Taylor, Angela M.; (1997) Parental attachement and adjustment to college for adolescent students in further education. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Experience with adolescent students who attended a college counselling service suggested that, whatever their presenting problems, focusing on their past and present parental relationships was particularly helpful. Researchers in the United States were making similar suggestions because they were finding a strong association between parental attachment and adjustment to college for undergraduates. This research investigated the association between adolescent-parent attachment and adjustment to college for British students in further education. The subjects were 16 - 20 year olds who came from socio-economically and ethnically diverse families. A new self-report questionnaire, relevant to these subjects, was developed to measure their adjustment to college. The research was in three parts, a) The questionnaire study of 315 students measured parental and peer attachment and adjustment to college. A strong association between parental attachment and college adjustment was found and gender differences were examined. b) For the counselling outcome study, students attending the college counselling service were tested on the same questionnaires before and after counselling which included repeated parent-focused intervention. Although only one aspect of attachment showed significant change, the process material indicated that attachment style was relevant to the counselling approach, c) In the third study sixteen poorly adjusted students were interviewed after they too had been retested on the questionnaires. The interview material was examined for interactions between parental attachment and wellbeing. Drawing together all the findings, discussion focused on the relevance of attachment style, the importance of gender specific parent-child relationships and the recognition of cultural differences between British Asian and non-Asian adolescent-parent relationships. A developmental model illustrating the association between parental attachment and adolescent well-being was presented. Implications for counselling adolescents were discussed.

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