Clinical Assessment of Attachment Patterns and Personality Disorder in Adolescents and Adults

The relevance of attachment theory and research for practice has become increasingly clear. The authors describe a series of studies with 3 aims: (a) to validate measures of attachment for use by clinicians with adolescents and adults, (b) to examine the relation between attachment and personality p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of consulting and clinical psychology 2006-12, Vol.74 (6), p.1065-1085
Main Authors: Westen, Drew, Nakash, Ora, Thomas, Cannon, Bradley, Rebekah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult
Adults
Attachment Behavior
Attachment style
Clinical assessment
Clinical Psychology
Comorbidity
Correlation
Factor Analysis
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Female
Human
Humans
Male
Meta Analysis
Middle Aged
Pathology
Personal relationships
Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data
Personality Disorders
Personality Disorders - diagnosis
Personality Disorders - epidemiology
Personality Disorders - psychology
Personality Disorders - therapy
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Personality Problems
Program Validation
Psychological Assessment
Psychology
Psychometrics
Psychometrics - statistics & numerical data
Psychotherapy
Questionnaires
Reactive Attachment Disorder - diagnosis
Reactive Attachment Disorder - epidemiology
Reactive Attachment Disorder - psychology
Reactive Attachment Disorder - therapy
Reproducibility of Results
Statistics as Topic
Teenagers
Theory
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Description
Summary:The relevance of attachment theory and research for practice has become increasingly clear. The authors describe a series of studies with 3 aims: (a) to validate measures of attachment for use by clinicians with adolescents and adults, (b) to examine the relation between attachment and personality pathology, and (c) to ascertain whether factor analysis can recover dimensions of attachment reflecting both interpersonal and narrative style. In 3 studies, experienced clinicians provided psychometric data using 1 of 4 attachment questionnaires (2 adolescent and 2 adult samples). Attachment dimensions predicted both personality pathology and developmental experiences in predictable ways. Factor analysis identified 4 dimensions that replicated across adolescent and adult samples on the basis of a combination of interpersonal and narrative indicators: secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and incoherent/disorganized.
ISSN:0022-006X
1939-2117
DOI:10.1037/0022-006X.74.6.1065