THE CURRENT PARENTING EXPERIENCE OF MOTHERS WHO ARE TH DAUGHTERS OF ALCOHOLIC MOTHERS: AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNA L REPRESENTATIONAL MODELS OF RELATIONSHIPS by JANET RUTH MESSER A DISSERTATION Presented to the Division of Counseling Psycholog y and the Graduate School of the University of Orego n in partial fulfillment of the requirement s for the degree of Doctor of Philosoph y December 1991 ii An Abstract of the Dissertation o Janet Ruth Messer for the degree of Doctor of Philosoph in the Division of Counseling Psychology to be taken December 199 Trtle E THE DAUGHTERS OF ALCOHOLIC MOTHERS F INTERNALf ESENTATIONAL MODELS OF RELATIONSHIPS Approved: ( V ,g v/ . rl r /" ` /o, -c n Mors This multiple case study examines the effect of parenthood on the interna representational models of relationships in women who have been maltreated a children by studying three women who have young children and who had themselves had alcoholic mothers e review about adult children of alcoholics and attachment theory e interviewed about their childhood using Bartholomew Family Interview and abou their parenting experiences using Bretherton, Biringen, and Ridgeway Parent Attachment Interview. Subjects also completed several questionnaires concernin child-rearing beliefs, relationship patterns, and childhood relationships with family an peers. Two independent raters analyzed the Family Interview for attachment category t behavior, attitude toward attachment, sensitivity and insight a parents, and internal models of self and others. All subjects remember their abuse and attempt to be better parents than their own parents iv most destructive parental behaviors, but reenact other of their parentsbehavior to moderate extent all subjects, their internal models have undergone only slight change since childhood . When under stress, these women revert to old patterns in which they distort their children signals . The Fearful, that is A/C, and the Preoccupied patterns of parenting predominate, including elements of role reversal in which the mother attempts to bolster her self -esteem through her children approval not significantl change the subjectsinternal representational models of relationships t most affected these models wereinternal developmental pressures at adolescence which encouraged ending denial of parental abuse 2) a long term relationship with an emotionally supportive, non-abused mate, and 3) psychological counseling. Remembering childhood abuseand desiring change was not sufficient to completely change internal models of relationships. A process o deliberate psychic integration and reorganization with a therapist and/or a long-ter consistent relationship with a healthy attachment figure with whom to consciously reprocess atttachmentneedsseems necessary. v VITA NAME OF AUTHOR: Janet Ruth Messe r PLACE OF BIRTH: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvani a DATE OF BIRTH: March 2, 195 1 GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon Lewis and Clark Colleg e Portland State University Wichita State University Antioch College Boston University DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, 1991, University of Orego n Master of Education, 1979, Wichita State University Bachelor of Arts, 1974, Antioch Colleg e AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Parent-Child Relationships Transpersonal Psychology PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Intern, Lane County Mental Health, Eugene, Oregon, 198 8 Intern, University Counseling Center, University of Oregon, Eugene , 1987-88 vl Teaching Assistant and Counseling Supervisor, Debusk Center , Department of Counseling Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene , 1985-86 Counselor, Women Resource Center, YWCA, Portland, Oregon, 197 9 Teacher, Alternative Schools Project, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , 1974-75 PUBLICATIONS: Messer, J. R. (1991). Adult children of alcoholics: A review of literature. Oregon Counseling Association Journal, j, (1), 23-31. vi ! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author recognizes with gratitude the three women who shared thei r life stories with me in hopes that their experiences could help others . I offe r sincere appreciation to Dr . Carol Lynn Morse for her steady guidanc e throughout the course of this research . Her constant encouragement and goo d humor were invaluable. I also thank Dr . Kim Bartholomew, Dr. Inge Bretherton, and Dr. Patricia Crittenden, all of whom provided theoretical support an d direction for this project . Special thanks are due to Dr . Kim Bartholomew who gave so generously of her time in rating the interviews used in this research . Lastly, I extend the deepest gratitude to my husband, Dr . Stephen Messer, for his enduring support . Toham Kum Rah . viii DEDICATION To my parents, Aleck and Rosalyn Chizeck, and to my children, Benjamin and David Messer , with love and appreciation . 1X TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 ll. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 4 Etiology of Parenting Behavior 4 The Abusing Parent 6 Discontinuities in the Cycle 8 Attachment Theory 9 Attachment in Maltreated Children 11 Internal Representational Models o f Relationships 13 Adult Attachment 19 Intergenerational Transmission o f Attachment Patterns 22 Alcoholic Parents and Their Children 26 Limitations of the Research 27 Transmission of Alcoholism 28 Home Environment 29 The Child in the Alcoholic Home 31 The Alcoholic Family System 33 Adult Children of Alcoholics 36 The Popular Literature 36 The Research on ACOA 39 Intimacy 43 ACOA as Parents 44 ACOA and Attachment 47 ACOA, Depression, and Role Reversal 49 Subjective Experience of Parenting 51 III. METHODOLOGY 53 Statement of the Problem 53 Method 54 Instruments 56 Analysis 59 x IV. CASE ANALYSES 64 Anne 66 Carol 119 Bobbi 180 V. CONCLUSIONS 247 Review of Hypotheses 247 Review of Additional Findings 256 Implications for Future Research 262 Epilogue 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY 268 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how women parenting o f their own children is affected by their having had inadequate mothering a s children themselves. The women in this study had alcoholic mothers . Unti l recently the principal notice researchers took of children of alcoholics (COA ) was in relation to their increased risk of alcoholism . In the early 1980 , however, a movement began, led mostly by adult COA themselves, to dra w attention to the effects of growing up in an alcoholic home . Clinical an d academic research are now investigating the possibility that children o f alcoholics may suffer from a wide variety of psychological problems . Thes e children grow up with parents who often cannot consistently care for the m adequately. To survive in their chaotic home environment, children o f alcoholics develop coping mechanisms that enable them to adapt to thei r parentsdeficits . Developing these coping mechanisms may cause them t o sacrifice their own developmental needs . These mechanisms or adaptation s are emotional, cognitive, and behavioral and affect the children self-concept , relationships with others, and their functioning in the world . The effects of livin g with an alcoholic parent are felt not only in childhood, but continue int o adulthood, and may even continue into the next generation (Wilder-Padilla , 1989). 2 There has long been speculation that children who have been abused ar e more likely to abuse their own children. Research has lent some support to thi s notion (Spinetta Rigler, 1972) . Little research has been done, however , concerning the parenting behavior of people who were raised by alcoholi c parents. Even though they may not abuse alcohol or other substances, thes e parents may reenact their parentsinconsistent and insensitive patterns o f childrearing . Attachment theory offers a construct with which to analyze and understan d parentsrelationships with their children . This theory postulates that, throug h interaction with their caretakers, children gradually develop expectations abou t how they interact with important others. These sets of expectations whic h include cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components, are labelled "interna l working models" or "internal representational models" of relationships (Bowlby , 1969). These models can be seen as containing expectations and image s about both the self and the parents . A child with a sensitive caretaker ma y experience the self as worthy of being cared for and safe and may experienc e the parent as present, trustworthy, and responsive . A child with a neglecting o r abusing parent may experience the self as unable to be understood an d unlovable and the parents as unreliable or coercive . As the child grows, ne w information about the self and others in relationship is integrated into th e internal model. When the child is an adult and becomes a parent, s/he will rais e his/her own children according to his/her internal representational models o f relationships (Ricks, 1985) . This dissertation will explore how adult children of alcoholic mothers for m relationships as seen from the perspective of attachment theory . It will explore , specifically, how adult daughters of alcoholic mothers relate to their own 3 children. This mother-child relationship will be examined by analyzing th e mother internal representational models of relationships both in childhoo d and as a parent . Internal models will be assessed through structured interview s and questionnaires. These internal models will be analyzed for evidence o f both change and continuity in an effort to understand how having ha d inadequate mothering affects a woman parenting behavior . 