AB-PA.org Attachment Based - Parental Alienation

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1. Agrawal, H. R., Gunderson, J., Holmes, B. M. and Lyons-Ruth, K. (2004)

2. Attachment studies with borderline patients: A review. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 12, 94-104.

3. Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1979)

4. Infant-mother attachment. American Psychologist, 34, 932-937.

5. Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1989)

6. Attachments beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44, 709-716.

   1. I define an “affectional bond” as a relatively long-enduring tie in which the partner is important as a unique individual and is interchangeable with none other. In an affectional bond, there is a desire to maintain closeness to the partner. In older children and adults, that closeness may to some extent be sustained over time and distance and during absences, but nevertheless there is at least an intermittent desire to reestablish proximity and interaction, and pleasure – often joy – upon reunion. Inexplicable separation tends to cause distress, and permanent loss would cause grief. (p. 711)

   2. An ”attachment” is an affectional bond, and hence an attachment figure is never wholly interchangeable with or replaceable by another, even though there may be others to whom one is also attached. In attachments, as in other affectional bonds, there is a need to maintain proximity, distress upon inexplicable separation, pleasure and joy upon reunion, and grief at loss. (p. 711)

7. Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E. and Wall, S. (1978)

8. Patterns of attachment. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

9. Anda, R. F., Felitti, V. J., Bremner, J. D., Walker, J. D., Ch. Whitfield, Perry, B. D., Dube, S. R. and Giles, W. H. (2006)

10. The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 256(3), 174-186

11. Bacciagaluppi, M. (1985)

12. Inversion of parent-child relationships: A contribution to attachment theory. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 58, 369-373.

13. Bailey, J. M. and Shriver, A. (1999)

14. Does childhood sexual abuse cause borderline personality disorder? Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 25, 45-57)

    1. In clinical practice and in the literature, patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have long had a reputation for distorted thinking about what transpires in their interpersonal relationships (Kernberg, 1985, Noy, 1982). (p. 21)

    2. BPD patients often describe others as if they believe others are idealized paragons of perfection or denigrated embodiments of pure malevolence. They often describe interactional sequences in misleading or self-serving ways. They often recount the alleged misdeeds of others while systematically downplaying their own provocative behavior as potential reasons for them. (p. 22)

15. Barber, B. K. (1996)

16. Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67, 3296–3319.

    1. Initial empirical tests of these ideas have been encouraging (Barber et al., 1994). Second-order factor analysis of several measures of control—measured at both the dyadic, parent-child level and the family systems level—distinguished psychological control from behavioral control, and the contrasting effects of these on internalized (depression) and externalized (delinquency)problems among pre-, early, and mid-adolescents were confirmed.

    2. In refocusing attention on the psychological control construct, this set of studies had three basic purposes: (1) to demonstrate that psychological control could be reliably and generally measured, (2)to verify its salience to aspects of youth development, and (3) to test the hypothesis that psychological control would have specialized associations with youth internalized problems, in contrast to the proposed specialized associations between behavioral control and externalized problems. (p. 3312-3313)

    3. All three studies provide evidence that the construct of psychological control can be reliably measured. In the survey studies (Studies 1 and 3), care was taken to demonstrate reliability across samples, variety of measurement, sex of parent and youth, age, race, social class, and religious affiliation. The existing GRPBI was refined in both studies to a six-item measure useful for all subgroups. The eight-item PGS-YSR from Study 3 improves upon the GRPBI primarily because of the greater behavioral specificity of the items, rendering it more directly useful for intervention and prevention efforts. (p. 3313)

    4. To the extent that psychological control represents a generalized pattern of behavior (style) that involves (endorses) constraining, invalidating, and emotionally manipulative behavior toward a child, then explanations of the source of such behavior lie more likely in the parent’s own historical and emotional experience than in any specific event or interaction that may precipitate it. Thus, it would be of interest to investigate how the parent was weird, Parental beliefs about child development and personal autonomy, as well as the parents level of ego integration, self-esteem, and satisfaction in other interpersonal relationships. (p. 3314)

17. Barber, B. K. (2002)

18. Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

19. Barber, B. K. and Harmon, E. L. (2002)

20. Violating the self: Parenting psychological control of children and adolescents. In B. K. Barber (Ed.), Intrusive parenting (pp. 15-52). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    1. Psychological control refers to parental behaviors that are intrusive and manipulative of children’s thoughts, feelings, and attachment to parents. (Barber & Harmon, 2002, p. 15)

    2. The essential impact of psychological control of the child is to violate the self-system of the child. (Barber & Harmon: 2002, p. 24)

    3. A second, common characterization of psychological control in the literature is that it is parenting that is intrusive. This helps clarify that psychological control is behavior that violates the child’s psychological world. (Barber & Harmon, 2002, p. 15)

    4. Numerous elements of the child’s self-in-relation-to-parent have been discussed as being compromised by psychologically controlling behaviors such as individuality (Goldin, 1969; Kurdek, et al., 1995; Litovsky & Dusek, 1985; Schaefer, 1965a, 1965b, Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992); individuation (Barber et al., 1994; Barber & Shagle, 1992; Costanzo & Woody, 1985; Goldin, 1969, Smetana, 1995; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986; Wakschlag, Chase-Landsdale & Brooks-Gunn, 1996 1996); independence (Grotevant & Cooper, 1986; Hein & Lewko, 1994; Steinberg et al., 1994); degree of psychological distance between parents and children (Barber et al., 1994); and threatened attachment to parents (Barber, 1996; Becker, 1964). (Barber & Harmon, 2002, p. 25).

21. Barone, L. (2003)

22. Developmental protective and risk factors in borderline personality disorder: A study using the Adult Attachment Interview. Attachment & Human Behavior, 5, 64-77.

