Page 85 - Meeting with Children Book

P a ge | 83

From this point forward, many others continued
longitudinal research including Mary Ainsworth
(1969) who developed the “Strange Situation” to
study children and separation from a parent (typically
the mother). Alan Sroufe (1979, 1985) who was
influenced by one of Mary Ainsworth’s students,
Everett Waters, continued longitudinal studies
(including issues related to child development) at the
University of Minnesota. Later, the Adult Attachment
Interview (AAI), a semi-structured interview designed
to study adult attachment experiences and adult state
of mind, was developed by Carol George (George,
Kaplan & Main,1985). Main and Goldwyn (1985) then
began to understand how mothers discussed and
processed their early childhood experiences in
relation to their child’s behavior during the Strange
Situation. The recollection of adults of their own
attachment experiences was further understood and
explained by Main, Kaplan and Cassidy (1985). A
fourth category (disorganized/disoriented) was added
to the AAI, and later Hesse (1996) added the “cannot
classify” category for those that did not fall into the
other categories. Benoit (1994) identified the ability to
predict the attachment relationship between mothers
and their infants before their children were born, and
reported these findings through the study Stability
and Transmission of Attachment Across Three
Generations. The literature on attachment is
enormous and at least partially presented in the
Handbook of Attachment (Cassidy and Shaver, 1999).
Other names to be familiar with are Daniel Steele
(1994), Daniel Stern (1989), and Alan Schore (1994,
2001, 2002, 2003, 2008), often referred to as the