4 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATUR Etiology of Parenting Behavio r Parenting is a multiply determined set of behaviors . In his "ecologica l model," Belsky (1980) integrates divergent viewpoints and research finding s into a model having four interacting levels which he calls the ontogenic , microsystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. The ontogenic level includes all that the parents bring into the parenting situation . This includes their ow n history, emotional makeup, personality, developmental level, and cognitiv e level. The microsystem encompasses the child immediate world . It include s the child temperament, the spousal relationship, family size, siblings, an d events in the home. The exosystem includes the outer world and how it affects the family. In this level would be the influences of social support or isolatio n and work or unemployment . The macrosystem in Belsky model includes th e cultural fabric within which the family exists . Especially important here ar e societal attitudes toward violence and physical discipline of children . Some factors in each level are considered risk factors for abusive o r dysfunctional parenting and some factors are considered compensating o r buffering influences. These levels and the influences within them interact an d factors in each level affect the others . The interactions are complicated and it i s almost impossible to predict which conditions in which amounts are necessary 5 to cause abusive or competent parenting in a particular family . Belsky an d Vondra (1989), in an examination of how these multiple factors interact, hav e concluded that the ontogenic level is the most influential in determining parenta l behavior. Parentsdevelopmental history affects their self-esteem an d personality and those factors, in turn, influence most other areas of life , including choice of spouse, marital relationship, social relations, work, and ho w their children develop. The different areas influence each other also, a s depicted in the diagram below (Belsky Vondra, 1989, p . 157): Developmenta History Work child Characteristics i Child Development I Various studies show that parental psychological resources are mos t crucial to parenting behavior and the best buffer for such risk factors as difficul t child characteristics or teenage parenthood (Belsky, 1984 ; Colletta, 1981; Engfer, 1984; Kruk Wolkind, 1983) . The parent personality and emotiona l stability, including the ability to perceive the psychological complexity i n relationships, is the best predictor of parental competence (Pianta, Egeland, Erickson, 1989.) The quality of the marital relationship has also been found t o be a good predictor, but the quality of the marital relationship generall y correlates positively and significantly with personality measures (Belsky , Hertzog, Rovine, 1986 ; Friedrich, 1979). 6 The Abusing Parent In their seminal paper "The Child-Abusing Parent : A Psychologica l Review," Spinetta and Rigler (1972) cited four main characteristics of abusiv e parents. The first is that abusing parents were raised with some degree o f abuse, rejection, or early loss of a parent . Second, abusing parents often hav e mistaken notions of childrearing, generally having unreasonably hig h expectations of young children, believing in physical discipline methods, an d having a tendency to role reversal with their children . The third theorize d quality of abusing parents is that they have a general personality deficit tha t allows them to express aggression too freely . The fourth characteristic is tha t abusing parents have socioeconomic difficulties that increase stress for them . Friedrich and Wheeler (1982) reviewed Spinetta and Rigler conclusions in th e light of further research . They again found much evidence that abusing parent s tend to have been more frequently and more harshly abused as children tha n non-abusing parents . They suggest that more careful research be undertaken , particularly concerning emotional abuse and nonrepeaters, i .e., abused parent s who do not abuse their children . In their literature review, "Do Abused Children Become Abusive Parents? " Kaufman and Zigler (1987) question the conclusion that being abuse d automatically puts a person at risk for abusing his/her own child . They argu e that there is a paucity of information in this area and that many of the existin g studies are flawed . Some research problems they cite include : lack of a valid control group, the researcher in many cases is not blind, the definitions and 7 criteria of what constitutes abuse both of children and in the family of origin var y widely, and statistical procedures are often inappropriately applied . The studies that Kaufman and Zigler examined found intergenerationa l transmission rates ranging from 18% to 70% ; they concluded that the best estimate is about 30%, plus or minus 5%. This rate is six times higher than the ` rate of child abuse in the general population, which they estimate to be 5% . They point out that, although being abused as a child is a risk factor in th e etiology of becoming an abusive parent, the majority (two-thirds) of abuse d children do not become abusers . Since most studies of the maltreated-maltreating cycle are retrospective , they may underestimate how many maltreating parents were themselve s maltreated (Zeanah Zeanah, 1989) . Children who were abused often do no t perceive their treatment to be abusive . In one study of normal college students , although 80% of the students reported being spanked by their parents, onl y 54% said they had been physically disciplined (Berger, Knutson, Mehm, Perkins, 1988.) Over 12% said they had been injured by parental disciplin e (bruised, cut, burned, bones broken, head injuries), yet only 3% said they wer e physically abused as children . Respondents with siblings were twice as likel y to report having a sibling who was abused than to label themselves as abused . In another investigation, interviewers were far more likely than the parent s themselves to rate the parentschildhood experiences as abusive (Kotelchuck , 1982.) The interviewerscoding of severity of the subjectschildhood abus e predicted how severely parents punished their children, whereas the parents responses to a direct question about childhood abuse was not related t o punitive treatment of their children . Because a parent denies having been 8 abused does not mean that s/he was not, and s/he is still at risk to perpetuat e the cycle of abuse . Friedrich and Wheeler (1982) also reviewed the research concernin g personality tendencies of child abusers . The authors found evidence tha t confirmed earlier findings that abusers tend to have difficulty with impuls e control. Compared with non-abusers, abusers also tend to have lower self - esteem and an impaired capacity for empathy, be interpersonally isolated, an d be more responsive to frustration than to gratification. High stress levels , including stress related to poverty, increase the risk of child abuse in a famil y (Kaufman Zigler, 1989), but poverty with its concomitants is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for child abuse to occur . Abusing an d neglecting parents also react differently to stress than non-abusing parents . I n a study measuring parentsphysiological responses to filmed scenes o f pleasant and unpleasant childrearing situations, nonabusive parents physiological responses varied according to the filmed scenes . Abusiv e parents showed high levels of stress response throughout the viewing whil e neglecting parents showed lower levels of response (Doerr, Disbrow, Caulfield, 1977) . Discontinuities in the Cycl e Some people who were abused as children become adequate parents . Research concerning how this group of nonrepeaters differs from secon d generation abusers has yielded consistent results . Hunter and Kiistrom (1979 ) found that the nonrepeaters in their study, compared to the intergenerationa l abuse group, had more extensive social supports, experienced fewer 9 ambivalent feelings about the pregnancy, had physically healthier babies, wer e able to give detailed accounts of their own childhood abuse, were angry abou t this abuse, were more likely to have been abused by only one parent, and wer e more likely to have had a supportive relationship with one parent . Similarly , Egeland and Jacobovitz (1984) found that the nonrepeaters they studied wer e more likely to have had one loving parent, to have a supportive relationship wit h a spouse or boyfriend, to have fewer stressful life events, to have a greate r awareness of their own history of abuse, and to have resolved consciously no t to repeat it. Quinton and Rutter (1985) found that in the groups of women the y studied who had been raised in institutions and were at high risk for abusin g their children, those who were competent mothers had spouses who were bot h affectionate and supportive and non-deviant psychosocially . In a sample o f disadvantaged mothers in their Minnesota Mother-Child Interaction Researc h Project, Egeland, Jacobovitz, and Sroufe (1988) found that, besides having a stable relationship with a spouse, many of the nonrepeaters had participated i n long-term psychotherapy and reported feeling accepted and cared about b y their therapist . In summary, the strongest protective factors seem to be a) as a child, having had at least one nurturing relationship with an adult ; b) having a supportive, affectionate spouse ; and c) remembering and integrating one s abuse history, including negative feelings . Attachment Theory Bowlby (1969) proposed the existence of a separate human drive fo r attachment which motivates the infant to seek proximity to his/her caretaker in 10 times of danger . In a healthy relationship, the infant displays universa l attachment behaviors (crying, reaching, etc .) and the caretaker responds an d offers protection and comfort. The attachment system thus helps provide for th e survival of the species through the protection of the young . The proximity an