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This article considers the interface between the concepts of attachment and intersubjectivity in light of accumulated research on infant development. Both Tomasello (1999) and Hobson (2002) have argued persuasively that the flexible human capability for sharing mental states with others reframes and revolutionizes our older, more highly channeled primate biological heritage. In contrast to this emphasis on discontinuity from primate to human evolution, attachment theorists have stressed the continuities between human attachment and attachment in other primates. The implication of new work on infant intersubjectivity for reframing aspects of attachment theory is first explored. By the same token, however, the extent to which the infant-caregiver attachment relationship functions to maintain positive engagement and regulate the infant's fearful arousal will have escalating consequences over development for the organization of intersubjectivity. Therefore, attachment research has much to offer in understanding the development of joint attention and the sharing of mental states under conditions of increased emotional arousal. The potential contributions of attachment research for understanding the development of intersubjectivity are discussed in light of recent work from the author's lab on forms of young adult symptomatology associated with deviance in the early intersubjective dialogue between mother and infant. The clinical implication emerging from all these diverse areas of research is that fostering more collaborative forms of communication may lie at the heart of evolutionary change, developmental change, and changes resulting from psychodynamic psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent work in developmental psychology and primatology indicates that human infants are distinguished from other primates by the end of the 1st year by their awareness that others have subjective states like their own. This early appearing awareness of the subjectivity of others forms the basis for the subsequent negotiation and elaboration of “we-ness,” that is, of shared orientations toward the world that allow the child to enter into collaborative relations with others. It is argued that this gradual working out of collaborative strategies for the elaboration of shared meanings is a principal function of joint pretend play in early childhood, and this is one of the critical developmental functions addressed in psychodynamic play therapy. Developmental theory and research contributing to this perspective is integrated with excerpts from children's joint pretend play and from play therapy case material to illustrate the precarious and improvisational nature of the negotiation of shared meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: The objective of this follow-up study was to assess the long-term effects of clinical infant home-visiting services on child outcomes at school entry.Method: Participants were 63 five-year-olds from low-income families, half of whom were referred to parent-infant home-visiting services during the first 18 months of life due to concerns about the caretaking environment. Families received between 0 and 18 months of weekly home visits based on infant age at entry into the study. At age 5, children were rated by teachers on the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire for behavior problems in the classroom and by parents both on the Simmons Behavior Checklist for behavior problems at home and on the Achenbach Social Competence Items for positive play behaviors with friends.Results: With initial family risk status and child gender controlled, teacher-rated hostile behavior problems decreased in dose-response relation to the duration of early home-visiting services, which accounted for 15% of the variance in child hostile behavior. Parents' reports of positive play behaviors were positively linearly related to service duration. Parents' reports of behavior problems were less reliably related to service duration than teacher reports.Conclusions: Early home-visiting services reduced the incidence of aggressive behavior problems among socially at-risk children for up to 3.5 years after the end of services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part IV. Studies the relationship of mother-child interaction with atypical attachment behavior. Influences of parental sensitivity on the quality of parent-child attachment; Effects of maternal sensitivity and developmental functioning on attachment security; Stability and consistency of attachment security.

Examines the relation between maternal and infant measures assessed at 18 months infant age and child behavior problems at age five as rated by preschool teachers. Mother-infant interaction; Maternal psychosocial problems; Infant cognitive development; Infant attachment security; Significance of disorganized attachment behavior as a precursor to later maladaptation.

This article presents the author's comment on the convergence between attachment research and the psychoanalytic theoretical base from which it emerged. A central thesis stated in the introduction to the manuscript is that, the continued usefulness of these research measures for investigating social, emotional and moral development will partially depend on referencing the psychoanalytic theories from which they descend. Measures of attachment security certainly have many contributions to make apart from psychoanalytic theory, in areas such as exploring the impact of day care in assessing relational contributions to physiological regulation. The vitality of the empirical enterprise of attachment research will be greatly enhanced by continuing to draw hypotheses and directions of inquiry from the body of psychoanalytic clinical observations that have accrued over almost a century. Linking the patterning and organization of internal meaning and fantasy with the patterning and organization of relational behavior is a reunion whose time has allegedly come. The distinction between the psychoanalytic observational base and the theory elaborated from such a base is an important one, however.

