TY  - SER
AU  - Granqvist, Pehr
AU  - Sroufe, L. Alan
AU  - Dozier, Mary
AU  - Hesse, Erik
AU  - Steele, Miriam
AU  - Duschinsky, Robbie
TI  - Disorganized attachment in infancy: a review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers
PY  - 2017///
PB  - Taylor & Francis, 
KW  - CHILD ABUSE
KW  - ATTACHMENT
KW  - CHILD PROTECTION
KW  - SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
N1  - Attachment & Human Development, 2017, 19(6): 534-558
N2  - 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.
KEYWORDS: Disorganized attachment, infancy, attachment-based interventions, maltreatment, attachment disorder

This review paper represents a broadly held consensus concerning what we currently understand about disorganized infant attachment and its implications across clinical and child welfare practices. Our hope is that this review will prove to be useful both in supporting best practice and in highlighting the gaps that occasionally surround the concept of attachment disorganization, particularly between basic theory and research on the one hand and their applications in clinical and child welfare practice on the other. (Authors' abstract). A summary of this article written by Robbie Duschinsky can be found on the Research in Practice blog. Record #5655
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2017.1354040
UR  - https://www.rip.org.uk/news-and-views/blog/using-the-disorganised-attachment-classification-in-child-protection/
ER  -