Terms

Question 1

abuse/neglect & impacts

Answer 1

insecure attachment, developmental delays, negative bias in appraisal system, affect dysregulation (w/ pathological self-soothing behaviors, slow to recover), reliance on interpersonal means of affect regulation. (ego psych=poor compromise formation, impulse control, ego function. object relations=primitive defenses, BL functioning, pathological internalized object relations. self psych=vulnerability to disorders of self, disintegration, disintegration products.

Question 2

accommodation

Answer 2

(post assimilation) (Piaget) A form of adaptation; changing existing schemas in light of new information. New schemas may also be created. We change our “internal schemas” in reaction to changes in the environment, e.g., infant adapts its perception/behavior when a new toy is introduced. [see ASSIMILATION]

Question 3

activation contour

Answer 3

(Stern) Patterned changes in arousal over time. They can be rushes of thought, feeling, or action and can be applied to any kind of behavior. The activation contour exists in an a-modal form and gives rise to vitality affects, e.g., a mother can soothe the infant by saying “there, there” with a louder tone at the beginning and then trailing off. She can also stroke the baby’s head in a similar fashion (more pressure at the beginning and then trail off). Thus, the infant would experience similar activation contours no matter which technique was used. “The two soothings would feel the same and would result in the same vitality affect experience” (Stern). This amodal experience helps the infant to experience the mother as a whole “soothing” mother instead of one mother that says “there, there” and one mother that strokes. Vitality affects=feelings that infant experiences that do not fit into our vocabulary, e.g., dance and music (p. 247) [see AMODAL MATCHING]

Question 4

affect attunement

Answer 4

Instead of just imitating her infant, the mother adds a new dimension to her interaction. She responds in a way that shows the infant that she feels what (s)he feels. A subcortical process that represents implicit knowledge (Hart, p. 305). Affect attunement also occurs in a good therapeutic relationship

Question 5

affect matching

Answer 5

The automatic induction of an affect in one person from hearing or seeing someone else’s affect display. In humans, this may be a biological tendency, e.g., “contagious crying”—a study found that infants cried when they heard taped sessions of their own distress cries. The contagious properties of the smile have also been demonstrated. Affect matching may be one of the underlying mechanisms behind affect attunement but it cannot account for the phenomenon of responding in different modes or with different forms of behavior, as is the case with affect attunement. [can occur cross-modally, e.g, child lets out happy squeal of delight and mother does a happy dance - see CROSS MODAL MATCHING and INTERSUBJECTIVITY]

Question 6

affect synchrony

Answer 6

The infant and the mother both learn to respond to the affects of the other in a manner that reflects the other’s affect, resulting in affect synchrony.

Question 7

aggressive attachment disorder

Answer 7

Child has a clear preference for an attachment figure, but comfort seeking is often interrupted by the child’s aggressive, angry outbursts directed toward the attachment figure or toward the self as a result of inconsistent attachment early on.

Question 8

Ainsworth

Answer 8

Contemporary of Bowlby; developed the “Strange Situation” Study, in which a child was left in a room with a stranger and their response when the mother reentered the room was measured and described their attachment style. There were three developed by Ainsworth and a fourth added by Main

Question 9

How many styles of attachment

Answer 9

The original 3 styles were: A-anxious/avoidant, B-secure, and C-anxious/resistant. A fourth attachment style (disorganized) was added by Main

Question 10

Styles of attachment

Answer 10

secure attachment: minimal distress when separated from caregiver; upon return of caregiver, child reattaches quickly and easily.
ambivalent attachment: (anxious-resistant) excessive distress when separated from caregiver; upon return of caregiver, child is very difficult to soothe. Acts ambivalent or angry. Child seeks proximity and then resists when contact made. (mothers may be inconsistent in their availability).
anxious/avoidant attachment: (Bowlby) no apparent preference between the caregiver and a stranger. Child is not distressed when caregiver leaves the room, nor is the child interested when the caregiver reenters the room. (mothers may be distant and rejecting)
disorganized-insecure attachment: (Main) child fails to demonstrate a clear attachment style. These children often show mixed behaviors including avoidance or resistance (Main and Hesse argued that this seems to occur when the parent is both a figure of fear and a source of reassurance - precursor to borderline). Child can act dazed and confused. May cry for caregiver then move away when picked up. (mothers may act disoriented themselves or act in frightening ways).

Question 11

alert inactivity

Answer 11

(Stern) A state in which the infant is physically quiet and alert and apparently is taking in information from external events.

Question 12

ambivalence

Answer 12

(Kernberg) The simultaneous existence of strong opposing feelings, such as love and hate, felt for the same person or object, e.g., the mother’s breast. [see OBJECT CONSTANCY]

Question 13

amodal perception

Answer 13

n infants, the appearance of an innate capacity to take information received in one sensory modality and translate it into another sensory modality. Most likely the information does not belong to any one particular sensory mode (hearing, seeing, etc.) but instead transcends mode or channel and exists in some unknown supra-modal form.
E.g., infant hears mother’s voice and is soothed by shifting the auditory (hearing of mother’s voice) to a visual representation of the mother.