Presents a review of attachment-related studies of early aggression in children. What attachment research indicates about aggresive child behavior; Early attachment relationships and aggressive behavior disorders.

Presents an investigation of the relations between assessments in infancy and the reported behavior problems of parent and teacher at the age of seven with regards to psychology. Information on seven year old children who are described as externalizing; What was associated with avoidant attachment behavior in infancy; Reference to the reported behavior problem data.

The aim of the present study was to examine young childrens awareness that an actors intention to transfer possession or control is a necessary precondition for correct use of the verb give 96 4-through 6-year-olds were presented with anecdotes in which the actor's behavior was held con stant but his subjective goal was varied 5- and 6-year-olds, but not younger children, varied their usage of "give" according to the information regarding the actor's intent to transfer possession. Analysis of errors indicated that 4-year-olds attributed intent to transfer possession on the basis of behavioral information rather than on the basis of directly stated subjective goal information. However, 4-year-olds' usage of "give' did not appear to be based on consideration of intent to transfer possession or control, even when intent was inferred from behavioral cues. Not until age 5 were judgments of "give" usage strongly correlated with judgments of subjective goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construct validity of cognitive perspective-taking ability has been seriously questioned in recent literature. However, previous studies have tested a unidimensional model of perspective-taking skill rather than a model having 2 or more levels of perspective-taking ability beyond egocentrism. Drawing on multileveled models described in the literature, the present study (a) proposed a definition of a second level of recursive structure involved in perspective-taking, (b) operationalized the distinction between level 1 and level 2 recursive perspective-taking in a task modeled after that of Urberg and Docherty, and (c) assessed the covariation of scores on this task with scores on 2 other tasks based on multileveled models. Children's scores on the new task correlated highly with scores on Miller, Kessel, and Flavell's cartoon task. Children's modal responses to Selman's interview task were hierarchically related to success on the other tasks, while children's best responses to the interview were strongly correlated with story and cartoon performance. Thus, analysis of levels of recursive structure in perspective-taking performance appears to isolate an important source of variance in children's responses to cognitive perspective-taking tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the moral and personal value judgments of preschool children. Influence of motive valence on children's evaluations; Development of moral evaluation; Theories of early moral and social cognition.

Assimilation of an auditory-visual stimulus configuration was tested in 32 infants aged 15-16 weeks. In the experimental group, infants were familiarized with a sounding object then presented laterally with the familiar sound paired with either the familiar or a novel object. A control group viewed the same presentation with no auditory component beyond a short cue sound on the lateral trials. When presented with the mismatched sound and object, infants in the experimental group looked away from the object more often and failed to orient toward the object more frequently than when presented with the matched sound and object. Infants in the control group viewing identical but silent objects did not show these differences. The infants discrimination of matched and mismatched auditory-visual stimuli indicates that infants by 4 months of age are capable of constructing bimodal schemata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the links between anxiety disorders and parent–child attachment disorganization and quality of peer relationships in late adolescence. This study examined the quality of attachment and peer relationships among adolescents with and without anxiety disorders in a sample of 109 low- to moderate-income families. Psychopathology was assessed with the SCID-I. Attachment disorganization and dysfunction in peer relationships were measured using semi-structured interviews and behavioral observations. Adolescents with anxiety disorders and comorbid conditions showed higher levels of attachment disorganization across three measurement approaches, as well as higher levels of dysfunction in peer relationships than those with no Axis I diagnosis. Adolescents without anxiety disorders but with other Axis I disorders differed only in the quality of school relationships from those with no diagnoses. The pattern of results suggests that pathological anxiety, in the context of other comorbidities, may be a marker for more pervasive levels of social impairment.

The primary objective was to assess whether prospectively observed quality of parent–child interaction in infancy and middle childhood contributed to the prediction of borderline symptoms and recurrent suicidality/self-injury in late adolescence. Adolescents (mean 19.9 years) from 56 families participating in a longitudinal study since infancy (retention rate 74%) were assessed on the SCID-II for symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), including suicidality/self-injury. Early clinical risk was indexed by clinical referral to parent–infant services. Attachment security and parent–child interaction were assessed from videotape at 18 months and 8 years. Severity of childhood abuse was rated from interview and self-report measures. Maternal withdrawal in infancy was a significant predictor of both borderline symptoms and suicidality/self-injury in late adolescence. Disorganized controlling child behavior at age 8 contributed independently to the prediction of borderline symptoms. The effect of maternal withdrawal was independent of, and additive to, variability explained by severity of childhood abuse. Borderline symptoms and suicidality/self-injury may be preceded developmentally by disturbed interactions as early as 18 months of age. A parent–child transactional model is proposed to account for the findings.