23. Barnow, S., Aldinger, M., Arens, E. A., Ulrich, I., Spitzer, C., Grabe, H. and Stopsack, M. (2013)

24. Maternal transmission of borderline personality disorder symptoms in the community-based Griefswald Family Study. Journal of Personality Disorders, 27, 806-819,

    1. offspring of mothers with BPD (features) were found to be at risk for various psychopathological complaints (Weiss et al., 1996). For instance, in a former study we found a higher prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems in offspring of mothers with BPD than in children with other maternal diagnoses or healthy mothers (Barnow et al., 2006). P 808

    2. maternal self-rated BPD symptoms predicted BPD features in offspring about 5 years later… BPD symptoms pass on from mother to child, even if the mother reported subthreshold BPD symptoms. p. 812

25. Barnow, S., Arens, E. A., Sieswerda, S., Dinu-Biringer, R., Spitzer, C., Lang, S. and et al (2010)

26. Borderline personality disorder and psychosis: a review. Current Psychiatry Reports, 12,186-195

    1. In conclusion, this review reveals that psychotic symptoms in BPD patients may not predict the development of a psychotic disorder but are often permanent and severe and need careful consideration by clinicians. Therefore, adequate diagnosis and treatment of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients is emphasized. p. 186

    2. In conclusion, we therefore suggest that it is not a cognitive developmental deficit but rather a tendency to construe interpersonal relations as malevolent that characterizes BPD, and this may be shared with certain psychotic disorders. p. 187

    3. Childhood traumatic experiences may cause neurodevelopmental changes that in turn increase the risk of subsequent psychotic reactions. p. 188

    4. BPD patients typically show exaggerated activation in the amygdala and dysfunctional prefrontal activity during emotional processing. P. 191

    5. The findings indicate that similar neurotransmitter systems are dysfunctional in BPD and psychosis. P. 191

    6. To conclude, psychotic symptoms in BPD patients area often trauma--and stress--related. Therefore, clinicians need to adequately contextualize the patient’s symptoms by investigating trauma-related histories as well as daily stressors that may trigger symptom presentation… a substantial group of BPD patients develop permanent and more severe psychotic symptoms… The evidence for the importance of traumatic events during childhood and PTSD in the development of subsequent psychotic symptoms in BPD patients would support the usefulness of trauma-focused therapy in these patients. P. 192

27. Barnow S., Stopsack M., Joergen Grabe H. J., Meinke C., Spitzer C., Sieswerda S. and Kronmu K. (2009)

28. Interpersonal evaluation bias in borderline personality disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47, 359-365.

    1. Negative interpersonal evaluative bias in BPD is most pronounced for traits that can be characterized as aggressive and threatening (e.g., brutal, exploitative, and mischievous). Patients with BPD, but not the control groups, were found to show particularly more negative evaluations on aggressive relative to non-aggressive negative (e.g., depressive and anxious) traits. This specific evaluation bias might reflect the many negative interpersonal experiences of these patients, which often include childhood sexual, physical or emotional abuse or physical or emotional neglect. (p. 363)

    2. The present study indicates that individuals with BPD also characterize their interpersonal behavior as overly nurturing, exploitable, and socially avoidant. These findings indirectly support clinical descriptions showing that individuals with BPD fluctuate between proactive reassurance seeking, socially avoidant behavior, and overly nurturing behavior in response to separation from significant others.

29. Bartholomew, K. and Horowitz, L. M. (1991)

30. Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 226-244.

31. Bartholomew, K. (1990)

32. Avoidance of intimacy: An attachment perspective. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 147-178.

33. Baughman, H. M., Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M. and Vernon, P. A. (2014)

34. Liar liar pants on fire: Cheater strategies linked to the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 35–38

35. Beck, A. T. and Rector, N. A. (2002)

36. Delusions: A cognitive perspective. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 16(4), 455-468.

    1. The cross-sectional analysis of delusional thinking shows several cognitive characteristics: egocentric bias (irrelevant events are construed as self-relevant); externalizing bias (strong internal sensations or symptoms are attributed to external agents); and intentionalizing bias (other people’s behaviors are believed to be based on intentions-usually malevolent-towards the patient). In addition, defective reality testing precludes reevaluation and rejection of erroneous conclusions.

    2. First, the pathogenic belief has taken control of the information processing so that the interpretations of events show a systematic bias and appear to others to be contradictory to the evidence or to logic. Second, the interpretations are largely idiosyncratic-the individual attaches personal meanings to events that clearly are irrelevant to him. Third, the patient’s biased and culturally unacceptable interpretations of situations are considered real and rational by him but unreal and irrational by others. In this respect, his cognitions are "ego-syntonic" in distinction to cognitions of the obsessive, which are "ego alien." However, the delusional patient and the obsessive may be similar insofar as their distress and disability are instigated by their (mis) interpretations of innocuous situations and internal cognitive events (Morrison, 2001). (p. 457)

    3. Finally, the dominant beliefs and consequently the interpretations are relatively impervious to reality-testing by the patient. The patient is unwilling or unable to consider that his ideas and interpretations might be wrong. In psychiatric terms, he lacks insight.

37. Beck, A. T., Freeman, A., Davis, D. D. and Associates (2004)

38. Cognitive therapy of personality disorders. (2nd edition). New York: Guilford.

    1. Evaluation of the particular demands of a situation precedes and triggers an adaptive (or maladaptive) strategy. How a situation is evaluated depends in part, at least, on the relevant underlying beliefs. These beliefs are embedded in more or less stable structures, labeled “schemas,” that select and synthesize incoming data.” (p. 17)

    2. The content of the schemas may deal with personal relationships, such as attitudes toward the self or others, or impersonal categories. (p. 27)

    3. When schemas are latent, there are not participating in information processing; when activated they channel cognitive processing from the earliest to the final stages (p. 27)

    4. When hypervalent, these idiosyncratic schemas displace and probably inhibit other schemas that may be more adaptive or more appropriate for a given situation. They consequently introduce a systematic bias into information processing (p. 27)

    5. In personality disorders, the schemas are part of normal, everyday processing of information (p. 27)

    6. Some subsystems composed of cognitive schemas are concerned with self-evaluation, others are concerned with evaluation of other people (p. 28)

