The circle of security parenting and parental conflict: a single case study

Abstract

The Circle of Security Parenting (COS-P) is an early attachment based intervention that can be used with groups, dyads, and individuals. Created in the USA and now used in many countries, COS-P is a visually based approach that demonstrates its central principles through videos of parent/child interactions. The core purpose of the COS-P is to provide an opportunity for caregivers to reflect on their child's needs and on the challenges each parent faces in meeting those needs. Even though there is a wide range of clinical settings in which child/parent attachment is an important component of assessment there is limited empirical data on when and how attachment based interventions are appropriate for specific clinical profiles and contexts. The aim of this paper is to present a clinical application of COS-P in order to explore and reflect on some specific therapeutic tasks where it works and on some clinical indicators and contexts appropriate for its application. A single case study of a father, “M.” (43 years old) in conflict for the custody of his 5 years old daughter is reported. The Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP), the Parenting Stress Index, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and the Parental Alliance Measure, were administered pre- and post-intervention. The clinical significance analysis method revealed that numerous changes occurred in the father. The AAP showed improvements in the level of agency of self. M. made gains in his capacity to use internal resources and to increase his agency of self. M. was classified as recovered in his perception of the child's functioning and as improved in his parenting stress and parenting alliance with the mother. Considerations on specific contexts and clinical indicators for the application of COS-P are proposed.

Assessing Attachment Representations in Adolescents: Discriminant Validation of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System

“…Future research employing the AAP for assessing attachment would make important contributions to our understanding of adolescent development, especially psychopathology risk, and lay out the foundation for developing attachment-based therapeutic practices for this age group. Following this idea some studies have included the AAP into assessment and treatment in clinical settings [ 66 – 69 ]. A growing body of research have demonstrated the utility of the AAP to design specialized intervention plans, predict compliance and illustrated how a deeper understanding of attachment issues help the clinician predicting therapeutic alliance and thinking about treatment options [ 7 , 10 ].…”

The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire in Mothers and Fathers of School-Aged Children

“…These qualities could make the PRFQ very valuable for screening and large scale-studies (Camoirano, 2017). Furthermore, the differences in PRF related to parental gender and to children's gender and age should be taken into account in further studies aimed both at assessing PRF in general or clinical populations and at evaluating the efficacy of parenting interventions targeted at enhancing PRF, such as the Circle of Security (Pazzagli, Laghezza, Manaresi, Mazzeschi, & Powell, 2014;Powell, Cooper, Hoffman, & Marvin, 2013).…”

A Quantitative Exploratory Evaluation of the Circle of Security‐parenting Program With Mothers in Residential Substance‐abuse Treatment

“…To date, there has been only one peer‐reviewed study explicitly evaluating the COS‐P eight‐session, DVD‐based format. Pazzagli, Laghezza, Manaresi, Mazzeschi, and Powell () presented a single case study in which COS‐P was used individually with a caregiver, who showed improvements on several parental indices. At the time of this writing, we had not found any published research studies on COS‐P in a group format.…”