Early Attachment Network to Multiple Caregivers: A Brief History of Research and Assessment Models

Early attachment has been commonly hypothesized to predict children’s future developmental outcomes, and robust evidence relying on assessments of single caregiver-child attachment patterns has corroborated this hypothesis. Nevertheless, most often children are raised by multiple caregivers, and they tend to form attachment bonds with more than one of them. In this paper, we briefly describe the conceptual and empirical roots underlying the notion of attachment network to multiple caregivers. We describe potential reasons for researchfocusing on a single caregiver (most often mothers, but recently also fathers) and the historical attempts to establish a more ecologically valid assessment of attachment to multiple caregivers. Finally, we describe a recently developed organizational framework that includes testable models on which future research may rely for assessing the predictive power of attachment networks to multiple caregivers on children’s developmental outcomes.

Cellos in the dark: managing attachment bonds in the time of Covid-19

This article is essentially a narrative about deeply troubled people who are searching for hope. People who are struggling to find ways to feel and function better in both their close relationships and in the larger world. The coronavirus pandemic has collided with some core concepts of relational psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, challenging accepted theoretical conventions, such as the analytic frame, and impacting the attachment systems of both therapists and clients, individually and together. In these vignettes, each client is at a different stage of therapy, and I have described how the pandemic restrictions have either disturbed, or enhanced, our connection. Their stories are moving, and finding the essence of each one of them, even in this brief vignette format, has been a labour of love. I have written about their predicaments, but also about their impact on me, not only as a psychotherapist, but also as a human being.

Human Attachment and Affiliation

One of the defining features of human experience is the formation and maintenance of affiliative and attachment ties. As these ties offer numerous adaptive advantages, human beings have evolved behavioral and neurobiological systems to ensure their formation and maintenance. The need to affiliate is pervasive and powerful. Consequently, the affiliative system is hypersensitive to social cues signaling any possibility that the ties could be under threat. This alarm system motivates restorative behavior, ensuring valued social ties are protected. Whereas affiliative ties can develop between any two individuals, attachment bonds are typically formed with a few significant others, and in many cases only one person serves as the main attachment figure. The attachment system functions in a similar way in both infancy and adulthood, ensuring proximity to attachment figures in the face of physical and psychological threats. Even though the need to form affiliative ties and attachment bonds has been shown to be universal, significant cross-cultural variations in how they unfold are also reported. Both the affiliative and the attachment systems protect the individual against various risks and aid in maintaining a physically and psychologically healthy existence via regulating the stress reactivity system.

Characterizing Human–Dog Attachment Relationships in Foster and Shelter Environments as a Potential Mechanism for Achieving Mutual Wellbeing and Success

This study aimed to characterize attachment relationships between humans and dogs living in animal shelters or foster homes, and to contextualize these relationships in the broader canine attachment literature. In this study, 21 pairs of foster dogs and foster volunteers and 31 pairs of shelter dogs and shelter volunteers participated. Each volunteer–dog dyad participated in a secure base test and a paired attachment test. All volunteers completed the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale (LAPS), a survey designed to measure strength of attachment bonds as reported by humans. Although no significant differences were present in terms of proportions of insecure and secure attachments between foster and shelter populations, proportions in the shelter population were significantly lower (p < 0.05) than the proportions of attachment styles that would be expected in a population of pet dogs based on the published literature on pet dog attachment styles. Additionally, findings are presented in relation to data from a paired attachment test that demonstrate foster and shelter dogs spend more time in proximity to humans when the human is actively attending to the dog and encouraging interaction, as would be expected based on previous studies. We also present findings related to the presence of disinhibited attachment (previously reported in children who spent a significant portion of time living in institutionalized settings) which is characterized by a lack of preferential proximity seeking with a familiar caregiver and excessive friendliness towards strangers in foster and shelter dogs.