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Crittenden's Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation

Article in Review of General Psychology · September 2013

DOI: 10.1037/a0032102

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 Review of General Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association
2013, Vol. 17, No. 3, 326 –338 1089-2680/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032102

Crittenden’s Dynamic–Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation

Sophie Landa Robbie Duschinsky

Newcastle University Northumbria University

This article undertakes a systematic exposition and analysis of Patricia Crittenden’s dynamic–
maturational model of attachment and adaptation. It traces Crittenden’s information-processing model of
attachment behavior to her work with Mary Ainsworth, and shows how this account came to underpin
her integration of insights from cognitive science with developmental psychology. The article draws
surprising conclusions regarding the differences between the dynamic-maturational model and main-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

stream attachment theory, clarifying the meaning of contested concepts and identifying important flaws
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

in previous interpretations of Crittenden’s work.

Keywords: attachment, Crittenden, dynamic–maturational model, information processing, trauma

Mary Main and Patricia Crittenden were both students of Mary chological theory, informing clinical and social interventions as
Ainsworth. Their graduate study occurred almost exactly a decade well as research. In part, we suspect that attempts at neutral survey
apart: Main was with Ainsworth at The Johns Hopkins University or comparison have been stalled by the contention between the
from 1968 to 1973, whereas Crittenden was at The University of attachment paradigms. Another contributory to the lack of com-
Virginia from 1979 to 1983 (Landa & Duschinsky, in press). The mentary on the dynamic–maturational model has been that the
addition by Main and colleagues of the “disorganized/disoriented” theory is elaborated across an enormous number of widely diffused
classification of attachment to Ainsworth’s three-category system texts. Wilkinson (2012), for example, claims that there is urgent
has become widely accepted, especially over the past 15 years. need for a review of the dynamic–maturational model, but feels
Solomon and George (2011, p. 3) have described how the con- that Crittenden’s dispersed arguments make it difficult to identify
struct of disorganization “amounts to a paradigm shift” in attach- her position on key issues such as the meaning and consequences
ment research and “is now well integrated into the lexicon of of trauma. Our response to this issue has been to collect and draw
clinicians, especially those involved in providing infant mental upon every text Crittenden has put in the public domain across her
health.” Yet Crittenden’s dynamic–maturational model of attach- career, considering both the development of her ideas over time
ment and adaptation has emerged as a competing paradigm and has and the intellectual infrastructure that has animated and organized
been met with some excitement, especially among health and her approach. We therefore present an original account of the
social care professionals in Europe. Crittenden has been described divisions that led to the emergence of the dynamic–maturational
as “a radical and a pioneer, and academically speaking very model and the first integrated analysis of Crittenden’s work as a
courageous” (Vetere, 2004), and Pocock (2010, p. 305) has en- psychological theory. However, because we are not trained in the
thused that “the Dynamic- Maturational Model (DMM) is beauti- assessment measures developed by Crittenden or their alternatives
ful.” Milan, Snow, and Belay (2009, p. 1031) have wondered from within mainstream attachment theory, we will not address
whether, compared with mainstream attachment theory, “Crit- their respective utility in this article (see Farnfield et al., 2010;
tenden’s system may be better suited to studies of clinical phe- Spieker & Crittenden, 2010).
nomena, such as depression, because of the conceptual model from We shall argue that the core of the dynamic–maturational model
which it was developed.” as a research program is the information-processing model. This
Yet despite repeated calls for exposition and analysis of the was first developed in Crittenden’s doctoral research under Mary
dynamic–maturational model, identifying its differences from Ainsworth in the early 1980s, to explain anomalous infant behav-
mainstream attachment theory (e.g., Robson & Wetherell, 2011; ior in the “Strange Situation Procedure.” We shall therefore begin
Schuengel, 2001), to date, no article undertaking this work has our review by identifying how this model led to disagreements
emerged. This gap is surprising and significant, given that the with Main about the meaning of such anomalous behavior, and
dynamic–maturational model is seeing widespread use as a psy- hence the cognitive and behavioral processes and consequences of
child maltreatment. We draw on Ainsworth’s unpublished letters
to Bowlby, available in the Wellcome Trust Archive (London,
United Kingdom), to clarify the theoretical stakes of these dis-
Sophie Landa, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, New-
agreements. The argument between Main and Crittenden is widely
castle upon Tyne, United Kingdom; Robbie Duschinsky, Department of
Social Work and Communities, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon
and incorrectly believed to lie in Crittenden’s rejection of the idea
Tyne, United Kingdom. of attachment “disorganization” in infants. In the place of “disor-
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sophie ganization,” Crittenden is understood to instead consider infants
Landa, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon displaying such behaviors to be showing “organized” combina-
Tyne, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected] tions of avoidant and resistant attachment strategies (e.g., Van

326
 THE DYNAMIC-MATURATIONAL MODEL 327

IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). In fact, the activation of the attachment system when an infant is anxious
we show that the divergence is better understood to lie in the appeared to be an innate psychophysiological mechanism. On the
different meanings Main and Crittenden give to the concepts of other hand, this finding implied that the quality of the attachment
“attachment organization” and “adaptation.” behavior elicited by this anxiety differed in systematic ways as a
Crittenden’s information-processing model is quickened as a function of the infant’s caregiving environment. A second recur-
psychological theory by her integration of insights from cognitive ring finding that confronted Ainsworth’s students, however, was
science and developmental psychology regarding the role of dif- that not all infants could be classified using Ainsworth et al.,
ferent memory systems and maturation on information processing. (1978) protocols for classifying infant behavior in a strange situ-
The range of topics that have been addressed by Crittenden and ation. This was especially the case with children from maltreat-
other researchers affiliated with her International Association for ment samples, but it also occurred in samples of infants from
the Study of Attachment (2012) is vast. We will consider two in middle-class homes.
the remainder of the article. First, as an illustration of the acuity Ainsworth’s first doctoral student, Sylvia Bell, observed cases
of the dynamic–maturational model, we will examine Crittenden’s in which the infant showed “signs of disturbance, such as inap-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

insights into the behavior and information processing of maltreat- propriate, stereotyped, repetitive gestures or motions. He may
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

