Early Childhood Mental Health Treatment: Training Reference Guide

Fact Sheet
Attachment
• Zeanhah (2000) expanded the work of Emde (1989) who looked at developing a model
for understanding features of the parent-child relationship by identifying the following
caregiving qualities as salient behaviours for the attachment relationship:
Emotional availability
Nurturance and warmth
Protection
Provision of comfort
• The above behaviours are found by Zeanah (2000) to correspond to a child’s:
Security and trust
Balanced emotion regulation
Vigilance
Comfort seeking
Expression of feelings and communication
• Conversely, Zeanah (2000) notes that the following behaviours are less salient for
attachment:
Play
Teaching
Instrumental care and routines
Discipline/limit setting
• Nonattachment in North America is rare:
Occurs in less than 1 % of children (Zeanah, 2000)
May be more prevalent in children living in countries with a higher use of orphanages
and institutions
• The rate of disorganized attachment is higher ranging between 14% to 82% (Zeanah,
2000) in countries where child maltreatment or parental psychopathology have been
identified
cont’d...
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