attachment disorder is examined, and a strong case is made for the value of attachment theory for supportive work with families and for the development and evaluation of evidence-based caregiving interventions.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Disorganized attachment in infancy: a review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/14616734.2017.1354040 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2017.1354040 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Disorganized attachment, attachment disorder, attachment-based interventions, infancy, maltreatment |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1561502 |
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