ing parents. Second, we will consider the account of trauma show some resistance to his mother, and indeed he may avoid her
presented by Crittenden, for the interlinked reasons that there have by drawing back from her or averting his face when held by her”
been calls for clarification on this topic, it brings into relief key (Ainsworth et al., 1978, p. 62). Ainsworth advised Bell to code
differences between Main and Crittenden, and it has been an area such infants as a subtype of the Type B (secure) pattern. Ain-
of recent conceptual innovation. Our review will close by discuss- sworth’s second doctoral student, Main, also found several infants
ing concerns that have been raised regarding the evidence base and who showed unclassifiable behaviors, including “hand-flapping;
exhaustiveness of Crittenden’s account of behavioral strategies, echolalia; inappropriate affect; and other behaviors appearing out
which are perceived to limit the persuasiveness and effectiveness of context” (Main, 1977, p. 70). In particular, several infants
of some aspects of the dynamic–maturational model. Although showed reunion behavior that combined an attempt to approach the
partially accepting these concerns, we shall show how they do not caregiver with signs of fear and avoidance. Main relates that, from
invalidate Crittenden’s work as an exciting and sometimes graduate school, she “had already been intrigued by odd-appearing
uniquely insightful contribution to psychological theory. behaviors of animals in conflict situations and—after observing
one ‘unclassifiable’ infant in her doctoral study fling her arms
Disorganization about her head while in an anomalous position on parent en-
trance—Main continued to pursue the problem of ‘unclassifiable’
To understand the forces that have animated and organized the infants in this light” (Main, Hesse, & Hesse, 2011, p. 435). On
dynamic–maturational model, it must be understood that two in- February 1, 1974, Ainsworth wrote to Bowlby,
escapable and surprising findings confronted Mary Ainsworth’s
doctoral students. The first was that Ainsworth’s ABC classifica- We have found plenty of evidence that the mothers of A babies dislike
tion of infant behavior in the Strange Situation Procedure appeared physical contact, and that it is through behavior relevant to physical
contact that they (at least in large part) express rejection. Mary’s
to account for the overwhelming majority of middle-class infants.
theory is that this puts babies in a double bind, for they are pro-
The Strange Situation Procedure was first used by Ainsworth and
grammed to want contact and yet are rebuffed (or at least have
Wittig (1969) to assess individual differences in the responses of unpleasant experiences) when they seek it. Mary’s hypothesis is that
56 middle-class nonclinical infants aged 11 months to the depar- the avoidance (detachment-like) defensive behavior characteristic of
ture of a caregiver. Infants classified as “secure” (Type B) used the A babies stems from the double-bind (Ainsworth, 1974).
caregiver as a safe base from which to explore, protested at their
departure, but sought the caregiver upon his or her return. Infants During these years of Main’s doctoral work, Ainsworth (1972)
classified as anxious–avoidant (Type A) did not exhibit distress on deployed a technical definition of attachment “organization” as
separation and ignored the caregiver on their return. Separation of behaviors oriented toward proximity with the caregiver when the
an infant from her caregiver was theorized by Bowlby (1960) to attachment system is activated by anxiety. Following this empha-
necessarily evoke anxiety as a reaction hardwired by evolution, as sis, Main focused on physical proximity with the caregiver as the
the infant cannot survive without the caregiver. Hence, the appar- set-goal of the activated attachment system (Main, 1977). Based
ently unruffled behavior of the Type A infants was understood by on this assumption, Main (1977) proposed that avoidance serves
Ainsworth as a mask for distress, a point later evidenced through proximity in two ways: It keeps the caregiver relatively near
studies of heart rate (Sroufe & Waters, 1977). Infants classified as without alienating him or her through approach behavior; it helps
anxious–ambivalent/resistant (Type C) showed distress on separa- the infant “gain control over, that is, flexibility in his own behav-
tion, and were clingy and difficult to comfort on the caregiver’s ior, a thing he will not have should he . . .break into disorganised
return. distress” (p. 55). As such, Type A behavior is “a search for control
A set of protocols for classifying infants into one of these groups when disorganisation threatens” (Main, 1981, p. 685).
was established by Ainsworth’s influential Patterns of Attachment Yet Main began to note that avoidant infants can at least direct
(Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Main (1990), Crit- their attention away from the conflicting demands of the attach-
tenden (1995, p. 368), and other students of Ainsworth were ment system to both approach and flee from the caregiver. By
therefore brought to ask, “Why are there only three patterns of contrast, other infants appeared so overcome by this conflict that
attachment when mothers are highly varied?” The fact that these they could not develop any coherent strategy for achieving prox-
three patterns appeared so widely suggested that, on the one hand, imity with their caregiver in the strange situation. Hence Main
 328 LANDA AND DUSCHINSKY

began to reconceptualize cases in which the infant would approach as excluding “some classes of information” relevant to “the acti-
the caregiver with their head averted, not as an extreme form of vation of the attachment system” (p. 18), and proposed that both A
avoidance but as an effect of behavioral breakdown: a “disorga- and C behaviors should be seen as strategies for maintaining the
nized” attachment pattern. This new attachment pattern included a availability of the caregiver by “interfering with one’s ability to
variety of behaviors, including freezing, rocking, disorientation, process different kinds of information” (p. 18). For example, some
crying at the departure of the stranger, and showing confusion or of Crittenden’s sample, particularly as they approached 18 months,
fear on the return of the caregiver. These behaviors did not need to appeared to display false positive affect in the Strange Situation
last more than a moment to be an indicator of disorganized/ Procedure. Although they “tended to be difficult with their mothers
disoriented attachment, and an infant could be placed in the clas- until about 1 and a half years of age” (Crittenden, 1992b, p. 339),
sification if they scored 5 or more on a 9-point scale of such by 18 months, Crittenden (1983) observed that these children were
behaviors (Main & Solomon, 1986, 1990).
unusually accommodating and can only be classified as cooperative.
These babies pose some very interesting questions. Why are these
The Effects of Maltreatment
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children cooperative when their experience with their mother should

provoke a passive or difficult response? And why do so many of them
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Ainsworth was initially skeptical of Main’s introduction of the

