Factors of child attachment security
Parental mentalising is a parent's capacity to regard the child as a psychological agent. It is known as an important factor in predicting attachment security. To date, all constructs of parental mentalising are done through a verbal and reflective manner. This has been deemed limiting in terms of understanding how attachment security is shaped in children. EMBODIED ATTACHMENT was an EU-funded project focused on parental embodied mentalising (PEM). More specifically, it looked into behavioural and psychological markers such as culture, gender and attachment. During the first phase, which involved recruitment and administration of experiments, 100 families of 6-month-old infants took part in the study. Parents completed questionnaires and the physiological activity of the infants was measured. No incidents of distress were reported. This was followed by PEM training and coding, which involved a team of four research assistants. It lasted for three months and all the videotaped interactions were coded. The fellows were also trained on psycho-physiological measurement and analysis and on the measurement of adult attachment. A number of PhD candidates from universities in Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom attended the trainings, as did practitioners from Australia, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The work will make a positive contribution to European excellence and competitiveness.
Keywords
Child attachment, attachment security, parental mentalising, psychological agent
