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Unresolved loss in the Adult Attachment Interview: Implications for marital and parenting relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2008

Amy L. Busch ,
Philip A. Cowan  and
Carolyn P. Cowan
Amy L. Busch*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Francisco
Philip A. Cowan
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Carolyn P. Cowan
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Amy L. Busch, Child Trauma Research Project, San Francisco General Hospital, Building 20, Suite 2100, 1001 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94110; E-mail: amy_busch@yahoo.com.
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Abstract

This study examined links between the unresolved loss of a significant person and current functioning in marital and parenting relationships. Participants were 80 women who had experienced loss, their husbands, and their preschool children. Unresolved loss was assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview, and individual, marital, and parenting adaptation was assessed through videotaped observations and women's self-reports. As predicted, women with unresolved loss displayed less positive emotion and more anxiety and anger with both their husbands and children, compared to women who were not unresolved. They also displayed less authoritative and more authoritarian parenting styles with their children. Yet unresolved women did not report more individual or relationship difficulties, suggesting that direct observations are needed to assess the implications of unresolved loss for family functioning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 2008 , pp. 717 - 735
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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Footnotes

We thank Mary Main for her comments on prior drafts of this manuscript. We also thank Isabel Bradburn, Nina Koren-Karie, and Erik Hesse for coding the Adult Attachment Interviews used in this study.

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