Latency-Aged Children with Attachment Disturbances

Abstract

Psychoanalytic theory and practice has increasingly accepted the importance of attachment relationships in psychic development. However, there have been only very limited efforts to develop psychoanalytically informed interventions for older adopted and foster children who show significant disturbances in attachment. This paper reviews theory and research that lays groundwork for a framework for conceptualizing treatment needs for attachment disordered children. Two cases of conjoint work with parents and their latency age sons are presented. The treatment cases highlight the importance of work to increase parents' reflective functioning capacities and the need to challenge children's defensively excluded early internal working models of self and caregivers.