d responsiveness of the attachment figure usually brings the baby a feeling o f security. The child who has a sensitive and responsive caretaker begins to use th e caretaker as a "secure base ." This mobile child will explore the environment a s long as the caretaker is available in case of danger . The child will explore , return to the caretaker, and then set out again to explore . As the child grows , the caretaker and child form what Bowlby (1969) called a "goal-correcte d partnership." As the child and caretaker can share information about thei r needs and motivations, they can mutually negotiate proximity and exploration . The child is able to venture further from the caretaker for longer periods of tim e and still feel secure. Physical proximity to the attachment figure can sometime s be replaced by visual contact or vocal contact and eventually an interna l knowledge that the caretaker is available when needed . Attachment need s manifest in different ways as children grow . A major change takes place at adolescence when parents become les s important as attachment figures and children begin to form more intimat e relationships with peers, both of the same and opposite sex . This ma y eventually culminate with the person forming a particularly close bond with on e individual and entering a committed long-term relationship in adulthood . Mos t attachment research has been devoted to the period of age six months to tw o years old when attachment behavior is very strong . Still, throughout childhood and even adulthood, when people experience extremely alarming or stressfu l events, they want to be with a safe and loving person (Weiss, 1982) . Attachment in Maltreated Childre n When a child has been maltreated or has not been able to from a trustin g attachment relationship with the caretaker, the sequence of development ma y be different. In attachment theory, a caretaker is called "insensitive" when s/h e does not perceive the baby attachment signals, interpret them correctly, an d respond to them appropriately (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, Wall, 1978) . Research has demonstrated that when the baby caretaker is not sensitive, th e baby may react in a variety of predictable ways. If the caretaker ignores th e baby signals entirely and is withdrawn and uninvolved with the baby, the bab y commonly becomes passive and listless, making fewer bids for proximity an d comfort and showing little interest in exploring the environment . If the caretake r is inconsistent in noticing and responding to the baby attachment signals, th e baby tends to increase attachment behavior in both frequency and intensity unti l the caretaker responds . These babies will maintain proximity to the caretake r and explore only while carefully monitoring the caretaker . If the caretaker i s involved with the baby in an active, controlling manner, interacting with th e baby, but not in response to the baby signals, the baby often becomes difficult , that is, resisting, vocally protesting, and exploring without seeming to need th e support of the caretaker. If the parent does not respond to the baby bids fo r comfort, but instead subtly punishes the baby for attachment behavior, the bab y responds with increased protest and anger along with avoidance of th e caretaker (Crittenden, 1988c) . These patterns of parent and child dyadic 12 behavior have been extensively noted and labeled in the attachment literature . Most of this research has been done with children between 12 months and 1 8 months old. Attachment research has only recently begun to focus on th e dyadic relationship patterns of toddlers and school age children, and contain s almost no research concerning adolescents . Attempts are being made t o answer questions of how developmental changes affect attachment behavior . A recent investigation of the mother-child relationship patterns of a grou p of maltreated children 15 months to three years old showed that these olde r children related to their insensitive parents differently than did babie s (Crittenden, 1988c). The younger maltreated babies generally showed over t resistance to their caretaker control and coercion . They were difficult , unhappy and angry. The older children, however, showed a pattern that th e researchers called "compulsive compliance ." They were superficiall y cooperative and accommodating to their caretakers (mothers in this instance .) These children repeatedly approached their mothers, attempting to maintai n proximity, but without positive affect, eye contact or touching . These childre n also frequently showed avoidance of their mothers (by turning away, etc .) and had many stress-related behaviors . They appeared affectless, vigilant, an d eager to please . For younger babies, parental abuse was associated resistan t behavior and anger in the children, but for these older toddlers an d preschoolers, parental abuse was most related to the compulsively complian t pattern of child behavior. The children who showed this pattern were those wh o had been the most severely abused, had been both abused and neglected, o r who had experienced long separations from their mothers . The fact that these abused children coping strategies changed at a certain age suggests that a developmental change had taken place which 13 allowed the children to adapt their responses to their insensitive caregivers in a way that would presumably better insure their safety . But what happened to th e resistance and anger that these children had shown just months before? An d how will these children attachment and relationship behavior change as the y continue to develop ? Internal Representational Models of Relationship s Attachment theory postulates that infants gradually develop expectation s about how they interact with important others . These sets of expectation s eventually have cognitive components (attention, memory, perception) , behavioral components (reunion responses, coping behaviors), and affectiv e components (sadness, anger, contentment) (Main, Kaplan, Cassidy, 1985) . Attachment theory labels these multileveled webs of expectations "interna l working models" or "internal representational models" of relationships . Thes e models can be seen as containing expectations and images about both the sel f and the caretaker. Children begin to develop these working models by the en d of the first year of life. A baby with a sensitive caretaker may experience the sel f as worthy of being taken care of and safe and may experience the caretaker a s present, trustworthy, and responsive . A child with an insensitive, neglectin g caretaker may experience the self as unable to communicate and alone and th e caretaker as not present and unreliable . The child with a controlling caretake r who ignores attachment signals may experience the self as unable to b e understood and needing to fight for control and the caretaker as coercive an d dominating . 14 As internal models of relationships develop, new information about th e self and other in relationship is integrated into the existing model . No one ca n say for sure how experience is integrated and encoded in the mind and body , but researchers in the field of memory and mental systems theorize tha t experiences are reprocessed and filed in intricate, cross-referenced fashion, a s whole memories (dinner last night), general event-schemas (family dinners) , and across different event sequences (all caregiving situations) (see Bretherton , 1988 for a detailed discussion) . As the child grows and continues to integrat e new experiences with the caregiver, new experiences must be integrated int o the old. if caregiving patterns and relationships continue in the same way, ne w experiences are more easily integrated . If the caregiving relationship changes , new information must be integrated either as an exception or as a truly ne w pattern. Since new information is integrated into the existing schemas, th e existing schemas effect what is integrated and how it is encoded . Existin g schemas can limit what information a person perceives and how tha t information is interpreted, especially in ambiguous situations . Therefore, fo r internal working models to change significantly, the new pattern or informatio n must be intense enough and frequent enough to force reorganization of curren t expectations . When a caretaker responds sensitively and appropriately to a child s needs for protection, the child experience is acknowledged and validated . Since the caretaker accepts the child needs, the child can acknowledge an d accept these needs also . The child also learns that feeling states can b e shared and emotional communication is possible . When the caretaker does no t acknowledge and respond to the child needs for protection, the child i s affected. In the case of the neglecting parent, very few of the child signals are 15 received and responded to, and the child simply stops emitting attachmen t signals and stops exploratory behavior, achieving safety through not acting a t all. The child with an inconsistently responsive parent inhibits exploration an d maintains vigilant watch over the parent in order to insure safety . The chil d learns that emotions can be acknowledged and shared only if one is sufficientl y dramatic and insistent. When a parent is controlling and ignores or punishe s bids for comfort, the child learns that to be safe, to maintain proximity to the caretaker, s/he must not express need. The caretaker will attend to expression s of happiness or anger, but not to neediness . This baby learns to short-circui t attachment needs, to not feel those feelings . We can call this short-circuitin g "defensive" since it helps defend the child against feelings of fear of danger an d loss of protection . For these children, building working models of relationshi p must be more complex since only certain aspects of attachment experience s