    7. When particular schemas are hypervalent, the threshold for activation of the constituent schemas is low: they are readily triggered by a remote or trivial stimulus. They are also “prepotent”; that is, they readily supersede more appropriate schemas or configurations in processing information. (p. 28)

    8. They [narcissists] are above the rules that govern other people (p. 43)

    9. The conditional beliefs are, “If others don’t recognize my special status, they should be punished (p. 44)

    10. Unlike the antisocial personality, they do not have a cynical view of rules that govern human conduct; they simply consider themselves exempt from them (p. 44)

    11. Patients with BPD are a burden for relatives, friends, and colleagues, and there is a high risk that they induce psychopathology in their offspring. (p. 188)

    12. The diagnosis of “borderline” was introduced in the 1930s to label patients with problems that seemed to fall somewhere in between neurosis and psychosis. (p. 189)

    13. A borderline organization is described as an immature personality, characterized by identity diffusion and the use of primitive defenses such as splitting and projective identification. (p. 189)

    14. Various studies have found that patients with BPD are characterized by disorganized attachment representations (Fonagy et al., 1996; Patrick et al, 1994). Such attachment representations appear to be typical for persons with unresolved childhood traumas, especially when parental figures were involved, with direct, frightening behavior by the parent. Disorganized attachment is considered to result from an unresolvable situation for the child when “the parent is at the same time the source of fright as well as the potential haven of safety” (van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranburg, 1999, p. 226). (P. 191)

    15. Some traumatic experiences may have taken place at a very early age, notably the kind of punishing, abandoning, rejecting responses of the caretaker that led to disorganized attachment. (P. 191)

    16. Arntz (1994) hypothesized that childhood traumas underlie the formation of core schemas, which in their turn, lead to the development of BPD. (p 192)

    17. The specific themes are loneliness, unlovabilty, rejection and abandonment by others, and viewing the self as bad and to be punished. (p. 192)

    18. Young’s schema model… patients with BPD were characterized by higher self-reports of beliefs, emotions, and behaviors related to the four pathogenic BPD modes (detached protector, abandoned/abused child, angry child, and punitive parent mode)

    19. Patients with BPD are characterized by hypervigilance (being vulnerable in a dangerous world where nobody can be trusted) and dichotomous thinking (p. 193)

    20. Underdiagnosis constitutes a big problem that results in insufficient treatment. In many cases we saw, it took years of fruitless attempts to treat these patients before it became clear they were in fact suffering from BPD (p. 196)

    21. Patients with BPD consistently meet criteria of one to five other personality disorders. (p. 196)

    22. The conceptualization of the core pathology of BPD as stemming from a highly frightened, abused child who is left alone in a malevolent world, longing for safety and help but distrustful because of fear of further abuse and abandonment, is highly related to the model developed by Young (McGinn & Young, 1996)… Young elaborated on an idea, in the 1980s introduced by Aaron Beck in clinical workshops (D.M. Clark, personal communication), that some pathological states of patients with BPD are a sort of regression into intense emotional states experienced as a child. Young conceptualized such states as schema modes… (p. 199)

    23. Young hypothesized that four schema modes are central to BPD: the abandoned child mode (the present author suggests to label it the abused and abandoned child); the angry/impulsive child mode; the punitive parent mode, and the detached protector mode… The abused and abandoned child mode denotes the desperate state the patient may be in related to (threatened) abandonment and abuse the patient has experienced as a child. Typical core beliefs are that other people are malevolent, cannot be trusted, and will abandon or punish you, especially when you become intimate with them. (p. 199)

    24. Usually the patient fears this mode, not only because of the intense emotional pain and the reactivation of trauma related memories and feelings but also because its activation can be followed by the activation of the punitive parent mode. (p. 200)

    25. Narcissistic personality:

    26. The failure to be superior or regarded as special activates underlying beliefs of inferiority, unimportance, or powerlessness and compensatory strategies of self-protection and self-defense. (p. 241)

    27. Narcissists can display “a deceptively warm demeanor.” (p. 241)

    28. He or she [the narcissist] remains firmly rooted in the importance of a flawless or powerful image… Without a flawless image, core beliefs of inferiority become activated. (p. 246)

    29. A schema of oneself as needing to be special and superior to escape inferiority (p. 247)

    30. Instead of learning to accept and master normal and transient feelings of inferiority, these experiences are cast as threats to be defeated, primarily by acquiring external symbols or validation. (p. 247)

    31. The core belief of narcissistic personality disorder is one of inferiority or unimportance. This belief is only activated under certain circumstances and thus may be observed mainly in response to conditions of self-esteem threat. Otherwise, the manifest belief is a compensatory attitude of superiority. (p. 249)

    32. Narcissistic individuals also use power and entitlement as evidence of superiority… As a means of demonstrating their power, narcissists may alter boundaries, make unilateral decisions, control others, and determine exceptions to rules that apply to other, ordinary people. (251)

    33. Out of their vehement certainty of judgment, boundary violations of all sorts may occur, as narcissists are quite comfortable taking control and dictating orders (“I know what’s right for them”) but quite uncomfortable accepting influence from others” (p. 251)

    34. Another conditional assumption of power is the belief of exemption from normal rules and laws, even the laws of science and nature. (p. 251-252)

    35. Thus, he or she is apt to approach any number of situations feeling automatically entitled to personal gratification. (p. 252)

    36. If others fail to satisfy the narcissist’s “needs,” including the need to look good, or be free from inconvenience, then others “deserve to be punished… Even when punishing others out of intolerance or entitlement, the narcissist sees this as “a lesson they need, for their own good” (p. 252).

    37. The patient with NPD often has a low tolerance for frustration and expects not only to have wishes easily gratified but also to remain in a steady state of positive reinforcement. Conditional assumptions may include the notions, “If I want something, it is extremely important that I get it,” and “I should feel happy and comfortable at all times,” and “If I’m not happy, no one can be happy,” and “I need to feel special to feel happy.

