Developing a secure base in family intervention: using the adult attachment projective system to assess attachment in family relationships.

Families are core to human well-being. Therapeutic intervention may be needed in the context of family disruptions. Attachment theory conceptualizes parents as the secure base and safe haven that support children's optimal development. Parents who have experienced their own attachment difficulties or traumas may not provide quality caregiving necessary for balanced secure parent-child attachment relationships. Following Bowlby's original thinking (1988), an attachment approach to family intervention views the therapist as a secure base that enables families to explore individual and system problems to restore equilibrium. Attachment informed therapy uses attachment theory to understand family functioning. However, the unavailability of valid economical assessment for examining attachment representations has constricted the practical utility of attachment theory in family therapy beyond applications of general concepts. This chapter describes the Adult Attachment Projective Pictures System (AAP) and explores its use as an efficient manner for assessing attachment representations within families that allows therapists to understand problematic interactions, disabling defensive processes, make predictions concerning negative patterns, and create targets for change and restorative intervention. Consolidating three decades of attachment and caregiving system research, we describe how distinct patterns of AAP responses for each adult attachment group map onto expected parenting and family system expectations and behaviors to provide a concise and informative framework. In addition to the traditional adult attachment patterns (Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied, Unresolved), we describe for the first time expectations for two additional forms of incomplete pathological mourning (Failed Mourning and Preoccupied with Personal Suffering) that have been overlooked in the field.

Risk, Emotional Support, Child Abuse Potential, and Parenting During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated mitigation efforts created stress that threatened parent and child well-being. Conditions that increase stress within families heighten the likelihood of child abuse, but social support can mitigate the impact. This short-term investigation considered whether cumulative risk, COVID-19 specific risk, and emotional support (one aspect of social support), were associated with child abuse potential during the pandemic. Additionally, we investigated whether emotional support moderated the association between COVID-19 specific risk and child abuse potential, and associations between child abuse potential and emotionally positive and emotionally negative parenting. Participants included 89 parents, from a metropolitan area with a large number of economically distressed families, who completed online questionnaires. COVID-19 specific risk and emotional support each explained additional variance in child abuse potential beyond cumulative risk, but emotional support did not moderate the association between COVID-19 specific risk and child abuse potential. Consistent with expectations, child abuse potential was negatively associated with emotionally positive parenting and positively associated with emotionally negative parenting practices. Results highlight the importance of addressing both risks and supports at multiple levels for parents during times of stress.

School support, chaos, routines, and parents' mental health during COVID-19 remote schooling.

Remote schooling due to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) created profound challenges for families. In this investigation, we examined parents' depression and anxiety during remote schooling and their associations with parents' reports of school support. We also evaluated indirect and interactive (i.e., moderation) associations. Participants were parents (N = 152, 92.8% mothers, 65.1% Black) from an urban area with high rates of COVID-19. Of the 152 parents, 27.6% reported elevated levels of depression and 34.2% reported elevated anxiety. Regression analyses showed that school support was negatively associated with parents' depression (ß = -.33, p < .01) and anxiety (ß = -.21, p < .01). There was an indirect association between school support and parents' mental health via household chaos and daily routines. Reported COVID-19 impact moderated the direct association between school support and parental depression and anxiety. There was a statistically significant association between school support and parents' depression and anxiety when COVID-19 impact was low or moderate, but not when COVID-19 impact was high. These results may suggest that for parents who were not highly impacted by the pandemic, school support buffered the association between stress and parents' mental health problems; parents most impacted by COVID-19 may need additional support. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Romantic partner selection and socialization of young adolescents' substance use and behavior problems.

This study examined romantic partner selection and socialization of substance use (cigarettes, alcohol) and behavior problems among a sample of 78 young adolescents (6th-8th graders) over eleven months. Adolescent and romantic partner behaviors were assessed before and after relationships were initiated via school records and self-report. Most selection and socialization effects were apparent for the eighth grade adolescents (at Time 1). Prior to their relationship, eighth graders and romantic partners were alike on alcohol use. In contrast, romantic socialization effects emerged for eighth graders' cigarette use and behavior problems. The nature of the partner socialization effects depended on the combination of adolescents' and partners' pre-relationship behaviors. Eighth graders who dated partners with fewer problems showed the greatest instability in their behavior problems and partner behavior predicted greater decreased in problem behaviors among adolescents with more problems. The implications of these findings are discussed within the broader context of adolescent peer relationships.