seem concurrently ill at ease? (p. 66)
“D” classification, wondering whether it was partly operating as a
residual category (Landa & Duschinsky, in press). Yet Ainsworth Subsequent scholars arguing both for and against the dynamic–
came to be “impressed with the need for adding a new ‘D’ or maturational model have generally presumed that Crittenden re-
disorganised category to the classification system” (Ainsworth, jected the “disorganized” pattern and instead proposed that such
1985a). As she learned about Main’s theories and assessment infants were displaying extreme forms of “organized” A and C
measures over the course of 1985, Ainsworth remarked to Bowlby, behavior (e.g., Holmes, 2004; Holmes & Chimera, 2010; Van
“You were right that I am in a sense a student of Mary Main’s” IJzendoorn et al., 1999). Yet it is important to note that between
(Ainsworth, 1985b). Yet as well as being impressed by Main’s the 1970s and 1980s, Ainsworth had changed the meaning she was
evidence for the need for a “D” classification, in 1985, Ainsworth giving the term “organized” (Landa & Duschinsky, in press). She
was also giving support to Crittenden’s “excellent research on
still maintained that proximity may be the set goal of attachment at
maltreated children” (Ainsworth, 1985c, p. 788), despite the fact
11 months. However, her correspondence with Bowlby led to the
that Main and Crittenden were already generating quite different
conclusion that this proximity seeking is a special case of the more
interpretations of the effect of adverse conditions on attachment
general goal of the attachment system, which is to maintain the
behavior.
availability of the caregiver. Citing these letters, Ainsworth (1990,
In 1979, the same year that Crittenden began her graduate
p. 474) would write that “Bowlby (personal communication, 1987)
studies, Ainsworth returned from a trip to England with some of
holds that ‘availability of the attachment figure is the set-goal of
the early chapters from Bowlby’s forthcoming book Loss, pub-
the attachment system in older children and adults.’”
lished in 1980. She announced to her students, “Here is chapter 4
Ainsworth, therefore, in this period, changed her usage of the
of the Bible” (Crittenden, 2012). This Chapter 4 was Bowlby’s
term “organization” to mean behavior that, under conditions of
account of information processing, and it formed the bedrock of
Crittenden’s subsequent thinking. In this chapter, Bowlby (1980) perceived threat and the activation of the attachment system, is
argued that, “given certain adverse circumstances during child- oriented toward maintaining the availability of the attachment
hood, the selective exclusion of information of certain sorts may be figure. Crittenden followed Ainsworth in this changed usage,
adaptive. Yet, when during adolescence and adult the situation applying it also to infancy. Whereas Main saw physical proximity
changes, the persistent exclusion of the same forms of information as the set goal of the attachment system, and hence behavior
may become maladaptive” (p. 45). Though otherwise tending to be oriented toward proximity as “organized,” Crittenden took the
hostile toward what he saw as the imprecision of Kleinian con- availability of the caregiver as the set goal of the attachment
cepts, Bowlby (1980, p. 68) identified that Melanie Klein’s con- system when activated by the perception of threat, even in infancy.
cept of “splitting” could helpfully identify the way in which Although attachment behaviors would not necessary always suc-
motivational dispositions, feelings, and memories could also suffer ceed, Crittenden theorized that the behaviors instigated by the
exclusion as an adaptive response to adverse circumstances. The attachment system would aim, when possible, to maintain the
result would be that particular behavioral systems, and their asso- availability of the attachment figure as a source of protection. Only
ciated motivational dispositions, feelings, and memories, could be those that could not be seen as aiming at this possibility were
“segregated” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 59). For instance, Bowlby ob- regarded by Crittenden as “disorganized.”
served that a child or adult might keep their anger at someone they This conclusion was also shaped by differing accounts of the
depend upon away from consciousness, and find it expressed out term “adaptation.” Main’s (1979) had restricted the term “adap-
of context under calmer circumstances. tive” to explanations of why behavioral systems might have
Crittenden’s dissertation, submitted in May 1983, was a study of evolved for a species. Main emphasized proximity-seeking behav-
73 infants and toddlers. Most of this sample had experienced ior as adaptive for humans in potentially dangerous situations.
severe maltreatment. Like Ainsworth’s previous doctoral students, Behavioral breakdown at the level of an individual infant, although
Crittenden (1983) found that “not all infants can be placed easily it might indeed have some beneficial effects, was not perceived by
into the three categories described above” (pp. 14 –15). Drawing Main to not be an expression of a species-level adaptation to
inspiration from Bowlby’s chapter on information processing, achieve proximity in conditions of perceived threat. Crittenden, by
Crittenden proposed that the A and C responses could be regarded contrast, used the term “adaptation” as a heuristic for interpreting
 THE DYNAMIC-MATURATIONAL MODEL 329

what function a behavior may have for maintaining the caregiver’s “with extreme threat, everyone panics or freezes. Moderate threat
availability. best displays the strategy” (Crittenden, 2008a, p. 277). Both the-
To illustrate this difference between Main and Crittenden: one orists believe that not all maltreated infants show a lack of a
of the “direct indices of disorganised attachment” for Main and coherent strategy in the Strange Situation Procedure—though
Solomon (1990, p. 139) was an infant’s hand-to-mouth gesture on many do momentarily and sometimes as an enduring response.
reunion with the parent. This act was understood by Main and Both Main and Crittenden have argued that nonstrategic behavior
Solomon to signal behavioral breakdown under conditions of can be caused by multiple factors, though it is true that, since the
experienced fearful confusion, as it did not serve to facilitate the 1990s, Main has particularly emphasized frightening or dissocia-
proximity expected of attachment behavior. By contrast, Crit- tive parental behavior as “one highly specific and sufficient, but
tenden’s perspective would conceptualize a child using the hand- not necessary, pathway to D attachment status” (Hesse & Main,
to-mouth behavior to stifle a cry of distress as an adaptation to a 2006, pp. 310 –311). Rather, the actual difference between the two
rejecting or insensitive caregiving environment. It could then be theories lies in the fact that Crittenden’s focus on availability,
understood as a more extreme form of Type A behavior than noted rather than proximity, as the set goal of the attachment system
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in the Ainsworth et al. (1978) coding protocols. Hence, those using leads her to identify intensified patterns of Type A and Type C
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the dynamic–maturational model have perceived such hand-to- information processing in cases where Main perceived behavioral
mouth behavior to stifle a scream as “organized” because, in such breakdown. This led to a divergence in the interpretation of Type
cases, the child can be understood as working to maintain the C behavior in infancy, the significance of which cannot be over-
availability of their attachment figure through an act of self- estimated in understanding the split between paradigms and the
regulation, which constricts negative affect (e.g., Svanberg, 2009, emergence of the dynamic–maturational model.
p. 105). Main’s focus was on finding coherent strategies for proximity
Hence whereas Main saw combinations of A and C behavior as seeking as the criterion for “organization.” Main (1981, p. 681)
“disorganized,” because they appeared to evidence behavioral theorized, therefore, that “behavior can be called disorganised
breakdown instead of a coherent strategy for seeking proximity, when it vacillates between opposites without reference to changes
Crittenden considered such combinations “organized” “adapta- in the environment” and that it “appears in infants reunited with
tions,” as a result of her different definition of both terms. Crit- their mothers while still in the stages of protest or despair and in
tenden noted that abused and neglected cases tended to “show an the ambivalent infants in the Strange Situation.” Hence, the be-
A/C pattern as do a few who are only abused and also a few who havior of many infants that the Ainsworth et al. (1978) protocols
only neglected” (1983, p. 71): The combination of frightening and might have classified as C tended to be understood by Main
inconsistent caregiving makes both avoidant and clingy behaviors through the concept of “disorganization.” Looking back, Main,
adaptive for these children as they attempt to maintain their care- Hesse, and Kaplan (2005, p. 259) reflect that
giver’s availability. Yet Crittenden certainly did not argue that all
infants who fell outside the Ainsworth et al. (1978) patterns would following the advent of the disorganized infant attachment category
necessarily be A/C. For example, Crittenden (1983) notes that one . . . the ambivalent category and its adult equivalent, insecure-
abused infant was classed as B by her undergraduate coders preoccupied, have become rare. This is because many individuals
because her strange situation behavior was “without either avoid- previously classified as insecure-ambivalent in infancy or preoccupied
ance or ambivalence, she did show stress-related stereotypic head- in adulthood have been found to be disorganized.
cocking throughout the strange situation. This pervasive behavior,
Crittenden, however, had both a wider and different concept of
however, was the only clue to the extent of her stress” (p. 75).
“organized” behavior. She was therefore brought to ask, “Through
Main and Solomon (1990, p. 143) themselves acknowledge that
what process could these ambivalent/resistant attachment behav-
Crittenden was the first to identify these headcocking forms of
iors be serving to maintain the availability of the caregiver?”
strange situation behavior, which all agree is not a strategic be-
Addressing this question, as we shall now see, would lead Crit-
havior but an “indicator of stress.” To take another example of
tenden to interpret the difference between Type A and Type C as
nonstrategic behavior, Crittenden (1997a) noted that for the chil-
reflecting the fact that the basic components of human experience
dren of some “unipolar depressed and neglecting parents, nothing
of danger are two different kinds of information.
that the children do changes the probabilities of their parents’
behavior. These children appear to use scraps of the strategies in a
self-soothing strategy” (p. 60). Information Processing
This review now places us in a position to clarify the distinction
between the paradigms. Social workers in particular have purveyed Despite the fact that Main and Crittenden differed in their
a mischaracterization of the “disorganized/disoriented” pattern, interpretation of behaviors discrepant to Ainsworth et al.’s (1978)
which Main calls “widespread” and “dangerous,” which takes her classificatory protocols, Ainsworth supported work in both para-
to believe that maltreatment will always be associated with behav- digms. Even while serving as Main’s research assistant on a
ioral breakdown in an infant’s behavior in the Strange Situation project to evidence the association between a parent’s experience
Procedure and vice versa (Main et al., 2011, p. 441). Crittenden of unresolved loss and “D” behaviors in their infant (see Ain-
has likewise suffered a widespread and deep mischaracterization sworth & Eichberg, 1991), Ainsworth was urging Bowlby to listen,
that suggests that the perception of threat will always cause a child in person, to Crittenden’s intriguing and audacious theorizing
to adopt an A, B, C, or A/C attachment strategy (McMahon & about information processing. Following Crittenden’s visit to see
Ward, 2001, p. 61, is an exception). A close examination of both Bowlby in London, Ainsworth wrote that she was pleased “that
paradigms indicates that Main and Crittenden agree on the fact that you had the opportunity to hear about her ideas. I myself think she
 330 LANDA AND DUSCHINSKY