39. Benoit, D. and Parker, K. C. H. (1994)

40. Stability and transmission of attachment across three generations. Child Development, 65, 1444-1456.

41. Book, A., Visser, B. A. and Volk, A. A. (2015)

42. Unpacking ”evil”: Claiming the core of the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences 73 (2015) 29–38.

43. Bowen, M. (1978)

44. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Jason Aronson.

45. Bowlby, J. (1988)

46. A secure base: Parent–child attachment and healthy human development. New York: Basic Books.

    1. I define an “affectional bond” as a relatively long-enduring tie in which the partner is important as a unique individual and is interchangeable with none other. In an affectional bond, there is a desire to maintain closeness to the partner. In older children and adults, that closeness may to some extent be sustained over time and distance and during absences, but nevertheless there is at least an intermittent desire to reestablish proximity and interaction, and pleasure – often joy – upon reunion. Inexplicable separation tends to cause distress, and permanent loss would cause grief. (p. 711)

    2. An ”attachment” is an affectional bond, and hence an attachment figure is never wholly interchangeable with or replaceable by another, even though there may be others to whom one is also attached. In attachments, as in other affectional bonds, there is a need to maintain proximity, distress upon inexplicable separation, pleasure and joy upon reunion, and grief at loss. (p. 711)

47. Bowlby, J. (1969)

48. Attachment and loss. Attachment, Vol. 1. NY: Basic Books.

    1. The paradoxical finding that the more punishment a juvenile receives the stronger becomes its attachment to the punishing figure, very difficult to explain on any other theory, is compatible with the view that the function of attachment behavior is protection from predators (p. 227)

    2. the more insecure a child’s attachment to his principal figure is the more inhibited is he likely to be in developing attachments to others. (p. 308)

49. Bowlby, J. (1973)

50. Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation: Anxiety and anger. NY: Basic.

    1. Lifetime patterns of attachment: “Confidence in the accessibility and responsiveness attachment figures, or lack of it, is built up slowly during all the years immaturity and that, once developed, expectations tend to persist relatively unchanged throughout the rest of life,” (p. 359)

    2. Personality coalesces: “model proposed postulates that the psychological processes that result in personality structure are endowed with a fair degree of sensitivity to the environment, especially to family environment, during the early years of life, but the sensitivity that diminishes throughout childhood and is already very limited by the end of adolescence. Thus the developmental process is conceived as able to vary its course, more or less adaptively, during the early years, according to the environment in which development is occurring; and subsequently, with the reduction of environmental sensitivity, as becoming increasingly constrained to the particular pathways already chosen. (p. 367)

    3. Personality coalesces: An organism sensitivity to environment may result in a developing personality’s not only taking a maladaptive pathway but, because of increasing homeorhesis, becoming confined more or less permanently to that pathway. Psychopathic personality, a consequence of development having occurred in a severely atypical family environment during the first three or so years of life, can be regarded as an example of this mode of personality maldevelopment. (p. 368)

    4. Personality coalesces: Structural features of personality, once developed, have their own means of self-regulation the 10th also to maintain the current direction of development (p. 368)

    5. Personality coalesces: “No variables, it is held, have more far-reaching effects on personality development than have a child’s experiences within his family: for, starting during the first months of his relations with his mother figure, and extending through the years of childhood and adolescence in his relations with both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations; and on those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans for the rest of his life.” (p. 369).

51. Bowlby, J. (1980)

52. Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NY: Basic.

    1. misattribution of meaning “Whenever information that would normally be accepted for further processing because of its significance to the individual is subjected to defensive exclusion for prolonged periods the consequences are far-reaching. Among them, I believe, are most, perhaps all, of the vast diverse array of phenomenon that at one time or another have been described in the psychoanalytic literature as being defenses (p. 64)

    2. One or a set of responses the person is making may be disconnected cognitively from the interpersonal situation that is eliciting it, leaving him unaware of why he was responding as he is.” (p. 65)

    3. misattribution of meaning “He may dwell so insistently on the details of his own reactions and sufferings that he has no time to consider what the interpersonal situation responsible for his reactions may really be.” (p. 65)

    4. misattribution of meaning = psychopathology: “Defensive exclusion is regarded as being at the heart of psychopathology. (p. 65)

    5. This cognitive disconnection of a response from the interpersonal situation that elicited it I believe play an enormous role in psychopathology. (p. 67)

    6. misattribution of meaning: “Misidentification of the interpersonal situation eliciting a response. Just as defensive activities may serve in part to ensure that attention is not given to inflow that is being defensively excluded, so may be the attribution of the response to some insignificant situation serve to direct attention away from the situation truly responsible. Several examples are giving in Volume II in the discussion of phobias (Chapters 18 and 19). A child afraid to leave home for fear of his mother might desert or commit suicide during his absence claims, or is persuaded, that what he is really afraid of his being criticized by the teacher; or an adult, similarly afraid of what might happen at home during his or her absence, claims that what he or she is really afraid of is to go alone into public places.” (p. 68)

    7. child attachment suppression = grief: The deactivation of attachment behavior is a key feature of certain common variants of pathological mourning (p. 70)

    8. attachment = personality disorder: “Disturbances of personality, which include a bias to respond to loss with disordered mourning, are seen as the outcome of one or more deviations in development that can originate or grow worse during any of the years of infancy, childhood and adolescence.” (p. 217)

    9. Deviations result from adverse experiences the child has in his family of origin (or during substitute care), notably discontinuities in his relationships in certain ways in which parent-figures may respond, or fail to respond, to his desire for the love and care. (p. 217)

    10. Deviations consistent disturbances is the way attachment behavior of the individual concerned becomes organized, usually in the direction either anxious and insecure attachment or else of the vehement assertion of self-sufficiency.

