Editing Attachment theory (section)

==={{Anchor|disorganized attachment}}Disorganized/disoriented attachment===
Beginning in 1983, Crittenden offered A/C and other new organized classifications (see below). Drawing on records of behaviours discrepant with the A, B and C classifications, a fourth classification was added by Ainsworth's colleague Mary Main.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |title=Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention |last1=Main |first1=Mary |last2=Solomon |first2=Judith |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-226-30630-8 |editor-last=Greenberg |editor-first=Mark T. |location=Chicago |pages=121–60 |chapter=Procedures for Identifying Infants as Disorganized/Disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation |editor2-last=Cicchetti |editor2-first=Dante |editor3-last=Cummings |editor3-first=E. Mark |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WzHIfiCXE8EC&pg=PA121}}</ref> In the Strange Situation, the attachment system is expected to be activated by the departure and return of the caregiver. If the behaviour of the infant does not appear to the observer to be coordinated in a smooth way across episodes to achieve either proximity or some relative proximity with the caregiver, then it is considered 'disorganized' as it indicates a disruption or flooding of the attachment system (e.g. by fear). Infant behaviours in the Strange Situation Protocol coded as disorganized/disoriented include overt displays of fear; contradictory behaviours or affects occurring simultaneously or sequentially; stereotypic, asymmetric, misdirected or jerky movements; or freezing and apparent dissociation. Lyons-Ruth has urged, however, that it should be more widely "recognized that 52% of disorganized infants continue to approach the caregiver, seek comfort, and cease their distress without clear ambivalent or avoidant behavior"<!-- Presuming spelling from the original -->.<ref>Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Jean-Francois Bureau, M. Ann Easterbrooks, Ingrid Obsuth, Kate Hennighausen & Lauriane Vulliez-Coady (2013) Parsing the construct of maternal insensitivity: distinct longitudinal pathways associated with early maternal withdrawal, Attachment & Human
Development, 15:5–6, 562–582</ref>

The benefit of this category was hinted at earlier in Ainsworth's own experience finding difficulties in fitting all infant behaviour into the three classifications used in her Baltimore study. Ainsworth and colleagues sometimes observed {{blockquote|tense movements such as hunching the shoulders, putting the hands behind the neck and tensely cocking the head, and so on. It was our clear impression that such tension movements signified stress, both because they tended to occur chiefly in the separation episodes and because they tended to be [[prodrome|prodromal]] to crying. Indeed, our hypothesis is that they occur when a child is attempting to control crying, for they tend to vanish if and when crying breaks through.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Ainsworth MD, Blehar M, Waters E, Wall S | date = 1978 | title = Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation | location = Hillsdale, NJ | publisher = Lawrence Erlbaum | page = 282 | isbn = 978-0-89859-461-4 }}</ref>}} Such observations also appeared in the doctoral theses of Ainsworth's students. Crittenden, for example, noted that one abused infant in her doctoral sample was classed as secure (B) by her undergraduate coders because her strange situation behaviour was "without either avoidance or ambivalence, she did show stress-related stereotypic headcocking throughout the strange situation. This pervasive behavior, however, was the only clue to the extent of her stress".<ref>{{cite thesis | vauthors = Crittenden PM | title = Mother and Infant Patterns of Attachment | degree = Ph.D. | publisher = University of Virginia | date = May 1983 | page = 73 }}</ref>

There is rapidly growing interest in disorganized attachment from clinicians and policy-makers as well as researchers.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Kochanska G, Kim S | title = Early attachment organization with both parents and future behavior problems: from infancy to middle childhood | journal = Child Development | volume = 84 | issue = 1 | pages = 283–96 | year = 2013 | pmid = 23005703 | pmc = 3530645 | doi = 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01852.x }}</ref> However, the disorganized/disoriented attachment (D) classification has been criticized by some for being too encompassing, including Ainsworth herself.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Svanberg PO | date = 2009 | chapter = Promoting a secure attachment through early assessment and interventions. | veditors = Barlow J, Svanberg PO | title = Keeping the Baby in Min | pages = 100–114 | location = London | publisher = Routledge }}</ref> In 1990, Ainsworth put in print her blessing for the new 'D' classification, though she urged that the addition be regarded as "open-ended, in the sense that subcategories may be distinguished", as she worried that too many different forms of behaviour might be treated as if they were the same thing.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Ainsworth M | date = 1990 | chapter = Epilogue | title = Attachment in the Preschool Years | veditors = Greenberg MT, Ciccheti D, Cummings EM | location = Chicago, IL | publisher = Chicago University Press | pages = 463–488 }}</ref> Indeed, the D classification puts together infants who use a somewhat disrupted secure (B) strategy with those who seem hopeless and show little attachment behaviour; it also puts together infants who run to hide when they see their caregiver in the same classification as those who show an avoidant (A) strategy on the first reunion and then an ambivalent-resistant (C) strategy on the second reunion. Perhaps responding to such concerns, George and Solomon have divided among indices of disorganized/disoriented attachment (D) in the Strange Situation, treating some of the behaviours as a 'strategy of desperation' and others as evidence that the attachment system has been flooded (e.g. by fear, or anger).<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Solomon J, George C | date = 1999 | chapter = The place of disorganization in attachment theory. | veditors = Solomon J, George C | title = Attachment Disorganization | url = https://archive.org/details/attachmentdisorg0000unse | pages = [https://archive.org/details/attachmentdisorg0000unse/page/27 27] | location = NY | publisher = Guilford }}</ref>

