The Neufeld Scientific Research Centre

Disorganized attachment 

• vanJzendoorn, M.H. et al (1999). Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants, and sequelae. Development and Psychopathology 11(2):225-49. (correlates with greater problems with aggression in school-age children, difficulty calming down after stress, increased risk of dissociative symptoms in adolescence, difficulties with regulation of emotions, problems with learning at school, lower self-esteem, higher level of rejection by peers.)
• Carlson, E. (1998). A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Attachment Disorganization / Disorientation. Child development, 69 (4), p. 1107-1128.
• Cassidy, J. and Mohr, J.J. (2001) Unsolvable Fear, Trauma, and Psychopathology: Theory, Research, and Clinical Considerations Related to Disorganized Attachment across the Life Span. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 8, 275-298. (“Disorganized attachment excludes a coherent relationship.”)
• Liotti, G. (2004). Trauma, dissociation, and disorganized attachment: Thress strands of a single braid. Psychotherapy. Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41 (4), 472-486. (Disorganized attachment style is most pathogenic to individual development.)
• Ogawa, J.R., Sroufe, L.A., Weinfield, N.S., Carlson, E.A., Egeland , B. (1997). Development and the fragmented self: Longitudinal study of dissociative symptomatology in a nonclinical sample. Development and psychopathology, 9 (4), p. 855-879). (In the case of disorganized attachment, when the child will be need of help, he will be convinced that there is no chance for support, but there will be also a dissociative multitude of expectations of an inconsistent nature.)
• Schore, A.N. (2009a). Attachment trauma and the developing right brain: Origins of pathological dissociation. W. PF. Dell, J.A. O’Neil (ed.). Dissociation and the dissociative disorders. DSM-V and beyond (pp. 107-145). New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Attachment and physical health of adolescent children:

• Wickrama, K.A., Lorenz, F.O., Conger, R.D. (1997). Parental support and adolescent physical health status: a latent growth-curve analysis. J Health Soc Behav, Jun;38(2):149-63. (“The results provide evidence for the influence of parental support on adolescent physical health, both directly and indirectly through the adolescent’s perception of that support.”)

Reversing defendedness – importance explained:

• Freud, S. (1901). Psychopathology of Everyday Life, W. W. Norton & Company
• Freud, A. (1971).  Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (The Writings of Anna Freud, Vol 2) International Universities Press 
• Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss: Sadness & Depression. Attachment and Loss (vol. 3); (International psycho-analytical library no.109). London: Hogarth Press. 
• Ainsworth, M. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Erlbaum.

Protecting, shielding, leading:

• Brazelton, T. Berry and Greenspan, Stanley. (2000). The Irreducible Needs Of Children: What Every Child Must Have To Grow, Learn, And Flourish Dacapo Press, Perseus Books Group
• Panksepp, J. (2012). The Archeology of Mind: neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. New York, Norton.
• Rogers, C. (1995). On Becoming A Person Houghton Mifflin, New York
• Schore, A. (1994).  Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development.  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
• Resnick, M. et al. (1997). Protecting Adolescents from Harm: findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health, Journal of the American Medical Association September.
• Winnicott, D. W. (1965). Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development London: Hogarth Press
• DiCenso, Alba, Guyatt, G., Willan, A.  & Griffith, L. (2002). Intervention to reduce unintended pregnancies among adolescents: systematic review of randomized controlled trials. British Medical Journal in June 2002 (Vol 324).
• Clowes, G. A. (2000). Home-Educated Students Rack Up Honours. School Reform news, July.
• Cassidy, J. (1994). Emotion regulation: Influences on attachment relationships. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59, 228-249. (“Masking negative affect simultaneously protects the infant against rejection, which is often the result of his attempts to seek contact, and the painful fear of alienating himself from the attachment figure on which child’s survival depends.”)

About “embracing environment”:

• Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Hogarth Press. (p.47)

 

Emerging neurosciences indicate that social affiliation reduces levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and increases levels of well-being hormones such as oxytocin, which in turn protects children from the direct effects of “toxic stress” and negative developmental consequences.

• Lyons-Ruth, K. (2007). The Interface Between Attachment and Intersubjectivity: Perspective from the Longitudinal Study of Disorganized Attachment. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 26(4), 596-616.

• Shonkoff, J.P., Boyce, W.T., McEwen, B.S. (2009). Neuro-science, molecular biology, and the child-hood roots of health disparities: building a new framework for health promotion and disease  prevention. JAMA. 301(21): 2252-2259.

 

Collecting our children (cultivating a working relationship by engaging a child’s attachment instincts):

• Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment: Second Edition. New York: Basic Books.
• Ainsworth, M. and Bowlby, J. (1965). Child Care and the Growth of Love. Penguin Books.
• Fisher, H. (1992). Anatomy of Love. Ballantine Books.

 

Compensating for stuckness:

• Kohn, A. (2005). Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason. Atria Books.
• Kohn, A. (2006). Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
• Kohn, A. (2018). Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes. Houghton Mifflin.
• Wright, K. (1997). Babies, Bonds and Brains Discover Magazine, October.