    11. Although those who make anxious and ambivalent attachments are likely to have experienced discontinuities in parenting and/or often to have been rejected by their parents, the rejection is more likely to to have been intermittent and partial than complete. As a result the children, still hoping for love and care yet deeply anxious lest they be neglected or deserted, increase their demands for attention and affection, if used to be left alone and protest more or less angrily when they are. (p. 219)

    12. Role-reversal: “Likely to be a parent who has used, or who may still be using, strong pressure to invert the relationship are requiring the son or daughter to do the caregiving.” (p. 223)

    13. Narcissistic: Winnicott (1960) has used the term “false self” to describe the self such a person experiences and which, willingly or unwillingly, he presents to the world. This term is much to be preferred to “narcissistic” which is another sometimes used by psychoanalyst to describe these individuals. (p. 225)

    14. Every situation we meet within life is construed in terms of the representational models we have of the world about us and of ourselves. Information reaching a our sense organs is selected and interpreted in terms of those models, its significance for us and for those we care for is evaluated in terms of them, and plans of action conceived and executed with those models in mind. On how we interpret and evaluate each situation, moreover, turns also how we feel. (p. 229)

    15. A child’s attachment behavior is activated especially by pain, fatigue, and anything frightening, and also by the mother being or appearing to be inaccessible. (p. 3)

    16. The biological function of this behavior is postulated to be protection, especially protection from predators. P. 3

    17. Attachment behavior is in no way confined to children. Although usually less readily aroused, we see it also in adolescents and adults of both sexes whenever they are anxious or under stress. (p. 4)

    18. A feature of the attachment behavior of the greatest importance clinically, and present irrespective of the age of the individual concerned, is the intensity of the emotion that accompanies it, the kind of emotion aroused depending on how the relationship between the individual attached and the attachment figure is fairing. If it goes well, there is joy and a sense of security. If it is threatened, there is jealousy, anxiety, and anger. If broken there is grief and depression. (p. 4)

    19. Human infants, we can safely conclude, like infants of other species, are preprogrammed to develop in a socially cooperative way; whether they do so or not turns in high degree on how they are treated. (p. 9)

    20. The patterns of attachment that were shown to father’s resembled closely the patterns that were shown to mothers

53. Bowlby, J. (1979)

54. The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London: Tavistock.

    1. Clearly it is still a far cry between showing the child’s bonds to his mother, and often to his father also, are thrown into disequilibrium by a brief separation, and demonstrating unequivocally that long or repeated separations causally related to subsequent personality disorders. Yet the detached behavior so typical of young children after separation bears more than a passing resemblance to the detached behavior of some psychopaths, whilst it would be difficult to distinguish the aggressively demanding behavior of many a young child recently reunited with his mother from the aggressively demanding behavior of many hysterical personalities. To postulate that in each type of case the disturbed behavior of the adult represents persistence over the years of deviant patterns of bonding behavior that have become established as a result of bond disruptions occurring during childhood proves useful. (p. 95-96)

55. Bowlby, J. (1960)

56. "Separation anxiety". International Journal of Psychoanalysis 41: 89–113.

57. Bowlby, J. (1988)

58. A secure base: clinical implications of attachment theory. London: Routledge.

59. Brennan, K. A. and Shaver, P. R. (1998)

60. Attachment Styles and Personality Disorders: Their Connections to Each Other and to Parental Divorce, Parental Death, and Perceptions of Parental Caregiving. Journal of Personality 66, 835-878.

    1. Attachment and personality disorder: “Research on attachment and personality disorders. In the clinical literature, there is increasing support for conceptualizing personality disorders as disorders of attachment (e.g., Heard & Lake, 1986; Shaver & Clark, 1994; West & Sheldon, 1988; West & Sheldon-Keller, 1994). There is growing empirical evidence connecting Borderline personality disorder with patterns of insecure attachment reflected in representations of childhood relationships with parents (Patrick, Hobson, Castle, Howard, & Maughan, 1994; Sack et al., 1996; Stalker & Davies, 1995; West et al., 1994). Patrick et al. (1994) assessed internal representations of attachment (via the AAI; George et al., 1984/1985/1996) and found that individuals classified as Borderline evinced the mental organization characteristic of preoccupied attachment. Stalker and Davies (1995) found the same pattern in a small, clinical sample of sexually abused women. (p. 840)

    2. Their pattern of findings indicate that both preoccupation and fearful avoidance may be most closely associated with the Borderline disorder (p. 841)

61. Bremner, J. D., Randall, P., Scott, T. M., Capelli, S., Delaney, R., Mc-Carthy, G. and Charney, D. S. (1995)

62. Deficits in short-term memory in adult survivors of childhood abuse. Psychiatry Res 59:97–107

63. Bretherton, I. (1990)

64. Communication patterns, internal working models, and the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships. Infant Mental Health Journal, 11, 237-252.

65. Bretherton, I. (1992)

66. The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology, 1992, 28, 759-775.

    1. Bowlby proposes that defensive exclusion of information from awareness derives from the same processes as selective exclusion, although the motivation for the two types of exclusion differs. Three situations are believed to render children particularly prone to engaging in defensive exclusion: situations that parents do not wish their children to know about even though the children have witnessed them, situations in which the children find the parents’ behavior too unbearable to think about, and situations in which children have done or thought about doing something of which they are deeply ashamed. Although defensive exclusion protects the individual from experiencing unbearable mental pain, confusion, or conflict, it is bound to interfere with the accommodation of internal working models to external reality. Indeed, a number of clinical studies reviewed in Separation (e.g., Cain & Fast, 1972) suggest that defensive exclusion leads to a split in internal working models. One set of working models—accessible to awareness and discussion and based on what a child has been told—represents the parent as good and the parent’s rejecting behavior as caused by the "badness" of the child. The other model, based on what the child has experienced but defensively excluded from awareness, represents the hated or disappointing side of the parent.

67. Bretherton, I. and Munholland, K. (2008)

68. Internal working models in attachment relationships: Elaborating a central construct in attachment theory. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment (pp. 102-130). New York: Guilford Press.

