Parent visitation between parents and their children in foster care is the primary intervention for maintaining and supporting the development of parent child relationships necessary for reunification. This article examines the aspects of attachment relationships that provide an approach for understanding, assessing, and intervening in parent…

When trauma precedes a child's placement in the foster care system, it can lead to lasting mental health difficulties. Often, children who experience extreme, chronic trauma prior to age 5 develop Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). This article discusses the characteristics of RAD as well as diagnostic criteria and possible etiology. (Contains 26…

Children and adolescents who are diagnosed as conduct disordered and violent have less physically intimate relationships. This may be a factor in the development of their disorder. Physical contact treatments like massage therapy may help reduce their aggressive behavior and normalize their EEG and biochemical profiles. (Contains 79 references.)…

The current literature on 10 measures of attachment (including a psychometric analysis) is reviewed. Adult attachment and parent-adolescent attachment measures, which include two interview protocols, are considered. A comparison of the theoretical structure and basic properties of adult attachment measures is presented. Selection and use of these…

Using K. Bartholomew's (1990) 4-dimensional model of adult attachment as an organizational framework, 10 developmental personality styles are differentiated regarding their unique attachment experiences, working models of self and other, and feedforward beliefs. Implications of an attachment theory framework for counseling clients with problematic…

Developmental psychology and psychopathology has in the past been more concerned with the quality of self-representation than with the development of the subjective agency which underpins our experience of feeling, thought and action, a key function of mentalisation. This review begins by contrasting a Cartesian view of pre-wired introspective…

The growing social phenomenon of grandparents caring for their grandchildren has implications for educational psychology practice, since children who are wards of their grandparents frequently experience problematic school functioning. In this paper, the literature regarding children cared for by grandparents is reviewed. Issues concerning…

During the last decade, nearly 190,000 children from outside the United States have been adopted by families in the United States, and many of these children have experienced orphanage care. These children are vulnerable to a complex constellation of deficits crossing behavioral, physical, educational and emotional domains. Parents and schools are…

The meaning of ordinary distress signals is, in instances of child abuse and neglect, determined by an unconscious mythology which the parent has about the infant, and also by what the parent finds unacceptable in oneself and project onto the infant. The recent research on mother-infant attachment is reviewed. (Author/DB)

Child-battering parents are described in the literature as having three primary behavioral characteristics: a general difficulty with the control of aggression; an aversive, unsympathetic response to distress in others; and self-isolating tendencies. Recent studies of young abused children are reviewed which show the development of similar…

Examined whether adult attachment was predictive of conflict resolution behaviors and satisfaction in romantic relationships. Both adult attachment dimensions, Avoidance and Anxiety, were predictive of conflict resolution behaviors and relationship satisfaction. Gender differences existed in conflict resolution behaviors, but they were not as…

Counselors who take an ecological perspective on family relationships may be more effective in their consultation, prevention, and direct service roles. Summarizes current research on the nature of parent and child attachments and on the importance of monitoring children's environments. Implications of this research are suggested for counselors…

Agrees with Jackson's assertion in the previous article that the development of attachment relationships in an African-American multiple-caregiver context should be analyzed and understood on its own terms to avoid an ethnocentric "Euro-American" perspective. Emphasizes the crucial contribution of overnight care in the development of…

Presents a review of attachment theory as it relates to adolescents, and suggests connections between attachment, developmental changes, and adjustment of adolescents in stepfamilies. Includes several propositions for further research. (LLL)

Discusses the use of religion in the lives of adolescents to repair problematic or disrupted attachments in the context of attachment theory and Kohut's self-psychology particularly in reference to the self-object. Proposes that adolescents do not seek to break ties with parents or adults so much as to revise their relationships in a more adult…