 

Bridging anything that could divide:

• Brazelton, T. Berry and Greenspan, Stanley. (2000). The Irreducible Needs Of Children: What Every Child Must Have To Grow, Learn, And Flourish Dacapo Press, Perseus Books Group
• Panksepp, J. (2012). The Archeology of Mind: neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. New York, Norton.

 

Matchmaking – using existing attachments:

• Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment: Second Edition. New York: Basic Books.
• Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Marvin, R. S. (1995). On the shaping of attachment theory and research: An interview with Mary D. S. Ainsworth (Fall 1994). Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60(2-3), p. 3–21.

 

Psychological / physical violence from parents and well-being:

• Greenfield, E.A., Marks, N.F. (2010). Identifying experiences of physical and psychological violence in childhood that jeopardize mental health in adulthood. Child Abuse Negl. 34, p. 161–171.
• Bell, L.G., Bell, D.C. (2005). Family dynamics in adolescence affect midlife well-being. J Fam Psychol., 19:198–207. (“Family dynamics – connection and individuation in the family system- during adolescence predicted adult well-being in midlife.”)

 

Even after spending a few months in preschool (given time to adjust), children exhibit cortisol levels in day-care than at home

• Drugli, M. B., Solheim, E., Lydersen, S., Moe, V., Smith, L., & Berg-Nielsen, T. S. (2018). Elevated cortisol levels in Norwegian toddlers in childcare. Early Child Development and Care, 188(12), 1684–1695.
• Vermeer, H. J., & van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2006). Children’s elevated cortisol levels at daycare: A review and meta-analysis. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21, p.390– 401.

 

In preschool children can have a safe attachment what will contribute to their lower level of stress.

• Bowlby, R. (2007). Babies and toddlers in non-parental daycare can avoid stress and anxiety if they develop a lasting secondary attachment bond with one carer who is consistently accessible to them. Attachment & Human Development, 9(4), p.307-319.

 

Early relational trauma

• Schore, A. (2002). Dysregulation of the right brain: a fundamental mechanism of traumatic attachment and the psychopathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder. Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry, 36 (1), p. 9-30. (“the effects of early relational trauma, as well as the mechanisms chosen against it, are embedded in the basic structure of the developing personality”).
• Liotti, G., Farina, B. (2011). Traumatic Developments. Etiology, clinical and treatment of dissociative dimension. Milan, Italy: Raffaello Cortina. (p.17 – “The human brain and mind have evolved to manage increasingly complex interpersonal relationships. If they are disturbed and traumatizing, the development of an individual’s mind down to the level of the underlying neurological structures can be negatively modified. The second assumption is that the psychopathology resulting from traumatic development can be reduced to the disintegration of structures and functions that are aimed at adapting to the interpersonal environment, and which develop in the first contacts with it.”)
• Van der Kolk, B.A. et al., (2009). Proposal to include a developmental trauma disorder diagnosis for children and adolescents in DSM-V. https://www.cttntraumatraining.org/uploads/4/6/2/3/46231093/dsm-v_proposal-dtd_taskforce.pdf (After the trauma, we observe a persistent physiological over-arousal and over-reactivity.)
• Ford, J.D., Courtois, C.A. (2009). Defining and understanding complex trauma and complex traumatic stress disorders. In: C.A. Courtois, J.D. Ford (ed.) Treating complex traumatic stress disorders: An evidence based guide (p. 13-30 ) New York: Guilford Press. (If children are traumatized in a relation and the experiences are chronic, the changes in the brain are permanent. This creates the so-called “survival brain”.)

The construct of “betrayal trauma” (described by Jennifer Freyd)

The child does not have to be traumatized by a “big trauma” (“T”), but that abandonment, emotional neglect and lack of sufficient warmth and closeness to feel rejected by the primary caregiver is “enough” reason and its result in a number of visible consequences at many levels of child development.

• Allen, J.G., Fonagy, P., Bateman, A. (2014). Mentalizing in clinical practice, translated by M. Cierpisz Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press (p. 309).
• Schore, A.N. (2009a). Attachment trauma and the developing right brain: Origins of pathological dissociation. W. PF. Dell, J.A. O’Neil (ed.). Dissociation and the dissociative disorders. DSM-V and beyond (pp. 107-145). New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
• Freyd, J.J. (1994). Betrayal trauma: Traumatic amnesia as an adaptive response to childhood abuse. Ethics & Behavior, 4 (4), 307-329.
• Putnam, F.W. (1997). Dissociation in Children and Adolescents: A Developmental Perspective. New York: The Guilford Press. (One of the axial mechanisms of survival is dissociation, which “allows for psychological escape when physical escape is not possible”.)
• Barlow, M.R., Freyd, J.J. (2009). Adaptive dissociation: Information processing and response to betrayal. International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation News, 25 (3), 5-7.