69. Brown, E. M. (1998)

70. The transmission of trauma through caretaking patterns of behavior in holocaust families: Re-enactments in a facilitated long-term second-generation group. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 68, 267-285.

71. Carlson, E. A., Edgeland, B. and Sroufe, L. A. (2009)

72. A prospective investigation of the development of borderline personality symptoms. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 1311-1334

    1. from a developmental perspective, disturbed behavior is constructed through the cumulative interaction of risk and protective factors operating over time… of central importance are the ways in which early experience, later experience, and current circumstances interact to shape adult adaptation or disturbance.(p. 1313),

    2. Trauma and maltreatment undermine the child’s capacity to attend to, recognize, and interpret accurately the cues and affective states of others and by extension, the self (Fonagy et al., 2000; Laub & Auerhahn, 1993; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Pollak & Sinha, 2002; Pollak, Vardi, Putzer Bechnier, & Curtin, 2005). Dissociative processes instill a sense of passivity whereby events are perceived as happening to the individual or controlled outside of the self (i.e., without volition; Breger, 1974; Bowlby, 1969/1982). Children become hypervigilant to the attitudes and intentions of others, further compromising emergent self-awareness, a sense of authorship, and the ability to attend to internal cues, emotional needs, and thoughts (Briere, 1988; Calvery, Fischer, & Ayoub, 1994; Putnam, 1997; Rieder & Cicchetti, 1989; Westen, 1994).

    3. Children may become hyper- or hyporesponsive to emotional stimuli, particularly those that signal threat or danger, resulting in marked or unpredictable shifts in arousal levels disproportionate to environmental context (Cicchetti & Curtis, 2005; Cummings, Pellegrini, Notarius, & Cummings, 1989; Eisenberg et al., 1997; Pollak, Cicchetti, Klorman, & Brumaghim, 1997).

    4. Early extreme experience is associated with deficits in the capacity to symbolize or mentalize affective experience (i.e., to reflect on and integrate affective experience into higher order cognition; Fonagy & Batement, 2008; Fonagy & Target, 1997). Trauma “overwhelms and defeats one’s capacity to organize it” (Laub & Auerhahn, 1993, p. 288). Thus, deficits in affective processing may include the inability to describe internal states (i.e., alexithymia; Krystal, 1988) as well as restrictions in attributional focus. 1215

    5. Repeated experiences of contradictory cues contribute to a collapse in regulatory strategies for coping with distress, reflected in infancy in attachment disorganization (Hesse & Main, 2000; Main & Solomon, 1990). (p. 1314)

    6. Sustained and pervasive traumatic experience in early childhood, particularly in the context of the caregiving relationship, compromises the quality of adaptation at multiple levels of functioning (attentional, emotional, behavioral, representational, and relational). These distortions and disruptions in basic self-processes contribute to the emergence of enduring compensatory regulatory and relational strategies to facilitate the negotiation of developmental challenges. (p. 1314}

    7. Deviant, apparently manipulative or controlling, interpersonal behaviors may be employed with the purpose of eliciting others to attend to regulatory needs. An inability to control one’s own behavior and emotion, and related experiences of fear, may be manifested in frustration, anger, and attempts to control the feelings and behaviorof others (Siever & Koenigsberg, 2000). (p. 1315)

    8. Compromised developmental processes related to the misreading of interpersonal cues, lack of access to inner emotional experience, and related dissociative representational experience lead to disturbances in social functioning. In this way, relational functioning may mirror individual experience. Social behavior may be characterized by intrusiveness, aggression, and insensitivity to interpersonal cues and rules. (p. 1315)

    9. In contrast, borderline personality symptoms were significantly related to early relational experiences previously reported in retrospective studies. These included attachment disorganization (12–18 months) and maltreatment (12–18 months), maternal hostility and boundary dissolution (42 months), family disruption related to father presence (12 – 64), and family life stress (3 – 42 months). (p. 1328)

73. Cassidy, J. and Berlin, L. J. (1994)

74. The insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment: Theory and research. Child Development, 65, 971−991.

    1. Although infant behavior patterns may begin as understandable responses to parental behavior, the infant later may come to recognize that these behavior patterns are ones with which the parent feels most comfortable. (p. 986)

    2. It seems likely that the child himself would feel most comfortable when the parent is most comfortable. (p. 986)

    3. Children are skillful in recognizing what leads to parental comfort and then attempt to cooperate with their parents in maintaining the desired state. (p. 986)

    4. In the case of insecure/ambivalent children, the child recognizes at some level that the parent desires a relationship in which attachment is emphasized. (p. 986)

    5. The child may realize that this pattern of preoccupation with the parent, heightened dependency, and reduced exploration are at some level reassuring to the parent: his immaturity reassures the parent that she will be needed; his dependency reassures the parent that the child will remain close, that is, ‘reassures the parent that he will not become an adult and leave’ (Bacciagaluppi, 1985, p. 371). (p. 986)

    6. Unlike the secure infant, who in times of distress has only one consideration (how to alert the parent of his wish for proximity), the insecure infant has two considerations (how to alert the parent of his wish for proximity and how the parents is likely to respond).

    7. For the insecure/ambivalent infant, the strategy of heightened attachment behavior can be viewed as useful for both himself (by increasing the likelihood of gaining the attention of the unpredictably available caregiver) and for his parent (by assuring the parent that he will stay close to her).

    8. The infant’s attempts to cooperate with the parent necessitate alterations of what might be his normally occurring responses to the environment.

    9. Main (1990) has speculated that such alterations involved changes in infant attention, perception, and memory.

    10. For an infant whose caregiver requires exaggerated infant dependence, a shift in attention toward attachment-eliciting situations through manipulations of perception and thought may occur.

    11. Similarly, such an infant may selectively attend to the frightening aspects of the environment, interpreting, as Main (1990) has suggested, “an environment known at some level to be quiescent as threatening” (page. 61).

