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This is a theoretical paper about differences in quality of attachment in preschool-aged children with emphasis on the development of the goal-corrected partnership. Inferences are made about the processes underlying preschoolers' attachment behavior. Specifically, the notion of quality of attachment is expanded to explicitly include strategy, regulation of affect, negotiation, secure base behavior, and response to maternal behavior. The classificatory system is expanded by adding two additional defended patterns, that is, compulsive caregiving and compulsive compliance, to the infant avoidant pattern. Furthermore, at the preschool age, the infant ambivalent pattern is identified as having a coercive strategy. In addition, the disorganized infant category is reconceptualized in terms of complex organization, reorganization, and disorganization. Finally, the process of generating new theories and hypotheses through a “participant observer” methodology is considered from the perspective of developmental psychopathology.

This study of maltreated infants offers evidence supporting a model of bidirectional effects in which the mother initiates the maltreatment but both mother and infant behave so as to maintain the situation. Maltreated infants were found not to differ from control infants in congenital characteristics. They did, however, display deviance in learned behavior patterns. After intervention with the mother the infants showed behavioral improvement. These results suggested that maltreated infants were not inherently different from other children and that they were resilient in response to environmental improvement. Their earlier behavior may, however, have functioned to maintain their mothers' maltreating responses.

This article provides an overview of an attachment‐based approach to formulation of behavioural and psychiatric disorder. The dynamic‐maturational model (DMM) of attachment places many such problems within a context of family‐attachment relationships. In the DMM, neurological maturation interacting with experience is central to the self‐protective strategies that individuals develop to regulate familial attachments. When the relationships fail to protect child (or parent), more extreme strategies are organised to wrest some measure of safety and comfort from an otherwise threatening environment. A wide range of such strategies is described. It is argued that recognising attachment strategies in patients is crucial to providing helpful treatment (and to reducing the risk of inappropriate treatment).

Bowlby's notion of internal representational models is explored with the purpose of clarifying the nature of such models. Distinctions are made among the concepts of (a) focus, (b) memory systems, (c) content, (d) cognitive function, (e) meta‐structure, (f) quality of attachment, (g) behavioral strategies, and (h) attitude toward attachment. New terms are offered for familiar concepts, such as defended insecure quality of attachment. New meanings are given for familiar terms, such as working model and balanced attitude toward attachment. In addition, new concepts are introduced including procedural models and meta‐models. Areas for further research are discussed in terms of other aspects of relationships and nonattachment relationships. Throughout, the emphasis is on specification of meaning and integration of aspects and levels of models. Finally, issues about assessing attachment and intervening clinically are discussed.

Aim: This study examined pattern of attachment in cohort of women with an eating disorder to determine what types of selfprotective strategies they used, and further whether there was a specific relationship between strategy and diagnosis. Method: The participants were 62 young women with an eating disorder (19 with anorexia nervosa, 26 with bulimia nervosa and 17 with bulimic anorexia). Attachment was assessed using the Adult attachment interview (AAI), classified using Crittenden's Dynamic-Maturational Method. Results: The results indicated that all women with an eating disorder were anxiously attached. About half used an extreme coercive Type C strategy while most of the others combined coercion with an extreme dismissing Type A strategy. The content of the AAIs suggested lack of resolution of trauma or loss among the mothers and also of hidden family conflict between the parents. This in turn elicited extreme strategies for generating parent-child contingency from the daughters. Conclusions: Central in almost all cases was the women's confusion regarding how parental behaviour was tied causally to their own behaviour. Questions are raised regarding the focus of treatment.

This study explored the development of young children's behavioral strategies for coping with child abuse. It was hypothesized that infants exposed to the controllingness and harshness of interaction with an abusive mother would first learn to inhibit behavior disagreeable to the mother and later learn to comply with maternal demands. It was expected that this developmental change in abused children's behavior would be adaptive in the short term because it would reduce the probability of continued abuse. In the long term, however, compulsive compliance was expected to be maladaptive because it distorted the child's perception of, and response to, reality. In addition, it was hypothesized that the compliant behavior pattern would be used only with controlling interactants during the first 3 years of life. In other words, the descriptions of defensive patterns of behavior applied indiscriminantly by older abused children were not expected to apply to infants and toddlers. Both hypotheses were supported using data drawn from videotapes of mother-child and other adult-child interaction.