The study evaluated the association between maternal disrupted communication and the reactivity and regulation of the psychobiology of the stress response in infancy. Mothers and infants were recruited via the National Health Service from the 20% most economically impoverished data zones in a suburban region of Scotland. Mothers (N = 63; M age = 25.9) and their 4-month-old infants (35 boys, 28 girls) were videotaped interacting for 8 min, including a still-face procedure as a stress inducer and a 5-min coded recovery period. Saliva samples were collected from the dyads prior to, during, and after the still-face procedure and later assayed for cortisol. Level of disruption in maternal communication with the infant was coded from the 5-min videotaped interaction during the recovery period which followed the still-face procedure. Severely disrupted maternal communication was associated with lower levels of maternal cortisol and a greater divergence between mothers' and infants' cortisol levels. Results point to low maternal cortisol as a possible mechanism contributing to the mother's difficulty in sensitively attuning to her infant's cues, which in turn has implications for the infant's reactivity to and recovery from a mild stressor in early infancy.

Comments on an article Children of mothers with borderline personality disorder: Identifying parenting behaviors as potential targets for intervention by Stepp, Whalen, Pilkonis, Hipwell, and Levine (see record 2011-05873-001). The authors have offered us an extremely timely paper, given the surge of interest in borderline psychopathology in general, and its parenting correlates in particular. This is an ambitious overview that assesses the current state of knowledge concerning the parenting of mothers with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The authors also grapple with what we can make of this literature in setting directions for prevention/intervention strategies for children of parents with BPD. This was a comprehensive and thoughtful review. This commentary elaborate on three issues brought to the fore by the current paper.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been associated with deviations in cortisol in response to interpersonal stressors. Identifying mechanisms contributing to such deviations may help to address emotional dysregulation and the increased risk of self-destructive behavior. While dysfunctional relationships to caregivers have been widely reported among individuals with BPD, their contribution to cortisol hyperresponsiveness has yet to be investigated. Fifty-one females (aged 18–24years) participated to assess the impact of BPD and the quality of protective care in mother-daughter relationships on stress responsiveness. Seventeen females with BPD and twenty females without BPD participated with their mothers in a videotaped parent-young adult conflict discussion. Fourteen non-BPD females without their mothers were assessed for cortisol levels without stress exposure. Salivary cortisol samples were collected at lab entry and 20 and 40min after the onset of the discussion. Results revealed a higher overall cortisol response in the BPD group upon lab entry. BPD participants reported less experienced protection in the mother-daughter relationship which was associated with higher cortisol levels on lab entry and higher distress at study end. Results point to the perceived quality of parental protection as likely to modulate the activity of the stress response system among BPD patients.

Objective The Personal Attitude Scale (PAS; Hooley, 2000) is a method that is under development for identifying individuals high in Expressed Emotion based on personality traits of inflexibility, intolerance, and norm-forming. In the current study, the goal was to measure the association between this maternal attitudinal inflexibility, early hostile or disrupted mother-infant interactions, and hostile-aggressive behavior problems in the child. Methods In a prospective longitudinal study of 76 low-income mothers and their infants, it was predicted that maternal PAS scores, assessed at child age 20, would be related to difficulties in early observed mother-infant interaction and to hostile-aggressive behavioral difficulties in the child. Results Results indicated that maternal difficulties in interacting with the infant in the laboratory were associated with maternal PAS scores assessed 20 years later. Hostile-aggressive behavior problems in the child at age five were also predictive of PAS scores of mothers. However, contrary to prediction, these behavior problems did not mediate the association between mother-infant interaction difficulties and maternal PAS scores, indicating that the child's hostile-aggressive behavior problems did not produce the link between quality of early interaction and later maternal attitudinal inflexibility. Conclusions The current results validate the PAS against observable mother-child interactions and child hostile-aggressive behavior problems and indicate the importance of future work investigating the maternal attitudes that are associated with, and may potentially precede, parent-infant interactive difficulties. Practice implications These findings regarding the inflexible attitudes of mothers whose interactions with their infants are also disrupted have important clinical implications. First, once the stability of the PAS has been established, this measure may offer a valuable screening tool for the prenatal identification of parents at risk for difficult interactions with their children. Second, it suggests routes for more cognitive interventions around helping less flexible parents shift perspectives to better take account of their child's outlooks and needs.