    12. Heightened recall of memories that activate attachment-related behaviors and emotions may also occur. The infants perception (based on previous interactions) of probable parental unresponsiveness is accurate. This accurate perception of parental behavior is thought to necessitate a distorted perception of the environment as frightening. This distortion, in turn, serves to heighten attachment behavior and usefully increases the likelihood that the child will gain access to the attachment figure when needed. It is proposed here that because another of the infant’s perceptions-–that the parent prefers him to emphasize attachment-–is also accurate, infant distortion of the environment can be viewed as useful in meeting the parents needs as well as his own needs.

75. Cohen, O. (1998)

76. Parental narcissism and the disengagement of the non-custodial father after divorce. Clinical Social Work Journal, 26, 195-215

    1. …divorce and loss of custody pose a special threat to the narcissist’s weak self (p. 195)

    2. The perception [of narcissism in a patient] is hampered by the fact that narcissistic individuals may well be intelligent, charming, and sometimes creative people who function effectively in their professional lives and in a range of social situations (Akhtar, 1992; Hendler, 1975). P. 197

    3. While narcissism is recognized as a serious mental disorder, its manifestations may not be immediately recognized as pathological, even by persons in the helping professions, and its implications may remain unattended to. (p. 197)

    4. The narcissist’s major external quality, his sense of grandiose self-importance (DSM-IV, 1994; Kernberg, 1984; Kohut, 1971), compensates for a deficient self-concept and extremely painful vulnerability. (p. 197-198)

    5. Kohut sees it [pathological narcissism] as an impairment of the cohesion, continuity, strength, and harmony of the self (Tolpin & Kohut, 1980). Kernberg (1984) defines it by the failure to integrate the “good” and “bad” self representations into a realistic self-concept. (p. 198)

    6. The narcissist exaggerates his own importance, achievements, abilities, talents, and efforts, while splitting off, disassociating, or repressing negative elements of his self and projecting them onto others. (p. 198)

    7. Narcissistic parents are seen as treating their children as extensions of themselves, expecting them to meet their own narcissistic needs, as unable to meet their children’s needs for acceptance, as critical and angry when their children try to express their own feelings, will, and independent personality; and as obstructing the development of their children’s true self. Nonetheless, narcissistic possessiveness of the child does not necessarily exclude emotional giving. Miller (1981) notes that he narcissistic mother often loves her child passionately. Much the same may be said of narcissistic father. Many such fathers will spend a great deal of time with their children and invest a great deal of energy in fostering their children’s development. To be sure, they will generally focus not on their children’s emotional needs, but on promoting their intellectual, artistic, or athletic development, which will serve as reflections and proof of their own success as parents. Nonetheless, while he is married, a narcissistic man may be a highly present father, concerned with and involved in his children’s lives. Even though his involvement stems from his own needs, he, his children, and those around him may well experience him as a caring father. (p. 199)

    8. For the narcissistic man, divorce brings another major threat: the threat to his grandiose self-image and, with it, to the very fragile sense of self it protects. By its very nature, divorce constitutes a narcissistic threat. It raises questions about the individual’s ability to love and be loved and embodies his or her failure to maintain an important relationship. The individual’s shortcomings are, moreover, publicly exposed. (p. 200)

    9. [Narcissists] insist on an all or nothing relationship with their children, an insistence which is consistent with both the black and white thinking that has been found among narcissistic individuals (Kernberg, 1984) and the possessiveness that has frequently been noted in narcissistic parents (Miller, 1981) (p. 205)

    10. For the non-custodial narcissistic father, the fight for custody seems to be less a fight for access than a fight for possession of his children that he is unwilling to relinquish. (p. 205)

    11. Their need to prove that they are wonderful fathers seems to exceed their need for actual contact with their children. They constantly tell of what they do or have done for their children, while denigrating both the contribution of the child’s mother and the abilities and achievements of the child. (p. 206)

    12. The support of their fragile and threatened self-concept may also be another aim of the litigation for greater access and custody, the award of which could be interpreted as a public confirmation of their capacity as fathers and proof that they are the better parent. (p. 206)

    13. The propensity to blame is an outstanding feature… of narcissistic behavior in general. It is a way for the narcissist to see himself in a good light and a manifestation of the splitting off of the negative aspects of the self and projecting them onto others that is a major narcissistic defense. (p. 206)

77. Collins, N. L. (1996)

78. Working models of attachment: Implications for explanation, emotion, and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1996.

    1. Working models of attachment are highly accessible cognitive constructs that will be automatically activated in memory in response to attachment-relevant events. Once activated, they are predicted to have a direct impact on social information processing (including attention, memory, and inference) and on emotional response patterns… The impact of working models on behavior in any given situation will be largely mediated by the subjective interpretation of the situation along with one’s emotional response. (p. 812)

79. Crittenden, P. M. (1999)

80. Danger and development: The organization of self-protective strategies. In J. I. Vondra and D. Barnett, (Eds.) Atypical attachment in infancy and early childhood among children at developmental risk. Monographs of the Society for Research on Child Development (p. 145-171).

    1. The organization of attachment behavior functions to promote protection under circumstances of danger. (p. 170)

81. Cui, L., Morris, A. S., Criss, M. M., Houltberg, B. J. and Jennifer S. Silk, J. S. (2014)

82. Parental Psychological Control and Adolescent Adjustment: The Role of Adolescent Emotion Regulation. Parenting: Science and Practice, 14, 47–67.

    1. Because psychological control is emotionally manipulative in nature, making parental love and acceptance contingent on children’s behavior, it is likely that psychological control has a deleterious impact on emotion regulation (Morris et al., 2002). Indeed, the reasons for this link are rooted in the defining features of psychological control.

    2. Specifically, psychological control has historically been defined as psychologically and emotionally manipulative techniques or parental behaviors that are not responsive to children’s psychological and emotional needs (Barber, Maughan, & Olsen, 2005). Psychologically controlling parents create a coercive, unpredictable, or negative emotional climate of the family, which serves as one of the ways the family context influences children’s emotion regulation (Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007; Steinberg, 2005).