can be felt or acknowledged . Some of the experience can be encode d consciously and much of it encoded on some level not available to consciou s awareness. The task of integrating new information must be correspondingl y complex and the entire system must be less coherently organized than for th e child whose experience is more wholly acceptable to his caretakers an d himself. When the maltreated child reaches the developmental stages o f adolescence and later parenthood, the internal models of relationship ma y change in a different way than those of more adequately raised children . Ainsworth and colleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Water, Wall, 1978 ) developed a procedure to assess babiesattachment behavior, that is, thei r behavior oriented toward attaining proximity to a caregiver when they are i n some perceived danger. The researchers used a laboratory method called th e Strange Situation in which a baby is exposed to the stress of having the mother 16 leave the room for a few minutes at a time and then return. Ainsworth an d colleagues categorized the babiesbehavior patterns into two overall patterns , securely attached and insecurely (or anxiously) attached . The insecurel y attached pattern was further divided into two categories, insecure/avoidant an d insecure/ambivalent. These three major patterns have eight subpatterns unde r them. Recently, Main and her colleagues have identified a fourth pattern the y call disorganized/disoriented (Main Solomon, 1990) . Infant patterns o f attachment are believed to be closely related to the behavior of their primar y caregiver, generally the mother (Ainsworth, Blehar, Water, Wall, 1978 ; Grossman, Grossman, Spangler, Suess, Unzer, 1985 ; Haft Slade, 1989) . I n the following discussion, for clarity of reading, the caregiver will be referred t o as the mother, although naturally, the cargiver can be of either gender . The securely (Type B) attached infant is generally relaxed in the presenc e of his/her caregiver and will play and explore the environment . Whe n separated from her in unfamiliar circumstances (as in the Strange Situatio n procedure) s/he will cry and be alarmed ; on her return s/he will seek proximity t o her and be easily comforted. The mother of the securely attached baby i s generally sensitive to her child signals and responds promptly and sensitively . The securely attached baby can explore with confidence, trusting that his/he r mother will respond when needed . The insecure/avoidant (Type A) baby, in the Strange Situation, shows littl e apparent distress. S/He seems to not care that mother has left the room an d avoids her on her return . Sometimes avoidance and proximity-seekin g behaviors are mixed. In the home environment, however, avoidant babie s frequently express anger toward their mothers . Mothers of avoidant babies ten d to be emotionally rigid, unresponsive to their babies, or inappropriately involved 17 with their babies, intrusively giving help or structure when the baby does no t request it. These mothers also tend to respond to babiespositive emotions an d to ignore or punish expressions of distress or neediness . The mothers have a n aversion to close bodily contact and are often overtly or covertly angry . Therefore, when the infant is distressed, his/her bids for comfort are ignored o r rejected by the mother. Eventually, the baby begins to ignore the mother whe n under stress. Briefly, the avoidant baby strategy for dealing with mothe r seems to be to disconnect from attachment related stimuli . S/He shifts his/he r attention away from fear-eliciting cues in the environment and creates mor e distance from the caregiver under stress. The insecure/ambivalent (Type C) baby is generally hard to soothe an d vigilant to any sign of separation from the mother, even in nonstressfu l situations. In the Strange Situation, the baby may engage in play in th e mother presence, but tries to maintain proximity to her . When the mothe r leaves, the baby is extremely distressed, and on her return is not easil y comforted. His/Her behavior shows desire for proximity mixed with anger an d frustration. Mothers of babies classified as ambivalent tend to be unresponsiv e or withdrawn with their babies . Their involvement is unpredictable and does no t seem to be connected to the baby cues or needs . Since the baby canno t predict the mother response, s/he cannot form a dependable strategy fo r eliciting care. In reaction to this, the baby heightens attachment behaviors an d has little energy left over for exploration . Some ambivalently attached babie s are very passive in general . A new category of infant behavior has recently been described by variou s researchers working with different populations in different studies (Carlson , Cicchetti, Barnett Braunwald, 1989) . These babiesbehavior is often 18 unclassifiable with a mixture of avoidant and ambivalent behaviors along wit h odd behaviors, i .e., freezing in midmovement, confusion, stereotype d movements, fear of attachment figure, and simultaneous displays o f contradictory behaviors (Main Solomon, 1990) . Main has labeled thi s category disorganizedldisoriented (Type D.) Crittenden calls the category Typ e A/C to emphasize that the babies display high amounts of both ambivalent an d avoidant behavior. Researchers investigating babies with this type of behavio r have found that it occurs in those babies who have a history of abuse an d neglect (Crittenden, 1985), whose mothers have affective disorders (Radke - Yarrow, Cummings, Kuczynski, and Chapman, 1985), whose mothers have a history of alcohol and drug use (Oonnor, Sigman Brill, 1987), and whos e mothers had experienced the loss of a parent before age 18 and had no t resolved the loss. All of the cited researchers agree that a central organizin g aspect of the disorganized behavior is fear . The caregiver behavior i s frequently bizarre or scary . The baby seems to need proximity to the caregive r and also needs to avoid the caregiver . The baby attachment system become s overloaded and disorganized and no organized behavioral strategy is possibl e (Main Hesse, 1990) . A baby attachment classification has been found to have value i n predicting a child behavior in relationships two, three, and even six year s later. Cassidy (1988) assessed a group of 5-year-old children who had bee n tested in the Strange Situation as infants . Using puppets and dolls to asses s these children view of attachment relationships, Cassidy found clea r differences in the children responses . Children who, four years previously , had been judged securely attached, presented a generally positive picture o f themselves, but acknowledged some lessthan perfect aspects of themselves . 19 They told "doll" stories of warm, supportive mother-child relationships . Childre n who had been classified avoidant presented themselves as perfect and mad e no mention of interpersonal relationships . In their doll stories, the child doll wa s depicted as isolated and rejected . Ambivalent children appeared to have n o clear pattern of responses . Controlling (Type NC or D) children presented a n excessively negative picture of themselves ; the dolls in their stories wer e involved in violent, bizarre, hostile behaviors and had disorganize d relationships with their mothers . Children who were insecurely attached as infants have been found, i n comparison to securely attached infants, to later have more behavior problem s in school, lack self reliance, have poor peer relations, engage in fantasy pla y less often than other children, and to be less empathic than other toddler s (Cohn, 1990; Crowell Feldman, 1988 ; LaFreniere Sroufe, 1985 ; Main Goldwyn, 1984; Waters, Wippman Sroufe, 1979) . Adult Attachment There is evidence that attachment patterns continue into adulthood . Mai n and her colleagues have developed a method of determining adult attachmen t classifications that correspond to Ainsworth infant attachment categories . Th e Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, Main, 1984) is an intensiv e interview method that explores the adult attachment history . The interview i s scored not only for content, but also for the organization and quality of a person psychic processing . The assumption is that there is a correspondenc e between people communication and behavior within an attachment relationship and the way they talk about attachment (Bretherton, 1990.) 20 Main describes four classifications: Autonomous adults remember their childhoods easily and are coherent in describing their early experiences . The y can incorporate painful memories and have insight into the effects of earl y experiences. They have a balanced view of their role in current relationships . In Main research, most of the children of these adults were judged to b e securely attached. The second group is called dismissive of early attachments . These adults remember little of childhood bonds and tend to have idealize d global impressions of their parents . The few details they can recall tend t o contradict this idealized picture and suggest neglect or rejection . They can t face the reality of childhood hurts . These people seem strong and independen t and in general, are indifferent to feelings and relationships . Most of thei r children have avoidant attachments . A third group of adults, Main label s preoccupied with early attachments . These people seem confused about thei r relational past. They become easily flooded with intense negative memorie s and have difficulty with anger and dependency feelings . They can relate man y anecdotes about their childhoods, but have difficulty giving a coheren t description of relationships. They seem to be still involved in struggling wit h their parents . Most of their children were classified as ambivalently attached . Main called her fourth group of adults disorganized or unresolved . These people were suffering from unresolved childhood trauma of a serious natur e and were most similar to the preoccupied group . This group corresponds to th e disorganized infant category . Bartholomew has proposed four adult attachment patterns that are base d upon the individual internal models of self and others, as illustrated in th e diagram below (Barthomomew, 1990, p . 