Attachment and affect regulation: a framework for family treatment of conduct disorder

Conduct disorder (CD), a pervasive adolescent disorder with clinically significant antisocial behaviors, has been a difficult syndrome to treat successfully. Recently, research on affect regulation and attachment has suggested that attachment and affect regulation strategies may underlie the development of conduct disorder in adolescents, implying that attention to these factors might improve family treatment for CD. In this review of the research literature, I discuss the role of attachment and affect regulation in the development and treatment of CD. In addition, I present information about the framework, intervention protocol, and preliminary evidence of effectiveness of an attachment- and affect regulation-based intervention that has been developed and implemented with multiple-family groups of parents and incarcerated adolescents.