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Emotional availability and attachment across generations: variations in patterns associated with infant health risk

R Cassibba1, M H van IJzendoorn, G Coppola

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Bari, Bari, Italy. cassibba@psico.uniba.it

Child: Care, Health and Development
|July 15, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Children with chronic illnesses may have insecure attachment patterns, potentially disrupting the intergenerational transmission of secure attachment due to health concerns and communication challenges.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Attachment Theory

Background:

  • Chronic childhood illness can impact communicative behaviors, potentially hindering secure attachment formation.
  • Family distress associated with chronic illness may disrupt the intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the associations between maternal attachment, emotional availability, and mother-child attachment in clinical and comparison groups.
  • To investigate potential differences in attachment security and its transmission in infants with chronic conditions versus healthy infants.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed maternal attachment representations using the Adult Attachment Interview.
  • Evaluated mother-infant emotional availability with the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS).
  • Determined mother-child attachment quality via the Strange Situation Procedure in 40 infant-mother dyads (20 clinical, 20 comparison).

Main Results:

  • No significant differences were found in maternal attachment representations or emotional availability between clinical and comparison groups.
  • Infants in the clinical group exhibited a higher incidence of insecure infant-mother attachment patterns.
  • In typically developing dyads, secure maternal attachment predicted emotional availability, which in turn predicted secure infant attachment.

Conclusions:

  • The intergenerational transmission of attachment may be hampered in clinical groups due to infant health concerns and communication difficulties.
  • Constant maternal worry regarding a child's chronic illness may mitigate the typical pathways of attachment transmission.
Abstract

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