163): 2 1 MODEL OF SELF (Dependence ) Poddv e (Low) ve (High) SECURE Comfortabl e with intimacy and autonomy PREOCCUPIED Preoccupied (Main ) Ambivalent (Haan ) Overly dependen t DISMISSING Denial of Attachmen t Dismissing (Main) Counter-dependent FEARFUL Fear of Attachmen t Avoidant (Hazan ) Socially avoidant In Bartholornew model, Secure individuals reported having ha d generally supportive and sensitive parenting . They have high self esteem, a n internal locus of self-evaluation, and view relationships with others a s rewarding (positive self-image; positive view of others .) Preoccupied individuals, like the preoccupied or ambivalent group in previous research , have reported receiving inconsistent and insensitive parenting . They vie w others positively and have a deep desire to gain approval and love from other s while viewing themselves as unworthy (negative self image ; positive image of others .) Bartholomew Dismissinq category corresponds in part to the dismissing or avoidant category in previous research . Individuals in this grou p generally reported having had parents who were cold and rejecting whil e placing a high priority on independence and achievement . These individual s dealt with parental rejection by protecting themselves and blaming others . The y see themselves as independent and self-sufficient and avoid clos e relationships with others (positive self-image ; negative image of others .) Bartholomew calls the fourth category Fearful. People in this group reported being generally rejected or abused as children and avoid close relationship s Positive ( ) MODEL OF OTHE (Avoidance ) Nev e (High) 22 with others as adults, but differ from the avoidant group in their greate r susceptibility to loneliness and depression . They long for close relationship s and the approval of others, but avoid them out of fear of rejection and low self - esteem (negative self-image; negative view of others .) Bartholomew ha s validated these attachment behavior categories through studies involving self , family, and peer evaluation (Bartholomew Horowitz, 1991) . Bartholomew s conception of two separate patterns of avoidance of relationships amon g abused children corresponds to Crittenden finding (Crittenden, 1988b) tha t abused children seem to react to their parentsrejection by becoming eithe r angry and hostile (corresponding to Bartholomew dismissing pattern) o r fearful and compulsively compliant (Bartholomew fearful pattern .) Althoug h the two groups act out opposite sides of the power relationship, Crittenden says , "...both groups of abused children develop a distrust of others and a belief tha t only powerful people get what they want . (1988a, p. 171.)" Bartholome w (personal communication) states that she and Crittenden agree that the fearfu l category corresponds closely with Crittenden A/C (high ambivalent/ hig h avoidant) pattern. Intergenerational Transmission of Attachment Pattern s The mother history and/or attachment classification has been found t o have a significant relationship to her infant behavior . Morris (1980 ) interviewed mothers about their attachment history and compared thi s information to their infantsStrange Situation attachment classifications . Thi s study found that mothers who reported unstable family relationships and wh o perceived their mothers as low in nurturance and competence tended to have 23 infants who were classified as insecure . Ricks (1985) reported that mother s whose infants were judged securely attached to them had more positiv e recollections of childhood relationships with parents and peers than di d mothers of insecurely attached infants. The results were especially stron g concerning mothersmemories of acceptance or rejection by their mother i n childhood. Main and Goldwyn (1984) found that infants who were avoidant i n the Strange Situation had mothers who reported being rejected by their ow n mothers as children. The mothers, although reporting experiences of rejection , had systematic distortions in their cognitive processes ; they tended to idealize their mothers, had difficulty remembering their childhoods, and were somewha t incoherent in discussing attachment . Mothers who reported being similarl y rejected in childhood, but who remembered the rejection and were angry abou t it or expressed forgiveness, tended not to have babies classified as avoidant . I n an article reporting on two German studies, infant attachment category wa s found to predict mother attachment status five years later in 80% of the case s (Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, Rudolf, Grossman, 1988 .) These studies als o indicated that even if the mother reported having had a rejecting or abusiv e childhood, if she remembered it, reflected on it, and was able to discuss i t nondefensively, her child was likely to be securely attached . Crittenden (1988c ) reports that mothers of babies who are classified as A/C often have lost a n attachment figure early in life and are extremely insecure . Main and Hess e (1990) found that 39% of the mothers of type D (disorganized/disoriented ) babies had lost a parent before age 18 compared with only 8% of parents of otherwise classified babies reporting such a loss . Main, Kaplan and Cassidy (1985) found that adultsattachmen t classification corresponded to their children classification 76% of the time . 24 Another study reported an 82% correspondence (Eichberg, 1987) . Thi s suggests that patterns of information processing and affect management are transmitted across generations . Haft and Slade (1989) explored the relationship between the feelin g states mothers can access in themselves and those they acknowledge in thei r babies. The researchers videotaped mothers playing with their babies and the n reviewed the tapes with the mothers, questioning them about their emotions , motivations, and perceptions during the videotaped sequences . Th e researchers also looked for the quality of emotional attunement between mothe r and baby defined as the mother willingness and ability to match her child s emotional state without trying to change or manipulate the child . They found, i n general, that mothers judged securely attached in the Adult Attachmen t Interview matched a broad range of affect in their child during the play session . Viewing the tapes later, they correctly assessed babiespositive and negativ e feelings including initiative, exuberance, frustration, anger, and need fo r closeness. Their occasional misattunements did not follow any pattern . Mothers rated dismissing followed a consistent pattern of misattunemen t with their children. They were most comfortable with children expressions o f autonomy and exuberance in the play session . They consistently misrea d negative affect, especially when it was directed at them and not an object . These mothers rejected their baby bids for comfort and reassurance ; they had a sadistic quality to their misattunements . Preoccupied mothers were unpredictable in the quality of misattunemen t with their babies. In general, hovGever, they misattunedto or ignored their babiesexuberance and initiative and reacted strongly to expressions of fear i n their babies, often expressing these emotions more intensely than the child had . 25 They often seemed confused and anxious with their babies and did no t understand their babiesneeds for structure or definition even on viewing th e tapes. The result of this kind of parent-child interaction is that children of securel y attached parents learn that emotions can be shared and understood betwee n people. The babies do not need to restrict their emotional experience an d expression in order to obtain care . They can move fluidly between feeling an d interaction with others who acknowledge their experience . Children o f dismissing parents learn that some emotions are acceptable and others clearl y are not. Autonomy is rewarded ; expressions of need and bids for closeness ar e ignored or punished. To obtain parental approval, the child must build a n emotional world that avoids feelings of neediness . Although it is unreal, thi s pattern is coherent and can be adaptive to life in the world as the child grow s up. Preoccupied parents are so unpredictable that the baby cannot figure ou t what will be accepted and what will be rejected by the parent . The chil d responds either by giving up or by becoming very sensitive to the parent s internal state. These children appear to be more "at sea" emotionally . According to attachment theory, the child internal models o r representations of relationships thus provide rules for affective processing an d roles for self and others in relationships . The child learns to see and feel onl y certain stimuli, resulting in a self-perpetuating pattern which is resistant t o change. The models persist into adulthood and affect how the adult relates t o his/her own children. As described by Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy (1985) Security in adulthood can now be provisionally identified as the ability t o integrate existing information relevant to attachment ; where this integration is possible, the parent is likely to exhibit "sensitivity to infan t signals." This ability need not be stable to any given individual ; indeed, 26 this definition allows for shifts in both the parent and the infant s attachment status.... Parental "insensitivity" to infant signals, then, ma originate in the parent need to preserve a particular organization o f information or state of mind....The need to restrict or reorganize attachment-relevant