Background Women with borderline personality disorder have conflictual interpersonal relations that may extend to disrupted patterns of interaction with their infants. Aims To assess how women with borderline personality disorder engage with their 12 to 18-month-old infants in separation–reunion episodes. Method We videotaped mother–infant interactions in separation–reunion episodes of the Strange Situation test. The mothers were women with borderline personality disorder, with depression, or without psychopathological disorder. Masked ratings of maternal behaviour were made with the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification. Results As predicted, a higher proportion (85%) of women with borderline personality disorder than women in the comparison groups showed disrupted affective communication with their infants. They were also distinguished by the prevalence of frightened/disoriented behaviour. Conclusions Maternal borderline personality disorder is associated with dysregulated mother–infant communication.

Purpose: Maternal cortisol levels in pregnancy may support the growth of or adversely affect fetal organs, including the brain. While moderate cortisol levels are essential for fetal development, excessive or prolonged elevations may have negative health consequences for both the mother and the offspring. Little is known about predictors of altered hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity during pregnancy. This study examined maternal hair cortisol concentration (HCC) in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy in relation to severe psychopathology. Methods: Hair samples were collected from 69 women, 32 with a lifetime diagnosis of severe mental disorders (bipolar I or II disorder, moderate or severe depressive disorder, schizophrenic spectrum disorder), and 37 non-clinical controls. Hair samples were collected during the 3rd trimester, and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry was used for cortisol assessment. Psychiatric diagnosis and current level of symptomatic functioning were assessed using the structured clinical interview from the DSM-5 and the global assessment of functioning scale. Results: Women with a lifetime diagnosis of severe mental illness had significantly elevated HCC compared to controls. Poorer current symptomatic functioning was also significantly associated with elevated HCC in pregnancy. Conclusions: The implications of alterations in HCC on both maternal and infant health need further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community agencies and practitioners around the globe seek opportunities to learn various assessment tools and interventions rooted in attachment theory. However, information regarding the feasibility of implementation and sustainability of these tools once participants have been trained to use them, is limited. This study investigated the perceived acceptability, feasibility, utility, relevance, fidelity, and sustainability of the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification‐Brief (AMBIANCE‐Brief) among practitioners who had taken a training. Practitioners (N = 59) who attended a virtual AMBIANCE‐Brief training originating from Canada between June 2020 and November 2021 completed an online follow‐up survey. Practitioners reported that they primarily used the AMBIANCE‐Brief for case conceptualization (68%). Additionally, 95% agreed that the AMBIANCE‐Brief was relevant to their clinical practice, 98% agreed it was useful for their clinical work, 76% agreed that it was feasible to implement into their clinical work, and 59% found it easy to incorporate into their treatment planning with clients. Findings suggest that the AMBIANCE‐Brief may be acceptable, feasible, and useful for practitioners. Avenues for continuing to evaluate the AMBIANCE‐Brief include cross‐cultural validity, coder drift, and booster sessions. Additional work clarifying how practitioners integrate the measure into practice would be valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hostile-Helpless (HH) state of mind is a form of disorganised attachment that is strongly associated with prior experiences of abuse. However, how abuse experiences contribute toward HH states of mind in late adolescence is unknown. Punitive control in adolescent-mother dyads has been implicated in the development of HH states of mind and adolescent sex/gender may influence how punitive interactions contribute to HH mind states. The present study aimed to explore how adolescent sex/gender and punitive control within adolescent-mother dyads are related to the links between HH states of mind and childhood abuse. A sample of 109 low-moderate income late adolescents (aged 18–23 years, 65 females, 44 males) and their mothers were assessed in a conflict-resolution paradigm. Recordings of the interactions were coded using the Goal-Corrected Partnership in Adolescence Coding System for different aspects of attachment-based interactions including punitive control. Late-adolescent HH states of mind features were coded from Adult Attachment Interviews (AAI) and experiences of abuse were coded from adolescent self-reports and the AAI. Moderated mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect pathway from abuse to HH states of mind through punitive control in late adolescent females (B = 0.06, SE Boot = 0.04, 95 % CI Boot 0.01, 0.15), but not males (B = −0.02, SE Boot = 0.02, 95 % CI Boot − 0.07, 0.02). The results indicate that there are sex/gender-specific pathways to developing HH states of mind. Hostile behavior within mother-daughter dyads therefore may play an important role in linking abuse experiences and contradictory attachment representations in late adolescent females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined how mothering is organized in the first months of infancy, especially regarding risk‐related interactions. Person‐centred approaches, including latent profile analysis (LPA), add valuable insights about early parenting by identifying distinct profiles of interaction. First, this study aimed to identify profiles of disrupted maternal interaction during the Still‐Face Paradigm among 181 mothers and their 3‐ to 8‐month‐old infants. Second, the study assessed how each maternal profile was related to infant affect and interactive behaviour. The LPA identified four profiles of maternal interaction: optimal, negative/intrusive, withdrawing and pervasively disrupted. The pervasively disrupted profile, in particular, has not been identified in past research. Each profile was associated with specific aspects of infant affect and behaviour. Recognition of disrupted behavioural profiles among at‐risk mothers and infants in the early months could facilitate more precise tailoring of early interventions to the needs of mothers and infants with differing profiles of interactive risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the longitudinal prediction of emotional availability in mother-child interaction during middle childhood from two indicators of socioemotional functioning in infancy: security of infant-mother attachment and maternal depressive symptoms. Link between infancy and middle childhood socioemotional organization; Maternal sensitivity and structuring.