Crittenden also argues that some behaviour classified as Disorganized/disoriented can be regarded as more 'emergency' versions of the avoidant and/or ambivalent/resistant strategies, and function to maintain the protective availability of the caregiver to some degree. Sroufe et al. have agreed that "even disorganized attachment behaviour (simultaneous approach-avoidance; freezing, etc.) enables a degree of proximity in the face of a frightening or unfathomable parent".<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Sroufe A, Egeland B, Carlson E, Collins WA | date = 2005 | title = The Development of the person: the Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood | url = https://archive.org/details/developmentperso00phdl_935 | location = NY | publisher = Guilford Press | page = [https://archive.org/details/developmentperso00phdl_935/page/n261 245] | isbn = 978-1-59385-158-3 }}</ref> However, "the presumption that many indices of 'disorganization' are aspects of organized patterns does not preclude acceptance of the notion of disorganization, especially in cases where the complexity and dangerousness of the threat are beyond children's capacity for response."<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Crittenden P | date = 1999 | chapter = Danger and development: the organization of self-protective strategies | title = Atypical Attachment in Infancy and Early Childhood Among Children at Developmental Risk | url = https://archive.org/details/atypicalattachme0000unse | veditors = Vondra JI, Barnett D | location = Oxford | publisher = Blackwell | pages = [https://archive.org/details/atypicalattachme0000unse/page/159 159]–160 | isbn = 978-0-631-21592-9 }}</ref> For example, "Children placed in care, especially more than once, often have intrusions. In videos of the Strange Situation Procedure, they tend to occur when a rejected/neglected child approaches the stranger in an intrusion of desire for comfort, then loses muscular control and falls to the floor, overwhelmed by the intruding fear of the unknown, potentially dangerous, strange person."<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Crittenden P, Landini A | date = 2011 | title = Assessing Adult Attachment: A Dynamic-Maturational Approach to Discourse Analysis | location = NY | publisher = W.W. Norton | page = 269 }}</ref>

Main and Hesse<ref name="MaineHesse">{{cite book |title=Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention |last1=Main |first1=Mary |last2=Hesse |first2=Erik |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-226-30630-8 |editor-last=Greenberg |editor-first=Mark T. |location=Chicago |pages=161–84 |chapter=Parents' Unresolved Traumatic Experiences Are Related to Infant Disorganized Attachment Status: Is Frightened and/or Frightening Parental Behavior the Linking Mechanism? |editor2-last=Cicchetti |editor2-first=Dante |editor3-last=Cummings |editor3-first=E. Mark |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WzHIfiCXE8EC&pg=PA161}}</ref> found most of the mothers of these children had suffered major losses or other trauma shortly before or after the birth of the infant and had reacted by becoming severely depressed.<ref name="Parkes">{{cite book |title=Love and Loss | first = Colin Murray | last = Parkes |publisher=Routledge, London and New York |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-415-39041-5 |page=13}}</ref> In fact, fifty-six per cent of mothers who had lost a parent by death before they completed high school had children with disorganized attachments.<ref name=MaineHesse /> Subsequent studies, while emphasising the potential importance of unresolved loss, have qualified these findings.<ref name="pmid16818417">{{cite journal | vauthors = Madigan S, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, Van Ijzendoorn MH, Moran G, Pederson DR, Benoit D | title = Unresolved states of mind, anomalous parental behavior, and disorganized attachment: a review and meta-analysis of a transmission gap | journal = Attachment & Human Development | volume = 8 | issue = 2 | pages = 89–111 | date = June 2006 | pmid = 16818417 | doi = 10.1080/14616730600774458 | s2cid = 1691924 }}</ref> For example, Solomon and George found unresolved loss in the mother tended to be associated with disorganized attachment in their infant primarily when they had also experienced an unresolved trauma in their life prior to the loss.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Solomon J, George C | date = 2006 | chapter = Intergenerational transmission of dysregulated maternal caregiving: Mothers describe their upbringing and child rearing. | veditors = Mayseless O | title = Parenting representations: Theory, research, and clinical implications | url = https://archive.org/details/parentingreprese00ofra | pages = [https://archive.org/details/parentingreprese00ofra/page/265 265]–295 | location = Cambridge, UK | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 978-0-521-82887-1 }}</ref>