information, whether it originates internally o r externally, may result in an inability to perceive and interpret attachmen t signals of the infant accurately and, in some cases, in an active nee d either to alter infant signals or to inhibit them . To summarize, where the . parent own experiences and feelings are not integrated, restrictions o f varying types are placed on attention and the flow of information wit h respect to attachment. These restrictions appear in speech in the form o f incoherencies and in behavior as insensitivities (Main, Kaplan, Cassidy, 1985, pp. 99-100. Alcoholic Parents and Their Childre n Several researchers in the attachment field have investigated th e attachment behaviors of various pathological groups of parents, includin g abusive, neglecting, sexually molesting, and emotionally abusive parent s (Crittenden, 1988a; Crittenden Ainsworth, 1989 ; DeLozier, 1982). Alcoholi c parents have not been studied as a separate group by the attachmen t researchers. Research from the field of alcoholism demonstrates, however, tha t the alcoholic parent and his/her spouse often have difficulties with child rearing . There are at least 28 million children of alcoholics in the U . S. (Blume, 1985). About seven million are under the age of 18 . Approximately one out o f every eight Americans is the child of an alcoholic (Children of Alcoholic s Foundation, 1986). The sheer size of this population along with the severity o f their problems makes this an area of great significance in public health (Bean - Bayog, 1987). The following review briefly discusses the transmission of alcoholism t o the alcoholic offspring . It then discusses the theories and current researc h concerning the family environment of the alcoholic home and the effects of that 27 environment on the child . This is followed by a discussion of the child of th e alcoholic as an adult . Studies about their personality characteristics an d general adaptation is reviewed with an emphasis on behavior and attitudes i n intimate relationships. This section concludes with the little informatio n available about adult children of alcoholics as parents . Limitations of the Research Some methodological problems plague this area of research . The first i s that alcoholism is not a clearly distinct condition . Studies differ in ho w alcoholism is assessed, who makes the assessment, and when it is made (i n the present or concerning behavior many years in the past) . Another problem i s related to sampling. Many studies use populations who are receiving treatment , such as people in alcoholism treatment, parents reported for child abuse , juvenile offenders, children referred to child guidance centers, or adults wh o seek psychological help . A few studies have compared the above subjects wit h alcoholics or children of alcoholics who have not sought or been referred fo r treatment and found differences in the two populations . Care must be taken no t to generalize findings to dissimilar populations . In many of these studies, research design also limits their usefulness . Lik e most studies that examine parent-child relations and the long term effects o f certain behaviors, they rely on retrospective data and self report and are no t longitudinal studies. Some of the more thorough studies use multiple sources o f data to overcome this problem . The effects of parental alcoholism on childre n can vary with many factors including : parental role stability, parenta l undependability, environmental chaos, emotional unavailability, sex of the 25 parent, sex of the child, child age at onset of parent drinking, the behaviora l manifestations of the drinking, the attitude of the non-drinking parent, availabilit y of other role models and confidants, and the personality of the child (Creighton , 1985). Studies which measure just one factor lead to oversimplifie d conclusions . Another difficulty with this field of research is distinguishing the experienc e of the child of an alcoholic from that of a child whose parents are mentally ill , depressed, abusing or neglectful, chronically ill, or divorced . Research abou t these distinctions is important, but is in its early stages . Transmission of Alcoholis m Early research in this area focused mainly on the male alcoholic and o n the transmission of alcoholism to the alcoholic offspring . Cotton (1979 ) reviewed 39 research reports from several countries and concludes that ther e seems to be a familial transmission of alcoholism. In all the samples o f alcoholics studied, one-third reportedly had an alcoholic parent . Alcoholis m seems to be more prevalent in sons than in daughters of alcoholics . For example, sons of alcoholics were four times more likely to become alcoholic s than sons of nonalcoholic fathers . Only when the mother is alcoholic d o daughters have more alcoholism than sons (Miller Jang, 1977) . Furthe r studies with adoptees and twins (Altermann Tarter, 1986 ; Goodwin et al., 1973) show a significant biological effect on alcoholism, especially for mal e offspring. Genetic transmission of alcoholism to male offspring seems probable . However, since not all sons of alcoholics have drinking problems and since the 29 mechanism for transmission to daughters appears to be different, muc h research remains to be done in this area . Home Environmen t The alcoholic home is likely to be marked by inconsistency, chaos, an d arbitrariness. When a parent is drinking, that parent may behave very differentl y than when s/he is not drinking . Children behaviors that were acceptable i n one case may no longer be all right, rules are changed, and promises ar e forgotten or broken . Children may be forced to play a parental or caretakin g role when their parent is incapacitated by drinking . Children in an alcoholi c home do not get the attention or nurturing they need because the parent focu s is on drinking or controlling and covering for a drinking spouse . (Brown, 1988; Cork, 1969; Woodside, 1982). The various studies that have examined the environment in an alcoholi c home present a picture of a family marked by dysfunction and conflict . Compared to adults raised in nonalcoholic homes, adults raised by alcoholi c parents consistently report they had less cohesive families, more childhoo d stress and unhappiness and less feeling of being loved by their parents . (Carey, 1986; Clair Genest, 1987 ; Cork, 1969; Harkins-Craven, 1986; Johnson Bennett, 1989 ; Tolton, 1988; Wilson, 1988). Black, Bucky, Wilder , and Padilla (1986) found that, compared to non-alcoholic homes, alcoholi c households suffer significantly more family disruptions, and have higher divorc e rates and more premature parental and sibling deaths . In a 20-year , longitudinal study of lower class, urban, multiproblem families, results showe d that all families in the study had many crises, but families with alcoholic parents 30 had significantly more of every kind of crisis, including parentsarrest , incarceration, absence, or hospitalization for alcoholism, mental illness, o r criminal behavior (Miller Jang, 1977 .) Grown children from these alcoholi c families retrospectively reported three times as many family problems as adult s from the multiproblem control group . The alcoholic families received socia l services such as intervention from school counselors, welfare, and foster car e much more often than the control families . Although clinical reports consistently link alcoholism with violence an d child abuse, the research evidence is mixed . In their review of articles concerning a link between child abuse and alcoholism, Orme and Rimme r (1981) concluded that, contrary to prevailing opinion, there was no evidence t o definitively link the two phenomena. The authors found studies that estimate d the incidence of alcoholism among adults who abuse children as varying fro m 11.9% to 65%. The authors concluded that : The methodological problems in these studies are so serious and th e definitions of alcoholism so varied that little confidence can be placed i n their conclusions. Based on these data, however, one cannot eliminat e the possibility of a correlation between child abuse and alcoholism (o r problem drinking). (Orme Rimmer, 1981, p . 275) In a similar review, Mayer and Black (1977) reported a range of 2% to 62 % rate of alcoholism among parents who abuse their children . Sher (1987) foun d that the reported rate of child abuse among alcoholic parents varied from zero t o 92%. Many studies, however, have found that adult children of alcoholics repor t more childhood physical and sexual abuse than controls from nonalcoholi c homes (Tolton, 1988; Black, et al., 1986 ; Wilson, 1988 ; Famularo, Stone, Barnum, Wharton, 1986) . 