is top-notch, and is making an important contribution” (Ainsworth, attachment system is therefore idling (Crittenden, Partridge, &
1988). Claussen, 1991, p. 497).
By 1988, Crittenden had begun to go beyond Bowlby in con- Crittenden perceived Type C behavior as representing the op-
ceptualizing Type A and Type C attachment behaviors as the effect posite strategy. Type C strategies distort causal or other temporally
of different forms of information processing. Her starting point ordered knowledge about the potential for safety or danger. If
was the near universality of Types A, B, and C attachment behav- knowledge regarding the behaviors that indicate an attachment
ior, alongside the fact that behaviors discrepant to Ainsworth et figure’s availability as a secure haven is subject to segregation,
al.’s (1978) protocols were especially common in her maltreated then the infant can try to keep the attention of their caregiver
doctoral sample. Crittenden (1992c) worked from “a basic premise through clingy or aggressive behavior, or alternating combinations
of ethology—that universal behaviors often serve functions that of the two. Such behavior may increase the availability of an
promote survival” (p. 210). She proposed that the basic compo- attachment figure who otherwise displays inconsistent or mislead-
nents of human experience of danger are two kinds of information ing responses to the infant’s attachment behaviors, suggesting the
(see Strathearn, Fonagy, Amico, & Montague, 2009): unreliability of protection and safety. Type C behavior in the
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Strange Situation Procedure is interpreted by Crittenden as an

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

1. Affective information: the emotions provoked by the effect of this form of information processing. The state of affective
potential for danger, such as anger or fear. Crittenden arousal of the Type C infant is interpreted by Crittenden (1992a, p.
termed this “affective information.” In childhood, this 581) as distinct from, but by degrees continuous with, disorgani-
information would include emotions provoked by the zation— because the infant adopting this strategy is both “dis-
unexplained absence of an attachment figure. tressed and unable to process information” about the causality of
caregiver availability.
2. Causal or other sequentially ordered knowledge about the From 1988 to 1992, Crittenden worked on the development of
potential for safety or danger. (Crittenden termed this her Preschool Assessment of Attachment. From this close obser-
“cognitive information”). In childhood, this would in- vation of preschool-aged children, Crittenden (1992c, p. 221)
clude knowledge regarding the behaviors that indicate an added a further element to her theorization of Type A and Type C
attachment figure’s availability as a secure haven. behavior. She proposed that a child develops the neurological
maturity not only to deny negative emotions, as in infancy, but also
Crittenden proposes that both kinds of information can be split to display “false positive” emotions as a Type A strategy. Such
off from consciousness or behavioral expression as a “strategy” to false displays of emotion might include, for example, overbright
maintain the availability of an attachment figure. The term “strat- caregiving or solicitous behaviors toward the attachment figure. A
egy” is used by Crittenden (1992b) not in “the narrow sense of a child might display such behaviors with a withdrawn caregiver; the
cognitive plan, that is, a response to an articulated problem pre- strategic goal of such behavior would then be to try to ensure that
ceded by a conscious analysis of behavioral alternatives,” but as a the attachment figure remains engaged and therefore available as a
transformation of information regarding danger that occurs with- source of care and protection. Crittenden also added to her account
out conscious thought (p. 330). of Type C the observation that toddlers increasingly have the
Crittenden proposed that Type A strategies split off emotional neurological maturity to deploy disarming and/or aggressive be-
information about feeling threatened and Type C strategies split haviors as a strategy to coerce their caregiver. The caregiver is
off temporally sequenced knowledge about how and why the distrusted, and the self treated as wronged. Crittenden observes
attachment figure is available, whereas Type B strategies effec- that these coercive behaviors, although sometimes deployed by all
tively utilize both kinds of information without much distortion. preschoolers (the “terrible twos”), will particularly dominate the
We shall attend to each of these patterns of information processing behavior of children who experience their caregiver as otherwise
in turn. unpredictable or untrustworthy in their availability to answer the
Type A behavior in the Strange Situation Procedure is inter- child’s needs.
preted by Crittenden as an effect of a process of “splitting.” When Whereas Type A strategies split off negative affects and Type C
an infant is faced with insensitive or rejecting parenting, one strategies split off causal knowledge about how and why comfort
strategy for maintaining the availability of their attachment figure or abandonment occur, Type B strategies effectively utilize both
is to try to exclude from consciousness or from expressed behavior kinds of information without much transformation. Crittenden
any emotional information that might result in rejection. Under therefore calls the Type B strategy “balanced.” In the Strange
such conditions, emotional information is then termed by Crit- Situation, this strategy therefore implies protest on the caregiver’s
tenden “negative affects,” not because emotions like anger or fear unexpected departure, and the capacity to be comforted on his or
are “negative” in themselves but to highlight that the child splits her return without clinginess or aggression. Crittenden (1992c, p.
them off because they might be seen as “negative” by an attach- 230) proposes that as a child develops, however, the primacy of a
ment figure and thereby reduce their availability. Crittenden argues Type B strategy will also permit them to flexibly draw on Type A
that splitting off emotional information allows an infant facing and Type C strategies as the situation demands, but without com-
insensitive caregiving to simplify the complexity of the situation pulsion. Crittenden does not perceive Type A and Type C strate-
with the neurological means at their disposal: They avoid express- gies as in themselves problematic, so long as they are not misap-
ing “negative” emotions when they are anxious and, in doing so, plied through too general an application. For example, the
avoid antagonizing or alienating their attachment figure. However, individual “balanced” in terms of affect and cognition can both
the segregated affects may find expression within another behav- respond merely “fine” to being asked “how are you?” in the course
ioral system, such as play, when the infant is not anxious and the of a passing encounter, and also allow a close friend access to their
 THE DYNAMIC-MATURATIONAL MODEL 331

