Attachment and Mentalization in Social Trauma

Abstract

Attachment and mentalization are crucial for the individual’s psychological development and well-being, and particularly in the face of adversity, our responding and adaptation rely significantly on attachment and mentalization. We will present three forms of association between impairments in attachment/mentalization and experience of social trauma. First, experiencing social trauma might affect parental mentalizing capacities inhibiting them to serve as a secure base for their infants and therefore promoting the development of insecure attachment representations in infants. Second, adult individuals can directly be affected by social trauma resulting in impaired mentalizing capacities, as well as altered attachment representations due to the overwhelming experience of social trauma. Third, parental traumatization itself can influence an infant’s development of attachment and mentalizing.