Antidote to Developmental Trauma: A Report on Findings from the “Adoption and Attachment Representations” Study

ABSTRACT

This paper is a summary of findings from the “Adoption and Attachment Representations” study which was a collaboration between the Anna Freud Centre, Great Ormond Street, and Coram that focused on the nature and development of parent and child attachment representations in an adoption context. The study began with Adult Attachment Interview assessments of both mothers and fathers who would go on to adopt a group of 58 previously maltreated children aged four to eight years. There was also a comparison group of 42 children, also aged four to eight years but who had been adopted in their infancy. The children were assessed early in their adoptive placement, with the Story Stem Assessment Profile in order to focus on their attachment representations along with a range of cognitive and psychological functioning assessments. The parents were interviewed using the Parent Development Interview to access their attachment representations of their children. These assessments were repeated one year and two years later with subsequent follow-ups in early adolescence and a recently completed phase in the adoptees’ adulthood. The study is unique in exploring aspects of intergenerational patterns of attachment in nonbiologically related parents and children in a longitudinal design. The findings suggest that parental attachment states of mind are associated with their children’s attachment representations and the “intervention” of adoption is powerful with “late placed” children adopting more secure themes in their story stem narratives over time while also retaining some less optimal features such as avoidance and disorganization. The paper makes links with previous developmental and psychoanalytic work in the field of adoption and explores the potential policy implications of the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• adoption
• maltreatment
• intergenerational patterns
• longitudinal study

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to the British Lottery Fund for funding of this phase.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Steele, M., Hodges, J., Kaniuk, J., Steele, H., Asquith, K., & Hillman, S. Forecasting outcomes in previously maltreated children: The use of the AAI in a longitudinal adoption study (2008). In H. Steele and M. Steele, (Eds.) “Clinical Applications of the Adult Attachment Interview.” New York: Guildford Press.

2. Steele, M., Hodges, J., Kaniuk, J., Steele, H., D’Agostino, D., Blom, I., Hillman, S., and Henderson, K. (2007). Intervening with Maltreated Children and their Adoptive Parents: Identifying Attachment Facilitating Behavior. In D. Oppenheim & D. Goldsmith (eds.) Clinical applications of attachment theory. New York: Guildford Press.

3. See Hillman, S., Lajmi, N., Steele, M., Hodges, J., Simmonds, J., & Kaniuk, J. (2023): Sibling Co-placement as a Protective Factor: A Mixed Method Study on the Impact of Sibling Placement on Adolescent Adoptees’ Emotional and Behavioral Development, Adoption Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/10926755.2023.2194296

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miriam Steele

Miriam Steele, PhD, is the Alfred J. and Monette C. Marrow Professor in Psychology at the New School For Social Research, New York, N.Y. Her research began with the study of “Intergenerational Patterns of Attachment” which embodied one of the first prospective longitudinal studies incorporating the Adult Attachment Interview and Strange Situation protocols. This work was important in initiating the concept of reflective functioning and providing empirical data to demonstrate the importance of parental states of mind in the social and emotional development of their children with a longitudinal focus on their development into adulthood. Her current projects include studies exploring attachment and body representations across a range of individuals including mother-child dyads and individuals with physical disabilities, studies of children in foster care and adoption, and child and adolescent global mental health. Miriam Steele is a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and works clinically in her private practice.

Jill Hodges

Jill Hodges, PhD, is a former Consultant Child Psychotherapist in the Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London. She is a trainer in the Story Stem Assessment Profile at the Anna Freud Centre. Jill has worked at the forefront of clinically informed research with “looked after children,” including seminal research collaborations with Barbara Tizard in studies of children in institutions with subsequent follow up studies. She is one of the principal investigators of the Coram/Anna Freud Centre/Great Ormond Street study of “Adoption and Attachment Representations.”

Saul Hillman

Saul Hillman, PhD, is an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London. He is a Senior Research Psychologist at the Anna Freud Centre and is involved both in coordinating research in postgraduate programmes at the Anna Freud Centre and developing research projects. He has a PhD from University College London and MSc in Child Development. He has been associated with the Anna Freud Centre for 20 years and during much of that time has been coordinator of postgraduate research on courses linked to University College London. Saul has been involved in a number of different research projects including a longitudinal Attachment and Adoption research project and further work in the field of attachment. He has been instrumental in developing the Story Stem Assessment Profile. Saul is involved in delivering the training to mental health practitioners. Saul also works clinically with adolescents and adults.

Jeanne Kaniuk

Jeanne Kaniuk was the Director of the Coram Adoption Service from 1980 to 2018. Coram is a leading Children’s Charity in the UK, and its Adoption Service places children in public care from backgrounds of adversity with adoptive families. The longitudinal research study which this paper relates to grew out of a need to better understand the factors impacting on outcomes and particularly the way attachments within adoptive families develop.