31 Williams (1982) found correlations between family stability and chil d abuse and alcoholism that varied depending upon which parent was alcoholic . Based on lengthy interviews with families that had either an alcoholic father, a n alcoholic mother, or two alcoholic parents, Williams found that families with tw o alcoholic parents had the highest incidence of child abuse and neglect and th e second lowest family stability. Families with alcoholic mothers had the lowes t family stability rating, especially in marital and economic areas and were mor e likely to have a single parent . In these families, children were more likely to b e neglected, but not abused, compared to the other two groups . Families with a n alcoholic father had the most stability and adequacy of child care and the lowes t incidence of child abuse and neglect, probably because the mother wa s responsible for most of the child care . Williams comments that all of the familie s in the study had many problems in functioning . The Child in the Alcoholic Hom e Cork (1969) interviewed 115 children of alcoholics about the emotiona l effects of living with alcoholic parents . Over 90% of the children said they fel t rejected by their parents, lacked self-confidence, and were generally anxiou s about the future. More than 50% felt angry with their parents, felt there wa s constant tension in the home, and said they felt defiant toward adults . Thei r school work was affected as was their ability to form relationships with sibling s and friends. Morehouse (1979) found that children of alcoholics often feel guilt y and responsible for their parentsdrinking behavior . They are also confused b y the alcoholic behavior when drinking and fear that their parent will become ill 32 or die. These children are also reluctant to bring friends home, so it is difficult t o make friends and have normal peer relationships . Several studies have demonstrated problems in emotional functionin g and self concept among children of alcoholics . Oorman (1976) investigate d children self concept, locus of control, and perception of their fathers . Thi s study compared three groups of 12-18-year-old children : a group of 29 childre n living in homes with an active alcoholic, a group of 23 children whose familie s included a recovering alcoholic, and a third group of 27 adolescents whos e parents had no involvement with alcohol . Oorman found that adolescen t children of fathers who had been or were alcoholic had significantly lower self - esteem than young people in non-alcoholic homes . Also, children of activ e alcoholics felt they experienced less love and attention than the other tw o groups and they had a more external locus of control . Kern et al . (1981) also measured locus of control in children ages 8-13, comparing 20 children o f alcoholics to matched controls. Both the sons and daughters of alcoholic s showed an external locus of control . This implies that these children of alcoholics tend more than other children, to feel their lives are controlled b y others. Fine (1976) compared children of alcoholics to controls aged 8-18 an d found that children of alcoholics scored significantly higher on the Devereau x Child Behavior Rating Scale, indicating more emotional detachment , dependency, and social aggression. Herjanic (1977) used a structure d interview to compare children of alcoholics to controls aged 6-17 years old . Although younger children did not show significant differences between the tw o groups, the teenage children of alcoholics were twice as likely as the childre n from nonalcoholic homes to have received psychiatric treatment for conduct 33 disorders and symptoms of anxiety and depression . Nylander (1960) compare d 229 children of alcoholics with a control group of 163 children of nonalcoholics . He found evidence of emotional disturbance far more prevalent in the childre n of alcoholics. They suffered from anxiety and lack of emotional stability . The y were more likely to have physical symptoms for which no cause could be found , including enuresis, speech disorders, headaches, tiredness, an d stomachaches. The boys were also more likely than those in the control grou p to be considered hyperactive and to have difficulty concentrating . Among th e boys aged 7-9, 74% of the sons of alcoholic fathers had difficulties in school . In a review of 16 studies concerning the effects of parental alcoholism o n children, the authors concluded that the studies they reviewed had so man y methodological problems that they could state only that these studies provide d "modest-to-moderate support for the view that children of alcoholics exhibi t significant difficulties in psychological, social, and family functioning" (Jacob , Favorini, Meisel, Anderson, 1978, p . 1242). They also noted a need for mor e studies that utilized a coherent theoretical, conceptual understanding of famil y systems. The Alcoholic Family Syste m In the book, Treating Adult Children of Alcoholics : A Developmenta l Perspective, Brown (1988) attempts to provide a coherent developmental theor y to explain how children of alcoholics develop the problems noted in the clinica l and popular literature. The author integrates a family systems perspective wit h psychodynamic theory, attachment theory, and cognitive theories . The centra l theory is stated succinctly : 34 Attachment--early and ongoing--is based on denial of perception whic h results in denial of affect which together result in developmental arrests o r difficulties. The core beliefs and patterns of behavior formed to sustai n attachment and denial within the family then structure subsequen t development of the self including cognitive, affective and socia l development. (Brown, 1988, p . 5) According to Brown theory, the primary focus in an alcoholic family i s alcohol and drinking behavior. The primary cognitive focus is denial of tha t behavior. Parents in an alcoholic family typically deny that anything is wrong . The children perceive that is not so, but to maintain the attachment to thei r parents, the children must deny their perception of chaos, abuse, neglect, an d violence. The level of denial varies in each family, but the result is that the chil d learns not to trust his or her own perceptions and act on them . The family i s constantly struggling to control an uncontrollable situation in which the centra l problem is not permitted to be acknowledged . The children in such a family no t only deny their own perceptions, they also must deny their affect--how can on e have feelings about a problem which doesn exist ? According to Brown, the four main defenses these children develop ar e denial, an emphasis on control .all-or-none-thinkinq, and the assumption of responsibility for people and events outside of one control . These defenses develop so that the child can maintain attachment to the parents--the need fo r attachment overrides all else . Denial blocks perception and affect to maintai n attachment. It allows the child to accept the parent view of reality and of th e child. It is the central defense on which the others rest . An emphasis on contro l helps the child ward off anxiety caused by the denial of reality . It helps the chil d keep his/her feelings in check and protect against feeling weak or needy . Th e child also tries to control feelings of anger in him/herself and others . In addition , the child fears being out of control like the parent, both emotionally and in 35 relation to alcohol. Dichotomous all-or-none thinking serves to minimize ambiguity and uncertainty. This reduces anxiety in the child by compensatin g for perceptual and affective deficits . The child believes there are rules to gover n interactions. People are good or bad, dependent or independent, and the like . This kind of perception of the world relates to the area of control in that the chil d believes that one is either in control or out of control, controlled by others o r controlling. The excessive feeling of responsibility arises from the child nee d to believe that his/her parents are good and will take care of him/her . When thi s doesn happen, the child prefers to believe that s/he is responsible and ca n change the situation. The child attempts to be responsible for the chaotic famil y and gain an illusory sense of security through being able to manage things . I n later life, this attitude causes difficulty in relationships because getting involve d with people means becoming responsible for them . The above defenses cause the child to build his/her identity around a fals e sense of self. The result is that the child cannot trust his/her own sensorial , intellectual or intuitive abilities. S/He cannot trust himself or others . Man y problems arise from this false identity at adolescence when the child should b e separating from the parents . The child cannot separate because his/her identit y is built around.othersneeds . Never having had early dependency needs met , the child still feels tied to the parents . Change of any kind is difficult becaus e "Any data that threatens : 1) denial of parental alcoholism 2) the belief s constructed to maintain it and preserve attachment, and 3) the defensive adaptations that now provide the structure of the self, must be excluded" (Brown , 1988, p. 208). In an alcoholic family, the parents are frequently inconsistent with regar d to both nurturing and practical role behavior . Role reversal is frequent both in 36 task-related and emotional functioning . The child in the alcoholic family ofte n feels responsible for the parentswell being . The child becomes over - enmeshed with the parents and cannot leave at the developmentall y appropriate time. Brown contends that, because the child has never been abl e to depend on the parent, s/he cannot truly depend on her/himself and leave th e parents. Alone, s/he feels nonexistent . Brown has noted that, when ACOA ar e questioned about their own needs as children, they continually shift from talkin g about what they needed from their parents to what their parents needed fro m them and how they failed to provide it . Adult Children of Alcoholic s In the past decade, the popular literature has presented many theorie s and self help ideas for adult children of alcoholics . Academic literature an d research is in its early stages. In fact, a search of that literature uncovers n o references to "adult children of alcoholics" before 1980 . A brief review of th e popular literature main theories will be followed by a review of curren t research. The Popular Literatur e The popular literature has focused on three general ways of describin g ACOA : general personality characteristics or behaviors ACOA have ; "roles" children of alcoholics play; and the concept of "codependency" . According t o Woititz (1983), ACOA share certain characteristics . The following list, similar to those of other authors, is from Woititz best-selling book, Adult Children of Alcoholics : 37 1. Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is . 2. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project throug h from beginning to end . 