Artists-in-Residence Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

Disorganized Attachment in Infancy: A Review of the Phenomenon and Its Implications for Clinicians and Policy-Makers

Disorganized/Disoriented (D) attachment has seen widespread interest from policy makers, practitioners, and clinicians in recent years. However, some of this interest seems to have been based on some false assumptions that (1) attachment measures can be used as definitive assessments of the individual in forensic/child protection settings and that disorganized attachment (2) reliably indicates child maltreatment, (3) is a strong predictor of pathology, and (4) represents a fixed or static trait of the child, impervious to development or help. This paper summarizes the evidence showing that these four assumptions are false and misleading. The paper reviews what is known about disorganized infant attachment and clarifies the implications of the classification for clinical and welfare practice with children. In particular, the difference between disorganized attachment and attachment disorder is examined, and a strong case is made for the value of attachment theory for supportive work with families and for the development and evaluation of evidence-based caregiving interventions

‘A victim, and that’s all’: the construction of Meredith Kercher in the British national newspapers

What journalistic techniques are employed to construct a newsworthy female murder victim in the age of social media? Focusing on Meredith Kercher’s murder, this article examines how Kercher’s victim persona was fashioned by the British national press before the arrests of Amanda Knox and two others. Contrary to prevailing perspectives, we argue that the newsworthy murder victim is not necessarily an ideal victim. Murder victim status in a news story is a multi-facetted construction, contingent on whatever will magnify newsworthiness. The Kercher case is the first example of British journalists using the murder victim’s Facebook content as the primary news resource, adding “authenticity” to the text and images used, since it originated from the victim herself. The research findings illustrate how Kercher was sexualized through the application of misogynist victim-blaming templates used in the reporting of sex crimes. It was the degradation of her ideal victim status that drove the initial newsworthiness of the murder story