Emotional Availability: Clinical Populations and Clinical Applications

Abstract

Emotional Availability (EA) is the ability to share an emotional connection within a dyad. The observational EA System includes the EA Scales and the EA Zones. The EA Scales consist of four adult dimensions (sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, nonhostility) and two child dimensions (responsiveness, involvement). Based on the EA Scales, EA Zones refers to “emotional attachment styles” and are patterned after traditional attachment categories (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Since the review on EA by Biringen et al. (2014), extensive research on EA has utilized the EA Scales or the EA Zones, especially with respect to clinical populations and applications. We address topics absent from the 2014 review, namely utilizing the EA system for at-risk populations and in prevention and intervention studies. We consider EA research accounting for fathers or alternative caregivers and suggest using the whole EA system versus specific dimensions. We conclude with new directions in clinical applications of EA.

Observed Emotional Availability<bold> (EA) in the Early Months and Adolescence and Self-Reported EA at Any Age: A Narrative Review</bold>

“…However, as the child grows older and has varied interactions with the outside world, this discrepancy between the parent and child zones is quite feasible. The observational EA Scales have been described in several reviews of the EA lit-erature (Biringen et al, 2014(Biringen et al, , 2022Clark et al, 2021). In addition to the evaluation of the parent-child relationship, EA can now be evaluated also during the prenatal period and referred to as prenatal EA (sensitivity and nonhostility only) (Salo et al, 2019), as will be described shortly.…”