“Why Don’t You Just Tell Me How You Feel?”: A Case Study of a Young Mother in an Attachment-Based Group Intervention

Abstract

This paper describes an attachment-based parenting intervention, the Circle of Security, and presents a case study of one participant’s experience as a member of it. The Circle of Security is a group intervention for parents of young children ages 1–5 that teaches parents to recognize and respond to their children’s alternating needs for attachment and exploration. The intervention content in group sessions relies to a great extent on discussions of videotaped vignettes of each parent–child dyad. Ultimately, the intervention focuses on strengthening parents’ capacities for empathic responsiveness to their children’s needs for them. In the second part of the paper, the case study illustrates one mother’s experience in a Circle of Security group designed for parents involved with the child welfare system as a result of substantiated maltreatment. Observations of this parent indicate that her capacity for empathic understanding was greatly strengthened, which appears to be related to important behavior change.