Customer Reviews

Attachment Disorganization

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As a professional in this field of work I was interested in learning more about the relatively new attachment classification of "D" which supposedly leads to psychopathology in later life. The collection of articles written by various researchers in the field only confirmed how little we really know about the subject, and the articles are little more than guesswork and ideological interpretations dressed up as knowledge and science. At least the authors consistently suggest that more research needs to be done in this area. Particularly treacherous was the chapter on children with disabilities, and how D symptoms were separated from symptoms of a developmental/neurological disorder, yet how they did this remains a mystery. Anyone familiar with developmental disorders, will find D traits suspiciously similar. The researchers then concluded that D is not neurological, suggesting it is learned behavior, but more recent research (2007-2008) has suggested this is far from clear-cut. Throughout the book, 'mother behavior was scrutinized and analyzed to such an excruiating degree, that it was almost dehumanizing. The authors in some chapters concluded that, because there are so many differences in the behaviors of mothers with a "D" child, stopping short of using the word "unexplainable", there must be more subtle and covert behaviors that cause infant disorganization. Frightening or frightened behaviors in the mother were thought to be the cause, YET these same "frightening moms" also produced non-D kids! Wait a minute .... the D-offspring moms were frightening BUT they also did not allay the child's fears with the right facial expression, word or gesture at the right time after frightening their child. The consequences of mom not tweaking herself in just the right way so that the child won't be afraid, is a future psychopath? Sorry, but something is wrong here: people have been bringing up children for millennia in thousands of different styles. What of the millions of children in times past who were not brought up in such an anxious, child-centered, self-obsessed, mother-blaming cultures as the modern western anglo-saxon world? If their findings are anything to go by, humanity was already doomed to extinction 1000s of years ago from the mass production of pathological human offspring when children were nothing more than slaves. Even more confusing are the obscure 'symptoms' of D at the end of the book, which make objective observation almost impossible. Recent research has disproven a lot of this book's wishy-washy Freudian claims. Researchers are now talking "child thresholds" and it's possible that D could wind up a form of developmental disorder, rather than yet one more result of `mother pathology'. A much better read is Paranoid Parenting by Frank Furedi.