B. Guerrini Degl'Innocenti, A. Selvi, A. Valtancoli, A. Pazzagli - Vol. 6, Giugno 2000, num.2
Testo Immagini Bibliografia Summary Riassunto Indice
Trauma e modelli operativi interni:
implicazioni psicopatologiche della teoria dell'attaccamento
Trauma and internal working models: psychopathological
implications of attachment theory
B. Guerrini Degl'Innocenti, A. Selvi, A. Valtancoli, A. Pazzagli
Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche e Psichiatriche, Università di Firenze
Background and aim
In order to investigate how physical and sexual abuse by an attachment figure can influence the development of aspects of the personality linked to the representation of Self within significant relationships, we conducted a study using the Adult Attachment Interview on a sample of subjects exposed in the family setting to episodes of physical and sexual abuse; we compared this group to a control sample.
Method
The study was conducted on 47 subjects, of which 13 had experienced physical or sexual abuse in the age of development, and 34 control subjects, of which 14 subjects who had experienced major bereavement (i. e., relating to an attachment figure), but who had not experienced episodes of abuse (physical or sexual).
Results
We found in the group with abuse a higher number of subjects with an unresolved state of mind in comparison to the control group. Moreover, in the first group, almost all subjects show an insecure style of attachment, whith a significant difference with respect to the control sample.
Conclusions
Our data seem to support the hypothesis of an association between abuse during the age of development and a distortion of representational models relating to attachment which persists in adulthood, an alteration which does not seem to be limited to an incapacity to integrate the traumatic event into the context of a coherent narrative, which seems to occur in cases of precocious bereavement. This alteration affects globally the representational schemes linked to early experiences, to the point of assuming highly evident features like the overall breakdown of strategies for monitoring narration and reasoning, and thus of the internal working models.