Danger, Development and Adaptation

Description

Published in association with the International Association for the Study of Attachment.

Invaluable to psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, social workers, criminal justice professionals, mental health and child protection workers, counsellors, educators, and people in the helping professions generally. It is also relevant to people working in the fields of learning disabilities, older adults, fostering and adoption.

Danger, Development and Adaptation is a collection of landmark journal articles and book chapters by developmental psychologist Patricia M Crittenden. This selection of writings highlights Crittenden’s contribution to attachment theory and research, including her observation of the compulsive A, coercive C, and combined A/C patterns; the application of attachment theory to cases of child maltreatment, parent and child mental illness, and criminality; and the development of the Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM) of Attachment and Adaptation. The selected papers also serve as an introduction to the DMM, showing the history of research and clinical experience that informs the model.

Patricia McKinsey Crittenden PhD is a developmental psychopathologist who worked with Mary Ainsworth at the University of Virginia to develop the DMM of Attachment and Adaptation. She pioneered video-feedback with maltreating mothers in the early-1970s, ran a family support centre, trained as a behavioral and family systems therapist, was the Director of the Miami Child Protection Team, and has acted as a consultant to family courts in several countries. She has developed a life-span series of assessments of attachment and served on faculties in several countries. In 2004, she received a European Family Therapy Association Career Achievement Award. She has published more than 100 empirical papers and chapters, as well as several books including: Crittenden (2015), Raising Parents: Attachment, Representation, and Treatment; Crittenden, Dallos, Landini, & Kozlowska (2014), Attachment and Family Systems Therapy; and Crittenden & Landini (2011), Assessing Adult Attachment: A Dynamic-Maturational Model.

Reviews

‘This volume contains a selection of the seminal works of Patricia Crittenden, one of the most creative and innovative thinkers in the history of attachment theory. Crittenden integrates the fields of developmental psychology and developmental psychopathology in her thought-provoking and insightful research on attachment in normal and atypical development. Her ground-breaking work on attachment and child maltreatment stimulated the field to embark on translational research to prevent attachment insecurity and to promote resilient functioning’: Dante Cicchetti, PhD., McKnight Presidential Chair, William Harris Professor and Professor of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota

From the Foreword: ‘When I became interested in attachment theory more than 20 years ago, I chose Patricia Crittenden among many different authors because I recognised in her work values I held in common with her, like the importance of effective treatment and the need to consider the systemic and triadic approach. Over time, I have increasingly appreciated the dynamic way in which Crittenden connects attachment with a developmental approach, creating a model which is continuously growing. Where previously our clinical cases could not be explained by other attachment models, [ … ] using Crittenden’s DMM Model, many of the same clinical cases could be better understood. The DMM showed us the many creative strategies that patients use in order to survive in very complex and dangerous situations. [ … ] This is an approach which has been of great benefit to our patients, couples and families. While the DMM is still in development, the roots of it are in the papers you will find in this book, and this makes this collection a “must” for each trainer, therapist, researcher or student’: Rodolfo de Bernart, MD Psych., Director, Institute of Family Therapy, Firenze, Italy, Emeritus Professor of Family Therapy, University of Firenze, President, International Association for the Study of Attachment.

Edited and with an introduction and chapter commentaries by

Dr Andrea Landini, MD, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist (Italy); Dr. Crittenden’s collaborator and co-author.

Dr Martha Hart, PhD., Research Project Co-ordinator, University of Calgary, Alberta Children’s Hospital, and IASA Board Member.

Clark Baim, M. Ed., BPA, UKCP, Psychotherapist focusing on clinical work with offenders (UK and USA). Clark Baim was also one of the editors of the successful Waterside Press Publication, The Geese Theatre Handbook (2002).

Sophie Landa, Trainee Clinical Psychologist (UK).