inner fears, aspirations, and reflections. Crittenden (1992a) con- the “example, ‘good children obey their parents’ (and,
cludes, therefore, that “these alternative styles of processing infor- therefore, are not punished)” (Crittenden, 1995, p. 383).
mation appear to match fairly well the secure, ambivalent, and Whereas procedural and imaged memory operate from
avoidant patterns of attachment identified in infancy by Ain- infancy, semantic memory first develops at around 18
sworth” (p. 581). months. Crittenden understands this memory system as
of primary importance for the development of accurate
Memory Systems knowledge about what and why attachment figures are
available or unavailable under conditions of perceived
After information processing, the next crucial component of the
threat.
dynamic–maturational model is memory. The reason for this is that
if human experience of danger is comprised of two kinds of 4. Episodic memory—integrates both causal and emotional
information, the ways in which we store and retrieve this infor- information about past events, making recollections
mation become crucially important. They not only will shape what available to an individual. It is, however, “biased to
information from the past is available to the acting subject but also
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reflect experiences that recall strong, unresolved feel-

will profoundly alter how new information is interpreted:
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ings” (Crittenden, 1997a, p. 79). Episodic memory be-

Storing information of different types (e.g., behavior sequences, gen- comes functional at about 3 years of age.
eralisations, episodes) creates the possibility of multiple perspectives
on reality. In a sense, the mind has available a multimethod experi- Crittenden (1995) noted that the A and C strategies of informa-
ment regarding the nature of reality. The experiment succeeds to the tion processing result in different access to these types of memory.
extent that discrepancies among memory systems are noticed, evalu- The utilization of Type A strategies encourages individuals to
ated and resolved. (Crittenden, 1992a, p. 579) privilege causal information about the availability of an attachment
figure and to split off emotional information. Crittenden therefore
The best of these multimethod experiments are available to argued that the mobilization of a Type A strategy by an individual
“balanced children” (Type B), who facilitates a prioritization of the storage and recall of semantic
automatically and preconsciously use new and discrepant information
memory— descriptions and prescriptions about how the world
to revise existing internal representational models to yield progres- should operate. (Crittenden occasionally implies that Type A strat-
sively more accurate models. Although, at any given moment, the egies may also facilitate the storage and recall of procedural
changes are likely to be minor and nondisruptive, the sum of this memory, in which this information is especially relevant to con-
activity is the ongoing reorganization. (Crittenden, 1995, p. 383) tingencies regarding the availability of safety or danger e.g., Crit-
tenden, 1992a, p. 291). Yet as well as privileging such causal
In deepening her analysis of the effects of the Type A and Type information, Type A strategies involve splitting off negative emo-
C distortions on information processing, Crittenden drew upon the tions, with the goal of maintaining the availability of protection.
work of Schacter and Tulving (1994) to distinguish between four As a result, therefore, the affective intensity of imaged and epi-
memory systems. Though Crittenden later attends to other memory sodic memories may mean that these are not stored or available for
systems as well, these four are the most significant for understand- recall. This produces the effect that psychodynamic theories con-
ing the effects of alternate forms of information processing. Two ceptualize as “repression,” though Crittenden qualified that some
are implicit forms of memory, primarily available preconsciously experiences may not have been stored in a retrievable way in the
to the acting individual; two are explicit forms of memory, avail- first place (Crittenden, 1997c, p. 51). With a reduced ability to
able consciously to the reflecting individual: access episodic or imaged memories, or integrate them with se-
mantic knowledge, the price of Type A strategies is that they
1. Procedural memory— contains information about pre-
reduce the ability of an individual to “provide true explanations for
conscious sensorimotor behaviors and the patterns of
their behavior” (Crittenden, 1995, p. 385).
stimuli that serve as cues for such behavior. Developed
By contrast, use of Type C strategies encourages individuals
and elaborated from infancy, this procedural knowledge
to privilege the storage and recall of imaged information and the
organizes most of our actions most of the time.
affective components of episodic information. However, they
2. Imaged memory— contains the sensory perceptions of exclude causal information and, as a result, their thought pro-
past experiences of affective arousal, especially those cesses and verbal descriptions of events tend to be messy and
relating to feelings of safety or danger. For example, unordered. Episodes they relate therefore tend to be ordered
imaged memory may encode the sound of the raised, primarily by affective associations, rather than in terms of
angry voices of one’s attachment figures in an argument, temporal succession or consequences. Hence, Crittenden (1995)
or it might encode tacit knowledge of the kinds of things observed that those who are dependent upon Type C strategies
that evoke disgust. In Crittenden’s account, imaged mem- can be observed as showing “a ‘lack of recall’ when asked
ory is therefore primarily a form of emotional informa- to provide (semantic) adjectives regarding their attachment
tion. relationships and when asked to access episodic memory
through these semantic adjectives. Once in episodic memory,
3. Semantic memory— contains generalized descriptions or however, there should be little evidence of failure to recall” (p.
predictions about how life works. Crittenden theorizes 386), though these attachment-related episodes will tend to lack
semantic memory as descriptive or predictive rules about temporal order as a result of the distortions of causal informa-
temporal sequences, stored in a verbal form. She gives tion enacted by the Type C strategy.
 332 LANDA AND DUSCHINSKY