We propose that role-confusion or role reversal between parent and child is a major risk factor for a child's development, yet one that has gone largely unnoticed. In the context of an evolutionary tension between parental reproductive needs and child needs for nurturing, parental history and current stressors may affect the ability to invest in parenting a particular child. When adult relationships do not provide adequate emotional and instrumental support to the parent, he or she may look to a child to provide that support. A growing empirical literature across clinical, family systems and developmental disciplines has pointed to the potential for the child to take on the role of parent, spouse, or peer in relation to the parent, such that traditional parent–child roles become confused or reversed and generational boundaries blurred. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, this change in parent–child role relations may adversely affect the child's socio-emotional development if demands placed on the child exceed the capacity to comply, thus increasing the risk for psychopathology. Conversely, shouldering family responsibilities that are within the developmental capacities of the child may lead to increased self-efficacy and competence. This paper critically reviews the growing literature, proposes a model for precursors to, and sequelae of, role-confusion, examines resilience, and points to directions for future research and preventive interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal childhood maltreatment (MCM) is associated with parenting disruptions which may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of negative health and social outcomes. Most prior work has used variable-centered approaches to assess MCM. Complementary person-centered approaches can identify groups of participants characterized by similar patterns of maltreatment. The current study assessed both types and patterns of MCM in relation to disrupted parenting among 179 mothers and their 4-month-olds. In variable-centered analyses, physical abuse was related to negative-intrusive maternal behavior and physical neglect to role-confused behavior. Person-centered analyses derived three classes of MCM, which differed in disrupted parenting. For example, mothers who experienced multiple types of maltreatment displayed more withdrawal than mothers in both other classes. Results document the differential effects of particular types and patterns of MCM on aspects of parenting and reveal that mother's history of maltreatment can affect the quality of mother-child interaction as early as 4 months of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists have suggested that attachment disorganization contributes to the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, few studies have directly observed attachment-related interactions with parents. This study used a newly developed attachment-based coding system to examine whether individuals with BPD were more likely to exhibit disorganized interactions with their mothers than those with (a) other diagnoses (anxiety, depressive, or substance use diagnoses) or (b) no diagnosis. Results indicated that participants with BPD had a greater likelihood of disorganized attachment interactions than did both comparison groups. The odds ratio for disorganized attachment among BPD participants was almost 8 times that of participants without BPD. These results underscore the utility of observational assessments to capture the interpersonal features of BPD and highlight the potential value of examining the developmental trajectories of disorganized and controlling attachment behavior in order to identify pathways toward BPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]