Chapter IV. Maternal Frightened, Frightening, or Atypical Behavior and Disorganized Infant Attachment Patterns

A central question in the study of atypical attachment relationships in infancy is whether interactive processes between caregiver and infant are associated with the infant’s display of disorganized strategies (Main & Hesse, 1990). Attachment theory locates one central influence on the infant’s attachment strategies in the interplay between parent and infant over the 1st year, especially in the degree of sensitive responsiveness to the entire range of the infant’s affectively charged communications (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters & Wall, 1978). Linkages between appropriate parental responsiveness and secure infant attachment strategies have been supported in a number of empirical studies (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Belsky, Rovine, & Taylor, 1984; Grossmann, Grossmann, Spangler, Seuss, & Unzner, 1985; Londerville & Main, 1981; van IJzendoorn, 1995). These earlier studies, however, were undertaken prior to the discovery of the disorganized/disoriented infant attachment pattern. They explored the relation between maternal behavior and the three organized infant attachment strategies only (ambivalent/avoidant/ secure). With the increasing recognition that a sizable proportion of infants from families with serious social risk factors display disorganized forms of attachment strategies, the question of whether disorganized behaviors emerge in the context of particular patterns of parent-infant interaction also must be addressed. The issues of whether and how mother-infant interactive processes are related to disorganization of infant attachment patterns gains additional importance from recent findings that early disorganized or controlling