Question 14

amygdala and fear

Answer 14

Schore theorizes that two major brain systems contribute to the processes of attachment; the right hemisphere and the orbitofrontal region in the right hemisphere, as well as associated subcortical regions, in particular the limbic system, which specializes in processing fear. The amygdala is part of the limbic system and responds to external stimuli and modulates autonomic and arousal systems. This system is responsible for appraising the salience of a stressor and then initiating and organizing a psychobiological response through its extensive connection to the autonomic nervous system  fight/flight response
According to Schore, caregivers neglect or maltreatment of a child results initially in a fear response mediated by the amygdale and sympathetic nervous system. However in the second stage, the child disengages from the stimuli of the external world and this response is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system.

Question 15

assimilation

Answer 15

(Piaget) A form of adaptation; take in new information to a previously-existing schema. Modify new information to fit with preexisting beliefs, e.g., child sees dog and labels it “dog”, thus assimilating it into her dog schema. [see ACCOMMODATION]

Question 16

attachment – social releaser of maternal behavior

Answer 16

(Bowlby) Infants have an inborn tendency to engage with the mother - the baby’s engagement triggers maternal instincts and care and thus the formation of attachment. The infant’s instinct to engage is a way to maintain control over proximity to a caregiver - can see this from about age 1-3. Stern: the quality of relatedness is a life-span issue that relates to adult relationships as well.

Question 17

attachment behaviors of the child

Answer 17

A child’s behaviors that serve to enhance attachment. One major example is crying, which signals distress and attracts the attention of the mother. Through the interactions that ensue, the child is dopaminergically stimulated, soothed, and attachments are formed. Attachment is a way of talking about RIGs that have been formed.

Question 18

autistic phase

Answer 18

(Mahler) The idea that there is a period of “normal autism” in development. Stern: disagrees that this is normal. Argues that infants are deeply engaged in and related to social stimuli from the moment they are born. He argues that in autism there is a lack of interest in or avoidance of human stimuli, which is never the case with normal infants.

Question 19

Autobiographic memory

Answer 19

A deeper level of memory that is activated in the hippocampus through affect, and is not accessible through cortical regions. This is where RIGs exist, and exists as an important aspect of personality as it relates to how one thinks of him or herself and expectations one has of others.

Question 20

categorical affects:

Answer 20

(Stern) Basic affects (happy, sad, angry) which are experienced by the infant in response to amodal qualities. Heinz Werner argues that infants are not responding to perceptual qualities such as shape, intensity, and number; rather, they experience a type of “feeling perception,” such as those seen in categorical affects (sensations coupled with pleasurable/unpleasuarable feelings). This type of perception’s mechanism remains a mystery; however, Werner suggests that it arose from experience with the human face in all its emotional displays. It is associated, therefore, with the term, “physiognomic perception.” (Stern, p 53)

Question 21

chronic stress response

Answer 21

(Hart) associated with abuse or neglect - chronically elevated cortisol levels

Chronic stress in early developmental stages may either cause chronic stress activation or reduced emotionality, which leads to highly negative emotionality or passive avoidance behavior. In children with an insecure attachment pattern, the mother’s presence has not been as effective in regulating the stress response system as it has in children with a secure attachment. The reduced stress response activation appears to cause children to develop intense conflicts with his or her environment as the child becomes impulse governed and lacks empathy and understanding of his responses might affect others. (p.189)

Question 22

coherence in a narrative

Answer 22

Main’s adult attachment interview is meant to assess attachment of adults in regards to their family of origin. It is a series of questions about childhood and the relationship with the parents. When adults have secure attachments to their families they will have detailed memories about their childhood, will have a balanced perspective and narrative coherency when telling stories. When the attachment is not secure, the narratives about the families will be inconsistent and will lack specific details, or the person may change stories in midstream to avoid painful affect.

Question 23

cohesiveness of the self

Answer 23

(Kohut) We feel more cohesive if we can eliminate anxiety. Tension is between mirroring and idealizing – what results is a healthy sense of self and healthy ambition and values. Cohesiveness is threatened in the absence of mirroring and idealizing. [see SELF OBJECT FUNCTIONS]

Question 24

conservation/withdrawal

Answer 24

A parasympathetic regulatory strategy that occurs in helpless and hopeless stressful situations in which the individual becomes inhibited, and strives to avoid attention in order to become “unseen.” This state is a primary regulatory process, used throughout the lifespan, in which the stressed individual passively disengages to conserve energy. It is the parasympathetic mechanism that mediates the profound detachment of dissociation. [see SHAME]

Question 25

constructionist view

Answer 25

The infant experience constitutes multiple processes including: assimilation, accommodation, identifying invariants (probable responses to new stimuli), and associational learning. An infant first detects separate features of a person: size, motion, vertical lines and then integrates them until a whole form is constructed.

Question 26

core relatedness

Answer 26

(Stern) - A developmental transformation or creation that occurs somewhere between the second and sixth months of life. This is when infants sense that they and the mother are quite different agents, have distinct affective experiences, and have separate histories. This occurs outside of awareness and without being rendered verbally and cannot be described (p.27)