What we know about attachment disorders in childhood: a review

Current nosology describes reactive attachment disorder as represented by two distinct disorders: reactive attachment disorder, characterized by markedly inhibited and emotionally withdrawn behavior toward adult caregivers, minimally seeking comfort or minimally responding to comfort in time of distress, and disinhibited social engagement disorder, which is represented by an indiscriminate social behavior, sanctioned from culture and which crosses social boundaries, in the presence of unfamiliar adults. Both disorders, despite their different phenotypes, are caused by a pathogenic caregiving environment, repeated changes of attachment figures, social neglect and deprivation in the first years of life. The article examines recent diagnostic criteria reported in the literature comparing diagnostic classifications and attempting to understand the etiology of the disorder. Unresolved questions exist in current nosology, which means that the quality of the evidence supporting the diagnostic criteria needs to be improved. This review concludes that, despite the currently available diagnostic classifications, future longitudinal studies should be conducted to assess the evolution of reactive attachment disorder over the time and to discriminate its features from other psychopathologies

Gli stati della mente rispetto all’attaccamento al caregiver e al partner di coppie nell’assessment preadottivo

Riassunto. In linea con gli studi che hanno rilevato l’importanza della sicurezza dei modelli di attaccamento – al caregiver e al partner – nella genitorialità biologica, l’obiettivo dello studio è stato esplorare questi costrutti in coppie che hanno iniziato il percorso per diventare genitori tramite l’adozione. 39 coppie senza figli che desiderano adottare e 39 coppie di controllo, tra 35 a 45 anni, sono state valutate con l’Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) e con la Current Relationship Interview (CRI). I due gruppi non differiscono rispetto al modello di attaccamento al caregiver (AAI), mentre i futuri padri adottivi mostrano una prevalenza di classificazioni sicure rispetto al partner (CRI) a confronto con i padri non-adottivi. In generale, le coppie disponibili all’adozione mostrano una valorizzazione delle relazioni di attaccamento, che potrebbe rivelarsi importante per il successo nell’adozione

A long-term follow-up with late-adopted children and their adoptive mothers: attachment models and developmental outcomes during adolescence.

Introduction. Attachment theorists and researchers (Van den Dries et al., 2009) have suggested that the adoption of abandoned children would be a powerful factor of change their own Internal Working Models (IWMs). Negative experiences built IWMs in children pre-adoption life and enacted in the adoptive families. The adoption success seems to depend also on the quality of adoptive parenting which is strongly associated with a secure states of mind with respect to attachment (Steele et al., 2008). Method. Aim of this study is the empirical exploration of the development of attachment patterns in late-adopted children from the time of placement to adolescence, and the association with their maternal attachment models. We planned a longitudinal research design with three steps of data collection: time 1 (T1) at the beginning of placement, time 2 (T2) 6 months later and time 3 (T3) around 6/7 years after T2 during adolescence. Participants were 28 late-adopted children - aged 4 to 7 years old at time of adoption and 11 to 14 at T3 - and their 20 adoptive mothers. The following measures were administered to the late-adopted children: (T1) the Separation/Reunion Procedure (SRP-1, Main & Cassidy, 1988), (T2) the SRP-2 and the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST, Green et al., 2000), (T3) the Friend and Family Interview (FFI, Steele et al., 2009). The adoptive mothers were assessed with the AAI (Main et al., 2002) at T1 and T3. Results and discussion. The results presented an over-representation of insecure classifications of the SRP at T1 and a significant revision of them towards security at T2 (p = .002). Furthermore, the children showing this change, were predominantly placed with secure-autonomous adoptive mothers (p =.047). All these data would need to be confirmed at long-term follow-up at T3. These findings seem to suggest that late-placed children would be able to gradually revise their attachment pattern and the attachment security of their adoptive mothers would make it more likely to occur

Interaction between beta 1 and beta 2 adrenoceptors in the isolated guinea-pig trachea

The presence of \u3b21 and \u3b22 adrenoceptors is demonstrated in the guinea-pig tracheal smooth muscle and both receptors subserve the same function. The functional relationship between the two \u3b2-receptors in the quinea-pig trachea, which is difficult to explain, is discussed in relation to the capacity of \u3b21 receptors to take over their function, if the \u3b22 receptors are completely blocked