Parsing the construct of maternal insensitivity: distinct longitudinal pathways associated with early maternal withdrawal

Abstract

The current paper expands on Ainsworth’s seminal construct of maternal sensitivity by exploring the developmental pathways associated with one particular form of insensitivity: maternal withdrawal. Drawing on longitudinal data from infancy to age 20 in a high-risk cohort, we highlight how maternal withdrawal over the first eight years of life is associated with child caregiving behavior and with maternal role confusion, as well as with features of borderline and antisocial personality disorders. We also present evidence for the specificity of this pathway in relation to other aspects of maternal insensitivity and other aspects of child adaptation. To illuminate these pathways we both review recent published work and report new findings on the middle childhood and adolescent components of these trajectories. Finally, we consider the implications for assessment of maternal behavior in high-risk samples and indicate directions for productive future work.

Keywords:

• attachment
• maternal withdrawal
• mother–child interaction
• adolescent–parent interaction
• role confusion
• controlling-caregiving behavior
• parentified behavior

Acknowledgments

This paper is dedicated with much warmth and gratitude to Mary Ainsworth for her encouragement to the first author, as a graduate student, to pursue how attachment relationships may be configured in high-risk and clinical samples. I know she would be deeply satisfied that the field she pioneered continues to deepen our understanding of the complex adaptations in attachment relationships that occur in response to more extreme conditions of deprivation and adversity. We would also like to thank our most important collaborators who are the families who have so generously given their time to this study over a lifetime. We would also like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of Nancy Hall Brooks, the study coordinator, and many additional students and staff to the study over time.

Funding

This work was supported by grants to Dr. Lyons-Ruth from the National Institute of Mental Health [R01MH35122 and R01MH06030], the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Borderline Foundation, the FH Leonhardt Foundation, and the Milton Fund of Harvard University; by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to Dr. Bureau; by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to Dr. Obsuth; by a Clinical Research Training Fellowship through NIH Grant [T32 MH 16259-32] to Dr. Hennighausen; by a grant from Tufts University to Dr. Easterbrooks; and by grants from the Foundation de France, Bourse Sacks Harvard, and Groupement d’Etudes et Prevention du Suicide to Dr. Vulliez-Coady.