    3. Such parenting strategies ignore the child’s need for autonomy, impede the child’s volitional functioning, and intervene in the individuation process (Barber & Xia, 2013; Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). In such an environment, children feel pressure to conform to parental authority, which results in children’s emotional insecurity and dependence (Morris et al., 2002).” (Cui, Morris, Criss, Houltberg, & Silk, 2014, p. 48)

83. Dutton, D. G., Denny-Keys, M. K. and Sells, J. R. (2011)

84. Parental personality disorder and Its effects on children: A review of current literature. Journal Of Child Custody, 8, 268-283.

    1. Custody evaluations frequently involve assessment of parental psychopathology (Ackerman & Ackerman, 1996; Bagby, Nicholson, Buis, Radovanic, & Fidler, 1999; Bathurst, Gottfried, & Gottfried, 1997; Lempel, 1999), based on the notion that parental pathology, especially personality disorders, may affect the quality of care parents give children. (p. 268)

    2. One of the most impactful consequences brought about as a result of growing up with parental PD is the way in which a child is raised with emotionally unavailable, unpredictable, or hostile-abusive parenting and the consequences of this upbringing on attachment issues. (p. 271)

    3. Narcissism - Horne (1998): “The results indicated mothers’ narcissism rates correlated significantly and positively with their sons’ narcissism and negatively with their sons’ expressions of empathy.” … Daughters’ narcissism, expressed empathy, and self-esteem scores were all correlated with mothers’ scores, suggesting a stronger same-sex linkage of influence between children’s behaviors and parental narcissism.

    4. Horne, S. (1998). The role of parental narcissism and depression in predicting adolescent empathy, narcissism, self-esteem, pleasing others, and peer conflict (Doctoral dissertation, University of Georgia PhD Philosophy).

    5. Horne: A parent who is narcissistic . . . will be affectively unavailable to his or her children and may inhibit the development of vital human capacities in adolescents such as high self-esteem. Because children of narcissistic parents may be required to fulfill their parents’ needs for admiration and recognition, they may develop pleasing others’ behavior in excess of children of non narcissistic parents and may display what appears to be heightened empathic skills which may actually be hypervigilance or a heightened protective stance that masquerades as empathy. These children would most likely avoid conflict and appear narcissistic if their parents endorse narcissistic tendencies. (p. 76)

    6. Some psychotherapists observe similar behaviors to those studied by Horne (1998) in children living with narcissistic parents. Termed ‘‘co-narcissism’’ by Rappoport (2005), this grouping of behavioral tendencies seems to focus on the children’s generalization of the parents’ behavior to other individuals within their lives. Lowered self-esteem, as a result of an incomplete self-schema, is observed as well as a more predominant desire to please others and focus attention on the thoughts and actions of those around them (Rappoport). Unable to penetrate their parents’ self-absorption, the child develops a chronic obsession with pleasing others. (p. 276)

    7. the essential causal link of children’s behavioral problems to parental personality may not be to conventionally defined PDs but rather to attachment disorders in the parent. In a recent meta-analysis of 69 samples, Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Ijzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman (2010) found that insecure and disorganized attachments in parents increase risk for externalizing problems in children, with the larger effect being found for boys. The effect for boys was d’.0.35, that is, a sizeable (1=3 of a SD) difference. (p. 280)

    8. Rutter and Quinton (1984): Both parental mental disorder and marital discord tended to persist throughout the 4-year period of the study and parental PD children had an increased risk of persistent emotional-behavioral disturbances and conduct disorders. (p.269)

    9. Nordahl et al. (2007) The highest correlations found with interpersonal difficulties [in parents] were Borderline, Self-defeating, and Avoidant traits (0.649, 0.599, and 0.527, respectively), and with self-centered style [in parents] were Histrionic and Narcissistic traits (0.472 and 0.418, respectively) in the mothers. Some negative correlations were observed with “self-centered style” and some Function 2 traits (neglective and self-centered),

    10. Johnson et al. (2006) found that parents with PDs were ‘‘more than three times as likely as those without personality disorders to report having engaged in 5 types of problematic child-rearing behaviors,’’ and those PD parent-patients who did not have any co-occurring disorder were also “significantly more likely than those without personality disorders to report 5 types of problematic child-rearing behaviors” (p. 346).

85. Dutton, D. G. and Painter, S. (1993)

86. Emotional attachments in abusive relationships: A test of traumatic bonding theory. Violence and Victims, 8(2), 105-20.

87. Feeney, J. A. and Noller, P. (1990)

88. Attachment style as a predictor of adult romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 281-291.

89. Finnegan, R. A., Hodges, E. V. E. and Perry, D. G. (1996)

90. Preoccupied and avoidant coping during middle childhood. Child Development, 67, 1318−1328.

91. Fonagy, P., Luyten, P. and Strathearn, L. (2011)

92. Borderline personality disorder, mentalization, and the neurobiology of attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 32, 47-69.

    1. Depending on the issue of different secondary attachment strategies and contextual factors, some BPD patients will be primarily characterized by preoccupied or avoidant attachment while the attachment system will be disorganized (either from infancy or as a consequence of subsequent stress) in other individuals. P. 49

93. Fonagy, P., Steele, M. and Steele, H. (1991)

94. Intergenerational patterns of attachment: Maternal representations during pregnancy and subsequent infant-mother attachments. Child Development, 62, 891-905.

95. Fonagy, P. and Target, M. (2005)

96. Bridging the transmission gap: An end to an important mystery in attachment research? Attachment and Human Development, 7, 333-343.

97. Fonagy, P., Target, M., Gergely, G., Allen, J. G. and Bateman, A. W. (2003)

98. The developmental roots of Borderline Personality Disorder in early attachment relationships: A theory and some evidence. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23, 412-459.

99. Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E. and Shapiro, V. (1975)