Poster #62 - Association between childhood maltreatment and attachment disorganization in young adulthood: The protective role of early mother-child interactions

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Research on attachment disorganization in adulthood using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George et al., 1996) has expanded in the last decades to capture representational distortions that arise from chronic relational trauma experienced within the parent-child relationship (Melnick et al., 2008). Specifically, the Hostile-Helpless (HH) states of mind classification was introduced to identify individuals with pervasive representational distortions of attachment relationships resulting from childhood trauma (Lyons-Ruth et al., 2005). According to a recent scoping review (Turgeon et al., 2022), HH states of mind are highly prevalent among high-risk and clinical samples and are a strong predictor of infant disorganization, disrupted mother-infant interactions, dissociative symptoms in young adulthood and filicide risk. However, there still are very few studies that have investigated potential predictors. The aim of this study is to examine the contribution of two potential factors - childhood maltreatment (measure retrospectively) and early mother-child affective communication (measured prospectively) as well as how those factors interact in predicting HH states of mind.

The sample was composed of 66 young adults (mean age of 19.58 years) from a low-income community sample, who had been taking part in a longitudinal project since they were preschoolers. The quality of mother-child affective communication was observed during a lab visit when children were aged 4 to 6. The quality of mother-child communication was coded on a 7-point scale using the Mother–Child Communication Coding System (Moss et al., 1998). Childhood maltreatment experiences were assessed about 15 years later through retrospective self-reports with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003). HH state of mind was coded from Adult Attachment Interview transcripts using the Hostile-Helpless Coding System for the AAI (Lyons-Ruth et al., 2011). This system allows for a disorganization score ranging from 1 to 9, and individuals with a score of 5 or above are classified as having a HH state of mind.

Study results showed that 23% of participants displayed a HH state of mind, indicating that almost a quarter of young adults in our sample characterized by low-socioeconomic backgrounds identified with a hostile or helpless attachment figure.

Bivariate correlations revealed that both childhood maltreatment experiences and quality of mother-child affective communication are related to HH disorganization scores. Multiple regression analysis (controlling for sociodemographic variables) revealed a significant interaction effect between the quality of mother-child affective communication and childhood maltreatment, suggesting a moderation effect (see Table 1, model 3). Post hoc analyses revealed that the relation between childhood maltreatment and HH states of mind is the strongest among participants with lower quality of mother-child affective communication, and it diminishes as the quality of mother-child affective communication increases (see Figure 1). These results suggest that a high-quality mother-child relationship plays a protective role by reducing the negative impact of childhood maltreatment on the development of disorganized attachment representations in adulthood.

Our results highlight the importance of providing support to families in which the child is at risk of experiencing relational trauma, with a particular focus on improving the quality of parent-child interactions.

Authors

• Jessica Turgeon, Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO)
  Presenting Author

• Tristan Milot, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

• Diane St-Laurent, Universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres

• Karine Dubois-Comtois, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)