Maturation behavior (mental and physical) become powerful influences on

behavior.” Further distortions of information processing that occur
Crittenden built upon not only Bowlby’s account of information in adolescence can therefore lead, for example, to dangerous
processing but also his insight that development is best conceptu- sexual entanglements as an individual excludes the negative
alized using the metaphor of “pathways.” This metaphor empha- emotions associated with such encounters (a Type A strategy).
sizes two points. The first is that a strategy is likely to change over Crittenden thus contrasts the developmental focus of her dynamic–
time as the child matures and circumstances change. As a result, “a maturational model of attachment and adaptation with the ap-
given pathway may continue straight or may branch in ways that proach of Main, which does not specifically integrate the potential
may lead to other pathways” (Crittenden, 1997b, p. 51). for sexuality and reproduction that develops during maturation.
This potential for change in strategic functioning, as a result of Crittenden also emphasizes that as information processing be-
maturation or changing circumstances, has two dimensions for comes more distorted, the strategy is applied more uniformly in
Crittenden. A first dimension is “reorganization.” On the basis of response to anxiety-provoking situations. The most distorted forms
her account of Type B as balanced between the alternate forms of of Type A or Type C transformation of perception and behavior
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information, and the potential at each stage of development for become increasingly generated and maintained by the self rather
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reorganization, Crittenden contests Main’s emphasis on continuity than strategic adaptations to circumstances (Crittenden et al., 1991,
in a Type B classification as necessarily optimal. Although main- p. 495). Yet no matter how intensely a strategy is deployed,
tenance of Type B from infancy to adulthood may well be the most Crittenden asserts that there is always the potential for “reorgani-
comfortable state, and may be associated with many positive zation”—a movement toward balanced (Type B) strategies. This
outcomes, the capacity to achieve an “earned” B status through would mean, as we have seen, both a reduction in the distortion of
reorganization has its own potential. From late childhood, and information and flexible access to Type A or Type C strategies as
particularly when an individual has been supported in learning to the situation warrants. To illustrate, a toddler may have come to
reflect, deliberate reorganization may occur through metacognitive depend upon a Type C strategy of tantrums in aiming to maintain
reflection on potential discrepancies between memory systems the availability of an attachment figure whose inconsistent avail-
(Crittenden & Poggioli, 2012, p. 395). In this way, the opportunity ability has led the child to distrust or distort causal information
is opened for noticing and correcting distortions in how we process about their apparent behavior. This may lead their attachment
or store our experiences. figure to get a clearer grasp on their needs and the appropriate
For instance, old relationships may change, and new relation- response to their attachment behaviors. Experiencing more reliable
ships occur throughout maturation and may be the basis for reor- and predictable information about the availability of their attach-
ganization if an attachment relationship is formed with this figure ment figure, the toddler then no longer needs to use coercive
or if they serve to facilitate or provoke reflection. Such a new behaviors with the goal of maintaining their caregiver’s availabil-
relationship may be with a clinician or other professional. Hence, ity. Instead, they can experience and utilize both or either emo-
“observing videotaped parent– child interactions with the parent tional and sequential information about potential dangers to inter-
and discussing these observations from the parent’s perspective pret their experiences.
can be a powerful means of creating communication between
procedural and semantic memory systems” (Crittenden, 1992a, p.
593). Or psychotherapy may reveal the continued role played in an Knowledge and Maltreatment
individual’s present by imaged or episodic memories of danger in With Crittenden’s information-processing model integrated with
childhood situations in which they were told by their attachment an account of the effects of maturation and her interpretation of
figures that they should experience comfort. Crittenden (1997a) Schacter and Tulving’s work on memory systems, we now have
identifies that metacognitive reflections on the self can lead to an the three core components of the dynamic–maturation model in
increase in the repertoire of strategies available to a person, and, in place. What can it do? Perhaps one of the most distinctive appli-
the process, can be the basis for wisdom and a tempered creativity cations of the dynamic–maturation model has been Crittenden’s
(p. 83). sustained effort to make sense of the experiences of maltreating
A second dimension of this potential for change is that infor- parents. In a remarkable study, Crittenden, Lang, Claussen, and
mation processing may become further distorted as neurological Partridge (2000) explored the semantic knowledge about caregiv-
development progresses or as experiences of inadequate caregiv- ing of abusing, neglecting, and adequate mothers. The research
ing continue or intensify. In particular, Crittenden emphasizes the found that abusing and adequate parents were found to have the
neurological changes associated with the change from infancy to same level of explicit knowledge about how to meet the needs of
preschool age and from school age to adolescence are periods of their child. By contrast, neglecting mothers were found to have
particular, predicable opportunities for change in an individual’s dramatically lower levels of parental reasoning. Furthermore, they
strategy. As we have seen, for example, the Type A strategy in found that “there were no effects for parenting intervention” on
infancy involves the exclusion of negative affects—as an adapta- parental reasoning or on the child’s attachment classification;
tion to a caregiving environment that is unresponsive to or reject- “although this is disappointing, the results of this study may
ing of the infant’s attachment behaviors. However, by preschool shed light on the problem. The mothers were all given the same
age, a child also has the neurological tools at their disposal to also parenting intervention, which consisted of information about
use false-positive affects, with the goal of maintaining the avail- child development and parenting strategies” (Crittenden et al.,
ability of the caregiver. Addressing adolescence as another impor- 2000, p. 233).
tant period of neurological change, Crittenden (1997a, pp. 54 –55) Crittenden’s integration of an account of memory systems and
proposed that “after puberty species-specific patterns of sexual developmental pathways into her foundational information-
 THE DYNAMIC-MATURATIONAL MODEL 333

