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Concept
Attachment disorder
Summary
Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to describe disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from unavailability of normal socializing care and attention from primary care giving figures in early childhood. Such a failure would result from unusual early experiences of neglect, abuse, abrupt separation from caregivers between three months and three years of age, frequent change or excessive numbers of caregivers, or lack of caregiver responsiveness to child communicative efforts resulting in a lack of basic trust. A problematic history of social relationships occurring after about age three may be distressing to a child, but does not result in attachment disorder.
The term attachment disorder is used to describe emotional and behavioral problems of young children, and also applied to school-age children, teenagers and adults. The specific difficulties implied depend on the age of the individual being assessed, and a child's attachment-related behaviors may be very different with one familiar adult than with another, suggesting that the disorder is within the relationship and interactions of the two people rather than an aspect of one or the other personality. No list of symptoms can legitimately be presented but generally the term attachment disorder refers to the absence or distortion of age-appropriate social behaviors with adults. For example, in a toddler, attachment-disordered behavior could include a failure to stay near familiar adults in a strange environment or failure to be comforted by contact with a familiar person, whereas in a six-year-old attachment-disordered behavior might involve excessive friendliness and inappropriate approaches to strangers.
There are currently two main areas of theory and practice relating to the definition and diagnosis of attachment disorder, and considerable discussion about a broader definition altogether. The first main area, based on scientific enquiry, is found in academic journals and books and pays close attention to attachment theory.
Official source
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