Applying the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation in criminal justice interventions

Abstract

This article describes how contemporary attachment theory can support accurate assessment and effective intervention in criminal justice contexts. I offer an introduction to Crittenden’s Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM) of Attachment and Adaptation and explain why this well-evidenced model is especially relevant to criminal justice interventions. The DMM is a biopsychosocial model, informed by neurodevelopmental research, and as such it offers a developmental understanding of the wide range of adaptations used by people who are endangered or endangering to others. It is a strengths-based, non-labelling and non-pathologising model which conceptualises adaptations to danger as self-protective strategies that promote survival in their original context, but which may later lead to problematic, dangerous, or self-defeating behaviour.

Caring for healthcare providers in COVID-19.

“…For example, healthcare providers who use caregiving, achievement, and self-reliance strategies might benefit from techniques that help them to develop a greater understanding of, and compassion for, their own perspective, personal history, and feelings; correspondingly, they might be harmed by techniques that focus on the perspectives and needs of other people. Conversely, those who use hero, leader, and appealing strategies are more likely to benefit from techniques that help them to track temporal/logical information about events and the effects of their actions on other people; they are unlikely to be helped, and might be harmed, by techniques that focus on emotional expression (Baim, 2020). Approaches based on cognitive-behavioral models might inadvertently focus too much on results and therefore be detrimental for people using 'A' strategies (Schermuly-Haupt et al, 2018) or focus too much on affect-laden images, and therefore exacerbate the problems of people using 'C' strategies (Foa, et al, 2002).…”