Antidote to Developmental Trauma: A Report on Findings from the “Adoption and Attachment Representations” Study

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is a summary of findings from the “Adoption and Attachment Representations” study which was a collaboration between the Anna Freud Centre, Great Ormond Street, and Coram that focused on the nature and development of parent and child attachment representations in an adoption context. The study began with Adult Attachment Interview assessments of both mothers and fathers who would go on to adopt a group of 58 previously maltreated children aged four to eight years. There was also a comparison group of 42 children, also aged four to eight years but who had been adopted in their infancy. The children were assessed early in their adoptive placement, with the Story Stem Assessment Profile in order to focus on their attachment representations along with a range of cognitive and psychological functioning assessments. The parents were interviewed using the Parent Development Interview to access their attachment representations of their children. These assessments were repeated one year and two years later with subsequent follow-ups in early adolescence and a recently completed phase in the adoptees’ adulthood. The study is unique in exploring aspects of intergenerational patterns of attachment in nonbiologically related parents and children in a longitudinal design. The findings suggest that parental attachment states of mind are associated with their children’s attachment representations and the “intervention” of adoption is powerful with “late placed” children adopting more secure themes in their story stem narratives over time while also retaining some less optimal features such as avoidance and disorganization. The paper makes links with previous developmental and psychoanalytic work in the field of adoption and explores the potential policy implications of the study.