The Strange Situation is a research technique that helps to identify the attachment style of toddlers. It consists of bringing a mother and her toddler child into a room with toys. There is a stranger in the room who attempts to engage the child in play. The mother is then asked to leave the room and the child’s response is observed. When the mother returns to the room the child’s response is again observed. These observations are the basis for determining the attachment style of the child. The Adult Attachment Interview is the research protocol that attempts to determine the attachment history of the parent. The parent’s responses on this instrument have been classified as secure/autonomous, dismissing and preoccupied. A different infant attachment style relates to each of these categories. From: Main, Mary, The Organized Categories of Infant, Child, and Adult Attachment: Flexible vs. Inflexible Attention Under Attachment-Related Stress, in Attachment: From Early Childhood through the Lifespan, p. 1091.

ADULT ATTACHMENT INTERVIEW Secure/Autonomous Coherent, collaborative discourse is maintained while speaker describes attachment-related experiences and their effects, whether favorable or unfavorable. Speaker seems to value attachment, while maintaining objectivity regarding any particular experience or relationship. Dismissing Normalizing, positive descriptions of parents (“excellent, very normal mother”) are unsupported, or contradicted by specific incidents. Negative experiences said to have had little or no effect. Transcripts short, often due to repeated insistence on lack of memory. Preoccupied Preoccupied with experiences, seeming angry; confused and passive or fearful and overwhelmed. Some sentences grammatically entangled or filled With vague phrases (“dadadada”) or psychological jargon. Transcripts long: some responses irrelevant.

INFANT STRANGE SITUATION RESONSE Secure Shows signs of missing parent on first separation, and cries during second separation. Greets parent actively, e.g. creeping to parent at once, and usually seeks to be held. After briefly maintaining contact with the parent, settles and returns to play. Avoidant Does not cry on separation, attending to toys or environment throughout procedure. Actively avoids and ignores parent on reunion, moving away, turning away, or leaning away when picked up. Expressions of anger and distress are absent. Resistant-Ambivalent Preoccupied with parent throughout procedure, may seem actively angry, alternately seeking and resisting parent, or may appear more subtly angry, while acting passive. Fails to settle or return to exploration on reunion, and typically continues to focus on parent and cry.

The author of this article, and founder of the Therapyinla.com website, Joyce Parker, passed away in 2011. To honor her we are keeping her articles posted at this website.