This study examined the relationship between childhood maternal loss and adult attachment quality among 30 motherless women and their matched controls. Motherless women reported significantly more anxiety and avoidance in their adult romantic relationships, despite the fact that two-thirds of them recalled positive relationships with their deceased parents. The role of perceived vulnerability to loss is discussed as a possible explanation, whereby motherless women may feel preoccupied with the potential loss of their spouses (anxiety) and protect themselves from future losses by disengaging from their spousal relationships (avoidance).
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AinsworthM. D. S.BleharM. C.WatersE., & WallS. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
2.
BlackD. (1998). Coping with loss: Bereavement in childhood. British Medical Journal, 316, 931–933.
3.
BowlbyJ. (1958). The nature of the child's tie to his mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, XXXIX, 1–23.
BrennanK. A.ClarkC. L., & ShaverP. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult romantic attachment: An integrative overview. In SimpsonJ. A. & RholesW. S. (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships (pp. 46–76). New York: Guilford Press.
6.
BrennanK. A., & ShaverP. R. (1998). Attachment styles and personality disorders: Their connections to each other and to parental divorce, parental death, and perceptions of parental caregiving. Journal of Personality, 66, 835–878.
7.
BrethertonI. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology, 28, 759–775.
8.
DilworthJ. L., & HildrethG. J. (1997–98). Long-term unresolved grief: Applying Bowlby's variants to adult survivors of early parental death. Omega, 36, 147–159.
EricksonM. F.KorfmacherJ., & EgelandB. R. (1992). Attachments past and present: Implications for therapeutic interventions with mother-infant dyads. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 495–507.
11.
GeisH. K.WhittleseyS. W.McDonaldN. B.SmithK. L., & PfefferbaumB. (1998). Bereavement and loss in childhood. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 7, 73–85.
12.
HarrisT.BrownG., & BifulcoA. (1990). Loss of a parent in childhood and adult psychiatric disorder: A tentative overall model. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 311–328.
13.
HazanC., & ShaverP. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511–524.
14.
LutzW. J., & HockE. (1995). Maternal separation anxiety: Relations to adult attachment representations in mothers of infants. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 156, 57–73.
15.
MainM.KaplanN., & CassidyJ. (1985). Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, 66–104.
16.
McLeodJ. D. (1991). Childhood parental loss and adult depression. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 32, 205–220.
17.
MireaultG., & BondL. (1992). Parent death in childhood and adult depression, anxiety, and perceived vulnerability. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 62, 517–524.
18.
PatternS. B. (1991). The loss of a parent during childhood as a risk factor for depression. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 36, 706–711.
19.
PillC. J., & ZabinJ. L. (1997). Lifelong legacy of early maternal loss: A women's group. Clinical Social Work Journal, 25, 179–195.
20.
TennantC. (1988). Parental loss in childhood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 45, 1045–1050.
21.
van IjzendoornM. H., & KroonenbergP. M. (1988). Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: A meta-analysis of the Strange Situation. Child Development, 59, 147–156.
22.
WordenJ. W., & SilvermanP. R. (1996). Parental death and the adjustment of school-aged children. Omega, 33, 91–102.
23.
ZahnerG. E. P., & MurphyJ. M. (1989). Loss in childhood: Anxiety in Adulthood. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 30, 553–563.