processing model offers predictions about the role played by A second mechanism potentially causing behavior to run coun-
distortions of information in causing harmful behavior. She con- ter to semantic descriptions and prescriptions of how one should
cludes that the abusing parents are not accessing their semantic act is intensive use of Type C strategies. The Type C strategy
memories containing descriptions and prescriptions of how to care facilitates an individual to omit semantic information about the
for their children when engaged in caregiving. Instead, “the be- temporal sequences and, in doing so, to experience exaggerated
havior of the abusing mothers appears to be affectively triggered feelings of anger and/or fear. In adulthood, Crittenden theorizes
through imaged and episodic representations of previous affec- that the strategies are concerned not only with self-preservation but
tively similar experiences” (Crittenden, 2000, p. 230). By contrast, the protection of offspring from potential threats. However, the
the behavior of the neglecting parents is understood by Crittenden distortion of information processing associated with this strategy
(1993) as caused by “preconscious exclusion from perception of can cause an individual to unduly interpret the behaviors of their
information that elicits affect” (p. 33), which may further cause offspring as threatening. Hence, applied as an approach to parent-
these parents not to perceive or act upon their semantic informa- ing, a Type C strategy may lead an adult to false reasoning about
tion regarding caregiving. One reason for this may be “depres- the meaning of their child’s behaviors. For example, an infant’s
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sion,” a term that Crittenden means in the technical sense of a cries may be interpreted as deliberate attempts to annoy the care-
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“failure of the strategy to resolve to problems to which the strategy giver. These interpretations may be intensified by the unpredict-
is applied, combined with . . . awareness of this” (Crittenden, able upsurges in “invulnerable feelings (anger) or the vulnerable
1995, p. 398; Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 257). ones (fear and desire for comfort)” (Crittenden, 2008a, p. 210)
Hence, increasing the knowledge of either the abusing or the characteristic of a Type C strategy, in which one affect or the other
neglecting parents about child development therefore has no effect, has been split off (see Hautamäki, Hautamäki, Neuvonen, &
for different reasons, on the likelihood of abusing and neglecting Maliniemi-Piispanen, 2010).
behaviors. The striking implication is that “many parents and A third mechanism that can cause behaviors that run counter to
almost all troubled parents will be unable to tell accurately why semantic knowledge is the intensive use of Type A strategies. As
they did what they did when they did it” and that “therefore, it will
we have seen, Crittenden built her information-processing model
usually be futile—and often be misleading—to ask the parent
on the foundations laid by Bowlby’s (1980) account of “segregated
directly why they did what they did” (Crittenden, 2008a, p. 124).
systems.” Bowlby predicted that motivational dispositions, feel-
The dynamic–maturational model offers three mechanisms that
ings, and memories could be “segregated” if they were understood
explain the fact that individuals may act upon information from
to interfere with the likelihood of being protected. Although kept
other memory systems that in fact run counter to their own se-
from consciousness or expression in behavior under situations of
mantic descriptive and prescriptive knowledge of themselves and
anxiety, these split-off elements could reappear another time when
their lives.
evoked by some aspect of the situation. Anger evoked by rejection
The first can occur with individuals utilizing either Type A or
by an attachment figure when a child feels potentially threatened
Type C strategies. Crittenden notes that anxiety can short-circuit
and is anxious may, on another occasion, be expressed at a play-
information processing. In doing so, she argues against a tendency
mate or sibling. When these occur without the individual’s voli-
within some branches of attachment research to treat an individ-
ual’s representational models “as ‘things’ that a person ‘has’ and tion, such out-of-place reappearances of affects or dispositions to
that ‘contain’ information” (Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 64). act are termed by Crittenden as “intrusions” into a Type A strategy.
Instead, she contends that we have a variety of different informa- Crittenden and Landini (2011, p. 269) observe that
tion about our attachment figures, which takes the form of a children placed in care, especially more than once, often have intru-
disposition for a certain kind of action or lack of action when we sions. In video SSP, they tend to occur when a rejected/neglected
are anxious. Given time to process our response to a situation, we child approaches the stranger in an intrusion of desire for comfort,
can integrate these different sources of information into a consid- then loses muscular control and falls to the floor, overwhelmed by the
ered response. However, when we are anxious, there is a pressure intruding fear of the unknown . . . person.
to short-circuit this integrative processing and just go with the
behavior that seems most appropriate in the moment. Crittenden Crittenden and Landini (2011, p. 269) suggest that intrusions are
and Landini (2011, p. 64) observe that, without reflection, “the particularly common in two circumstances. First, intrusions may
‘strongest’ dispositional representation active at that moment occur when the segregated affects are especially powerful and little
would regulate behavior.” This dispositional representation could integrated, and the ongoing work of keeping them at bay is
come from any of the memory systems, but because higher-level disrupted—for example, by social or developmental transitions.
representations such as those from semantic or episodic memory Second, intrusions may function to generate a feeling of vitality in
“require more extensive processing (and therefore more time), individuals who have compulsively deadened their feelings. Illus-
early termination of processing will result in a bias toward enact- trative of both points, Crittenden (2008a, pp. 193–195) gives the
ment of procedural and imaged dispositional representations” example of a woman, Kate, who, since the birth of her second son,
(Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 64). This judgment will be pow- had been hearing voices telling her to cut herself and dreams of
erfully influenced by the kinds of imaged and procedural memo- chopping up babies. Crittenden identifies the Type A strategies
ries available to the individual from their childhood (Crittenden, that Kate had used, growing up in a children’s home and in a failed
2008b), but may also be impacted by other processes that change foster placement, to maintain the availability of someone attentive
information processing, such as drug use (Crittenden & Claussen, to her needs. Looking back across Kate’s history, Crittenden
2002). (2008a, pp. 195–196) notes different forms of intrusion:
 334 LANDA AND DUSCHINSKY

In the past, these were excitingly promiscuous and dangerous sexual Yet it is also possible for information processing and behavior to
encounters, but now, desire for pain (expressed as cutting) fulfilled the become “nonstrategic for at least a while” (Crittenden & Landini,
function of generating arousal. The repeated instances of cutting 2011, p. 254). A key form of “broken” strategy addressed by
functioned, however briefly, to increase her arousal, to cause others to Crittenden (2008a, p. 102) is “disorientation,” a state in which an
express extreme distress, and to attract others, especially profession-
individual suffers from “confusion of information from different
als, to care for her.
sources (e.g., the self now, the self in the past, one’s mother, one’s
Crittenden (2008a) notes that “dangerous as cutting is, it can religious guide, etc.).” Crittenden (2008a, p. 118) proposes that
function to reverse equally dangerous low arousal” and “it gave disorientation is particularly likely as a result of “dismissed child-
Kate access to professional caregivers in institutional settings. hood traumas.” Signs of disorientation indicate that the individual
These, of course, had been her secure base since infancy” (pp. “is anxious to select an effective strategy and does not know how
195–196). Crittenden and Newman (2010, p. 435) therefore hy- to do that (and up-regulates arousal)” (Crittenden & Landini, 2011,
pothesize that, in some cases they observed, “depression and p. 307). It is very important to recognize, however, that Crittenden
intrusions appeared to work in tandem regulating arousal” in the means something different by the term “disorientation” than Main.
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absence of other functioning forms of emotion regulation. Main and Solomon (1986) identify “disorientation” as a dimension
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of the disorganized/disoriented “D” classification, in which behav-

ior seems to signal “a lack of orientation to the immediate envi-
Trauma
ronment” (p. 97). Yet many of the behaviors Main and Solomon
Though Crittenden has long been interested in trauma, the issue identify as indicative of disorientation in young children are con-
has received further elaboration in recent years. Attending to this sidered to be potentially “organized” by Crittenden— because of
topic can help further draw out the precise conceptual and termi- her wider and different definition of the term. Momentary signs of
nological differences between Main and Crittenden, and Crit- what Main and Solomon would call “disorientation” may well, for
tenden’s distinctive concern with “how disturbed individuals use Crittenden, be strategic if they function to give a child “extra time
information, rather than simply finding that they are not inte- for information gathering or processing,” perhaps “enabling the
grated” (Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 7). By “trauma,” Crit- child to make transitions from one behavior pattern to another”
tenden refers to the psychological experience of emotionally or (Crittenden, 1992c, p. 226).
physically threatening circumstances that cannot be subjected to For example, Crittenden (1992c, p. 226) relates a case in which
effective information processing. This information-processing per-
spective makes sense of the fact that children are especially vul- in the Strange Situation, the compliant child of a hostile mother was
observed actively approaching the door to seek her absent mother. As
nerable to trauma: They are “less able to understand” the meaning
she did so, the door suddenly opened and the mother appeared. The
of experiences of danger than adults and “less able to store, child stopped very abruptly, froze, recovered her balance, did a cute
retrieve, and integrate” the meanings they do derive (Crittenden & little “dance,” then turned to pick up a toy and engaged the stranger.
Landini, 2011, p. 250). It also makes sense of the fact that “threats
to safety and reproduction more often yield trauma then other sorts Crittenden observes that within the Main and Solomon (1986)
of threat,” because “the brain has ‘hard-wired’ preferences regard- classification, this “would probably be considered evidence of
ing attention; in all species, these function to identify information disorganisation,” whereas Crittenden argues that “the child’s be-
relevant to danger and reproduction” (1997c, p. 36). Trauma havior would be evidence of the highly organized and flexible use
results in entrenched, systematic errors in processing with the of two different patterns of behavior to implement the defended
result that “either too much irrelevant information is retained (and strategy of maintaining access without closeness” (1992c, p. 226).
used to organize behavior), or too much relevant information is Crittenden suggests that “simply turning away, when she was so
discarded, or other errors of thought are made regarding the obviously approaching her mother, might be perceived by the
dangerous event” (Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 236). Any of mother as a blatant rebuff, thereby eliciting the very anger the child
these outcomes make maladaptive behavior in the present more was seeking to avoid. Hence the ‘appeasement dance’ before the
likely. substitution of an acceptable alternate engagement with a toy and
One possibility is that that the trauma will result in an intensi- the stranger” (1992c, p. 226). Crittenden therefore concludes that
fication of a Type C strategy. If causal descriptive or prescriptive “the appearance of disorganisation occurred because the child
information is disregarded or imaged, or episodic memories are needed both to change her behavior and to cover that change in
overemphasized, then a more intensive Type C strategy may be the order to avoid appearing to snub the mother” (1992c, p. 226).
result. Crittenden (1997c, p. 52) calls this outcome “preoccupying” Hesse and Main (2006, pp. 310 –311), in a later formulation, have
unresolved trauma, and notes that it may turn out to be adaptive if in fact likewise stated that they did not ever intend to imply that
the rumination leads to an integrative reorganization. A second disorientation or disorganization would “necessarily” be the result
possibility is that trauma will result in an intensification of a Type of frightened, frightening or dissociative processes and that “some
A strategy. If affective information is disregarded, imaged or D behavior appear[s] to be the outcome of a readily comprehen-
episodic memories are not processed, or semantic information sible conflict, or of simple confusion.”
overemphasized, then the result will be a more extreme form of
Type A thinking and behavior. This would reinforce tendencies to
Critiques
exclude the emotional significance of the unresolved trauma, pro-
ducing what Crittenden calls “dismissed trauma”—a possibility Crittenden identifies subtypes of the Types A, B, and C strate-
she feels is insufficiently considered in Main’s work (Crittenden & gies, running from B1 to B5, A1 to A8, and C1 to C8 (see Figure
Landini, 2011, p. 240). 1). She places these in a circle, with B3 at the top as a state of
 THE DYNAMIC-MATURATIONAL MODEL 335
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Figure 1. Dynamic maturational model of patterns of attachment in adulthood (adapted from Crittenden,
2008a, p. 70, with permission of the author).

