On the Origins of Disorganized Attachment and Internal Working Models: Paper II. An Empirical Microanalysis of 4-Month Mother–Infant Interaction

Abstract

A microanalysis of 4-month mother–infant face-to-face communication predicted 12-month infant disorganized (vs. secure) attachment outcomes in an urban community sample. We documented a dyadic systems view of the roles of both partners; the roles of both self- and interactive contingency; and the importance of attention, orientation, and touch, as well as facial and vocal affect, in the co-construction of attachment disorganization. The analysis of different communication modalities identified striking intrapersonal and interpersonal intermodal discordance or conflict, in the context of intensely distressed infants, as the central feature of future disorganized dyads at 4 months. Lowered maternal contingent coordination, and failures of maternal affective correspondence, constituted maternal emotional withdrawal from distressed infants. This maternal withdrawal compromises infant interactive agency and emotional coherence. We characterize of the nature of emerging internal working models of future disorganized infants as follows: Future disorganized infants represent states of not being sensed and known by their mothers, particularly in moments of distress; they represent confusion about both their own and their mothers' basic emotional organization, and about their mothers' response to their distress. This internal working model sets a trajectory in development which may disturb the fundamental integration of the person. The remarkable specificity of our findings has the potential to lead to more finely focused clinical interventions.

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by NIMH RO1 MH56130, the Koehler Foundation, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Edward Aldwell Fund, the Bernard and Esther Besner Infant Research Fund, and the Los Angeles Fund for Infant Research and Psychoanalysis. We thank Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Mary Sue Moore, Jude Cassidy, George Downing, Estelle Shane, Anni Bergman, Lin Reicher, Steven Knoblauch, Jean Knox, and the Monday afternoon study group. We thank Lisa Marquette, Caroline Flaster, Patricia Goodman, Jill Putterman, Limor Kaufman-Balamuth, Elizabeth Helbraun. Shanee Stepakoff, Michaela Hager-Budny for filming the mothers and infants. We thank Lisa Marquette, Elizabeth Helbraun, Michaela Hager-Budny, Shanee Stepakoff, Jane Roth, Donna Demetri-Friedman, Sandra Triggs-Kano, Greg Kushnick, Helen Demetriades, Allyson Hentel, Tammy Kaminer and Lauren Ellman for coding the videotapes. We thank Kari Gray, Alla Chavarga, Alina Pavlakos, Kara Levin, Nidhi Parashar, Julia Reuben, Daniella Polyak, Brianna Hailey, Kate Lieberman, Sarah Miller, Adrianne Lange, Joseph McGowan, Carol Schiek-Gamble, Maria Zieher, Danny Sims, Jake Freeman, Jessica Latack, Josianne Moise, Claire Jaffe, Jennie Berman, Ella Bandes, Aviva Irwin, Daniel Friedman, Meghan Loeser, Sara Van Hoose, Daniel Vigliano, Greer Raggio, Fernanda Lucchese, Michael Klein, Helen Weng, Lauren Cooper, Iskra Smiljanic, Matthew Kirkpatrick, Jennifer Lyne, Annee Ackerman, Sam Marcus, Christy Meyer, Emily Brodie, Sandy Seal, Claudia Andrei, Nina Finkel, Adrienne Lapidous, Nicholas Seivert, Linda Rindlaub, Abby Herzig. We thank Sara Hahn-Burke, Nancy Freeman, Alan Phelan, Danielle Phelan, Paulette Landesman, Tina Lupi, Michael Ritter, Irena Milentevic, Jillian Miller, Rhonda Davis, Victoria Garel, Leslie Michael, Glenn Bromley, Robert Gallaghan, Naomi Cohen, John Burke and William Hohauser of ESPY TV, John Kerr, our in-house editor, and Howard Steele for his generous collaboration on this project.