However, we have to remember that children themselves have no voice so they need our protection. Genetic variation is, of course, a reality, but that is not the same as suggesting that genetic make-ups can ‘trigger’ parental maltreatment. That is a huge claim with no scientific evidence to support it. At the same time, as Meins correctly points out, about half of the maltreated children seem not to show disorganisation. Some children may be less susceptible to the social environment, for better and for worse, for example because of their genetic make-up (Bakermans-Kranenburg & Van IJzendoorn, 2015). This might explain why some children remain relatively unruffled. It is however dangerous to suggest that ‘the child’s genetically specified characteristics may trigger maltreatment in the parent’. We would demand a very high standard of evidence for a claim like this, and indeed this interpretation, which is based on one study of adolescents, diverges from the cautious way in which the study’s authors discussed the finding in the original report (Fisher et al., 2016).

Now, I should just preface my comments there by saying that no judgement of other parenting styles is intended here at all. We all do our best with the knowledge and resources available to us. However, learning about attachment theory, and the extensive research surrounding it, was a turning point in my life. Behavioural genetics research has also highlighted how certain genetic factors influence development in indirect ways. For example, particular genotypes make individuals better or worse at dealing with environmental stress, which in turn relates to their mental health. Other genotypes act via environmental circumstances such as parenting – the child’s genetically specified characteristics may trigger maltreatment in the parent. Resilience in this case is characterised not as adapting to difficult circumstances, but as having the predisposition that enables these circumstances to be avoided in the first place. Research in epigenetics has emphasised the importance of the regulation of gene activity over the underlying makeup of the genotype – if environmental circumstances mean that the gene is never expressed, risks associated with particular genotypes will be irrelevant to the individual’s development. Under these conditions, the environment itself conveys resilience. The attachment literature also provides a nice example of the factor I feel is underrated: resilience. In his 1992 Emmanuel Miller Memorial Lecture, Peter Fonagy succinctly defined resilience as ‘normal development under difficult conditions’. A great deal of research has focused on resilience in response to child maltreatment. Van IJzendoorn and colleagues’ meta-analysis reported that 48 per cent of children who were identified as having been maltreated were classified as insecure-disorganised, compared with 15 per cent of children from regular middle-class families. These findings are generally interpreted as abusive parenting causing children to form a disorganised attachment relationship.From our earliest years, we develop an attachment style that follows us through life, replaying in our daily emotional landscape, our relationships, and how we feel about ourselves. And in the wake of a traumatic event--such as a car accident, severe illness, loss of a loved one, or experience of abuse--that attachment style can deeply influence what happens next. Unfortunately, that expansiveness also excavated some unexpected and difficult experiences. I took a turn in a negative direction, abruptly, as if falling down an elevator shaft directly into the dark night of the soul. In fact, I struggled quite a bit for the next three or four years. The crash had triggered memories of my childhood—a history of trauma that I had long been dissociated from. I floundered in my attempts to integrate all the disparate highs and lows I was experiencing. Apparently, all of this—particularly recalling traumatic memories—happens to a lot of people who survive high-impact accidents. Attachment psychology is a psychological theory that seeks to explain the patterns of human relationships, particularly the emotional bond between infants and their caregivers. From our earliest years, we develop an attachment style that follows us through life, replaying in our daily emotional landscape, our relationships, and how we feel about ourselves. And in the wake of a traumatic event—such as a car accident, severe illness, loss of a loved one, or experience of abuse—that attachment style can deeply influence what happens next.

This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. Now more than ever, the critical importance of parent–child attachment is being emphasised. The Department for Health explicitly aims to promote secure attachment through the health visiting service and its Healthy Child Programme. Andrea Leadsom’s prime ministerial campaign raised the profile of attachment even further, so much so that she was criticised for ‘ going on about attachment theory’ in the leadership hustings. Statement 2: The results of these meta-analyses are interpreted as insecure attachment predicting higher levels of both internalising…and externalising…behaviours. But on closer inspection, the findings are much less clear cut. We do not think that close inspection of our papers is required to come to the conclusion that the insecure attachment categories have partially distinct associations with outcomes. Any reading of our meta-analyses makes clear that insecure-avoidant attachment is the only insecure pattern associated with internalising symptoms, and that externalising is primarily associated with insecure-disorganised attachment (although, to correct Meins’s reporting, avoidance is too, just more weakly). It should also be noted that our third meta-analysis shows that all insecure categories are related to lower peer competence and to a similar extent.

eGift Cards

In closing, we note that Professor Meins has made several good points, but missed an opportunity to urge the field to widen its perspective and examine the evidence offered by research based on other attachment approaches, such as the DMM. Don't let your child spend too much time watching television or playing electronic games. The time she spends with you, other family members, and peers offers her opportunities to experience the positive emotional interactions needed to develop healthy attachments. Author of the bestselling Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, and Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory INTRODUCTION Jaffee, S. R., & Price, T. S. (2012). The implications of genotype–environment correlation for establishing causal processes in psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 24, 1253-1264. doi:10.1017/S0954579412000685 I’ve also started thinking of trauma in terms of connection. The theme of broken connection has come up in my work repeatedly over the years: broken connection to our body; broken connection to our sense of self; broken connection to others, especially those we love; broken connection to feeling centered or grounded on the planet; broken connection to God, Source, Life Force, well-being, or however we might describe or relate to our inherent sense of spirituality, openhearted awareness, and beingness. This theme has been so prominent in my work that broken connection and trauma have become almost synonymous to me.