Communication patterns, internal working models, and the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships

Abstract

Bowlby postulated that transactional patterns between caregiver and infant become internalized by the infant as “internal working models” of self and other in relationship and that these working models then determine how the infant interprets the caregiver's behavior and responds to it. When parent and infant or child are not reciprocally responsive to signals, defensive processes may interfere with the adequate development and functioning of working models in the child. Not only does this affect the observed relationship, it also influences the way in which an individual (adult or child) discusses attachment relationships with a third person. Corroboration for this view comes from work with adults (the Adult Attachment Interview, the Parent Attachment Interview) and children (the Separation Anxiety Test, the Attachment Story Completion Procedure). If, as research suggests, insecure parents' working models of attachment relations are distorted by defensive processes, the resulting insensitive behaviors toward the child may interfere with the child's construction of adequate working models, thus providing a potential explanation for the intergenerational transmission of insecure attachment relations in those cases where the parent has not been able to work through a rejecting or neglecting attachment relationship experienced in childhood.