undistorted information processing, with A strategies and C strat- exhaustiveness of Crittenden’s account of behavioral strategies
egies of ascending numerals running down either side and repre- does not reduce the acuity of the dynamic–maturational model.
senting increasing degrees of distortion. This is because the subtypes do not organize the fundamental
Crittenden identifies two different patterns at each level of structure of Crittenden’s theory. Crittenden did not propose the
information-processing distortion. For Type A, “the odd-numbered subtypes with the intention that they be exhaustive, as her critics
patterns increasingly idealize the attachment figure whereas the have generally presumed. For instance, some strategies are under-
even-numbered patters increasingly negate the self” (Crittenden & stood barely to occur on their own—such as A5 (“compulsive
Landini, 2011, p. 42); the Type C patterns “involve an even-odd promiscuity”; Crittenden & Landini, 2011, p. 166). Or again,
alternation of displaying angry invulnerability with vulnerable fear Crittenden (2008a, p. 69) fully acknowledges that she does not yet
and desire for comfort (i.e., C1–2, C5– 6, etc.)” (p. 43). If odd and have studies to support the addition of the A8 category (“externally
even numbers are taken to be equivalent levels of distortion to assembled self”): the success of the dynamic–maturational model
information processing, it can be observed that “as the numeral does not ride on whether this A8 personality structure is the only
increases, these states are increasingly generated and maintained possible form of extreme affective distortion.
by the self” and “there is an increase in both the extent of distortion Ainsworth et al. (1978, p. 235) recall that, in forming the ABC
of information and the uniformity with which the strategy is classifications, “the subgroups were identified first, in the process
applied to all perceived threats, appropriately and inappropriately” of grouping together strange-situation protocols that were maxi-
(p. 112). The strategies thus numerically advance, it might be said, mally similar . . . it was through examination of the similarities
from being “states” that occur under conditions of perceived threat, among members of each subgroup that our attention was first
to being stable and entrenched “traits.” drawn to those variables.” Although following Ainsworth in em-
A crucial point is almost universally missed, even by thoughtful phasizing the importance of subgroups, Crittenden does not give
commentators on the range of Type A and C strategies presented them a foundational status within her theory. The point missed by
in the dynamic–maturational model. Schuengel (2001), for exam- most commentators is that “the patterns are not categorical. To the
ple, criticizes Crittenden’s proposed additional subtypes beyond contrary, they are best described in terms of two dimensions”
preschool age (represented by the numerals A5 or C5 and higher) (Crittenden, 2000, p. 371). Crittenden (1995) explicitly states that
as lacking evidence. We would somewhat agree with this concern, “the categories identify areas on the dimensional framework; that
but argue that this common criticism of the evidence base and is, they ‘tack down’ points defined by the dimensions. Whether
 336 LANDA AND DUSCHINSKY

any individuals exactly fit these points, especially the extreme validity, and rather in the way in which it offers an integrated and
points, is not critical to the argument about the dimensions” (pp. suggestive interpretive framework. We therefore agree with Crit-
388 –389). The key dimension, represented by movement down the tenden (1992c, p. 235) that “tested as specified hypotheses using
circumference of the circle, is the degree of Type A or Type C sound research methods,” the dynamic–maturational model of
distortions of information processing. Evidence for the theoretical attachment and adaptation “possesses the potential to enlighten the
primacy of the dimensions over the particular subtypes identified interpretation of data,” whether this is the data of research findings
within them is that Crittenden herself has used statistical tests (e.g., or of clinical experience.
ANOVAs), which presume that the dependent variable is contin-
uously distributed when assessing the effect of particular factors References
on the attachment and information-processing strategy used by a
sample. In running these tests, odd and even numbers are put Ainsworth, M. (1972). Attachment and dependency: A comparison. In J.
together with each a step of distortion, and, in doing so, a 4-point Gewirtz (Ed.), Attachment and dependency (pp. 97–137). Washington,
scale is produced. Others using the dynamic–maturational model DC: Winston.
Ainsworth, M. (1974). Letter to John Bowlby. Unpublished manuscript.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

have also, “with Crittenden’s input,” treated the severity of distor-

Ainsworth, M. (1985a). Letter to John Bowlby. Unpublished manuscript.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

tion of information processing as “a quasi-continuous variable” Ainsworth, M. (1985b). Letter to John Bowlby. Unpublished manuscript.
(Kwako, Noll, Putnam, & Trickett, 2010, p. 413). Ainsworth, M. (1985c). Patterns of mother–infant attachments. Bulletin of
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attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Mahwah, NJ:
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Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Loss, sadness and depression
of information processing may play in facilitating heterosexualized (Vol. 3). New York, NY: Basic Books.
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unprecedented acceptance of pole dancing or genital hair waxing raphy in American culture (pp. 137–153). Westport, CT: Praeger.
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That is, it integrates the best contributions of other theories (as Crittenden, P. M. (1992a). Treatment of anxious attachment in infancy and
opposed to competing with them)” (Crittenden & Poggioli, 2012, early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 575– 602. doi:
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Van IJzendoorn, M., Schuengel, C., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. (1999). Revision received January 22, 2013
Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precur- Accepted February 5, 2013 䡲
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
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