3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell th e truth. 4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy . 5. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun . 6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves seriously . 7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships . 8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over which they hav e no control. 9. Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation . 10. Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different fro m other people . 11. Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or supe r irresponsible . 12. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face o f evidence that the loyalty is undeserved . 13. Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive ...without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possibl e consequences...(leading to) confusion, self-loathing, and loss of contro l over their environment...(p. 4). The preceding characteristics are general . Of course, each alcoholi c family and child has particular characteristics, so each child finds his/her ow n way to cope. Some common roles children take on to help them survive an d look healthy have been explicated by Wegsheider (1981) . The Family Hero, often the oldest child, takes responsibility for the family when the parents ar e inadequate. S/He is successful at home and at school, wins praise and awards , and is the leader everyone can count on . The trap in this role is that the Her o must constantly be in control and be successful or s/he will feel frightened an d helpless. The Hero rarely feels successful enough . The Scapegoat is often the second child and gets the attention s/he needs by getting into trouble . S/H e feels abandoned and angry with his/her parents . The Scapegoat acts out wit h alcohol, drugs, gangs, etc ., and is the child most likely to end up in jail o r prematurely dead by accident or suicide . The Lost Child copes by withdrawing from the chaotic family entirely, spending time alone in his/her room, learning 3a not to make trouble or ask for attention . This child feels unimportant, confused , and fearful and may become ill to get attention . The Lost child grows up lonel y and shy and may become addicted to alcohol or food to fill the inner emptiness . The last role is the Family Mascot. This child learns to distract her/himself and the family from their pain through silliness and humor . S/He is anxious an d overactive, always in flight from his/her internal suffering. As an adult, th e Mascot can continue in this role, living a superficial life and suffering fro m psychiatric illnesses. These roles are not rigid and children can develop ne w role behaviors. If, for example, the Hero leaves home, one of the other childre n may move into that role because the family covertly demands it . Many of the popular authors say that family members, both spouse an d children, of an alcoholic are likely to become codependent . Codependency ca n be defined as the attempt to gain self esteem from "the ability to influence an d control feelings and behavior, both in oneself and others" (Cermak Rosenfield, 1987). Cermak believes this condition emerges as a child adjusts t o a self-absorbed, narcissistic parent . The child must deny his/her own natura l narcissistic needs and respond to the parent in order to get any attention o r emotional validation. This leads to the child defining the self by how the paren t sees him/her. According to Cermak (1990) : Codependency is a pervasive pattern of inadequacy (in fantasy o r behavior), excessive empathy, and hypersensitivity to the evaluation o f others, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts , as indicated by at least five of the following : 1. Reacts to criticism with feelings of fear, shame, or embarrassment (even if not expressed). 2. Is interpersonally exploited; permits others to take advantage of them t o achieve other ends . 3. Has an inadequate sense of self-importance, e .g. minimizes achievement and talents, expects to be ignored except insofar a s achievements are continuously present . (The extreme extent to which thi s characteristic exists often reveals a submerged, inverse grandiosity .) 39 4. Believes that his or her problems are unique and can be understoo d only by other special people . 5. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited failure, impotence , catastrophe, evil, or ideal love . 6. Lacks a sense of entitlement : unreasonable expectation of especiall y unfavorable treatment, e.g., assumes that he or she must wait in line in order for others to be taken care of first. 7. Constant desire for attention and admiration, e .g., keeps fishing for compliments, but has a highly developed capacity for delaye d gratification. 8. Lack of empathy for him or herself, in conjunction with excessiv e sympathy for others; inability to recognize and experience how he or sh e feels themself . 9. Is preoccupied with feelings of guilt . The Research on ACOAs The explosion in the popular literature has led to research which i s seeking to explore the popular theories . Some studies have taken the route o f using classic personality tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personalit y Inventory (MMPI) to investigate the possibility of differences between ACOA s and the general population. In one such study, Moore (1987) used Jackson s Personality Research Form (PRF) to compare three groups of college students , one with no history of family-of-origin dysfunction, one with family dysfunctio n unrelated to alcohol, and one with a history of parental alcohol abuse . Th e study found a significant difference on three variables between the control an d nonalcoholic dysfunctional groups, but the alcoholic group did not diffe r significantly from either of the other two groups . The author concluded tha t ACOA do not have a unique personality profile . Another study used the MMP I and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) to compare four groups : non- alcoholic/non-ACA, non-alcoholic/ACA, alcoholic/ACA, and alcoholic/non-AC A (Fidelibus, 1988.) The study found that the three latter groups all differe d significantly from the non-alcoholic/non-ACA group, but little from each other . 40 The author concluded that although ACA may not have a discrete syndrome , there were traits or tendencies that distinguished each group from the others . The alcoholic ACA tended to have an antisocial profile whereas the non - alcoholic ACA had dependent-avoidant tendencies . Although most studies of general adjustment have found difference s between ACOA and non-ACOA, a few studies have found no differences . Toiton (1988) found no difference between the scores of female ACOA an d non-ACOA on variables measuring depression, stressful life events, copin g responses, and social support on the Health and Daily Living Form B . Thi s study used a middle class, well functioning sample . Clair and Genest (1987 ) used a similar sample. They found some differences, to be discussed later i n this review, but they found no differences between ACOA and control group s in general adjustment and self-esteem . The most common finding in the literature is that ACOA tend to scor e higher on measures of depression than a control group . Female ACOA s especially have more depressive symptomotology when compared with femal e controls and/or with male ACOA (Berkowitz Perkins, 1988 ; Goglia, 1986; Parker, 1988; Wilson, 1988). ACOA have been found to have a poorer sel f concept than non-ACOA (Reardon Markwell, 1989) and to have significantl y more emotional and psychological problems as adults than a control grou p (Black, Bucky, Wilder-Padilla, 1986) . Using a large non-clinical group of daughters of normal fathers, alcoholi c fathers, two alcoholic parents and psychologically-disturbed fathers, Benso n and Heller (1987) found that ACOA had more neurotic and acting ou t symptoms than adult daughters from normal homes . The daughters o f alcoholics were more similar to the daughters of psychologically-disturbed 4 1 fathers than to the "normaldaughters . Daughters with more symptomolog y reported less family support and less consistent love from their fathers, mor e parental conflict, and fewer supportive relationships with others in adolescenc e and adulthood. The authors noted that many ACOA added notes on thei r questionnaires about their fears of dependency and intimacy, general lack o f trust, and pervasive resentment. The authors concluded that the diversity o f experiences seems to be a function of the quality of the family environment an d the supportive relationships available to the child . A study of Evangelical Christians found that adult daughters of alcoholic s had more psychological difficulties than a control group, including being mor e likely to have sought therapy recently, to feel more depressed and guilty, to fin d their current lives and marriages less satisfying, to be more likely to have bee n married to an alcoholic, and also to have significantly more problems in thei r religious perceptions (Wilson, 1988 .) A study of what factors mediate the outcome for adult children of alcoholi c fathers found that ACOA appraised their childhood family problems as bein g less controllable or changeable than did non-ACOA (Clair Genest, 1987) . ACOA also tended to use significantly more escape-oriented coping strategie s than the controls . These strategies included such things as wishful thinking , smoking, eating, and substance use . They also tended to deal with problems b y trying to change their own emotions without acting on the problem whereas th e control group used more problem-focused strategies . For the ACOA in thi s study, self-esteem was correlated with and best explained by a combination o f the degree to which the person family maintained cohesion and the inverse o f the person tendency to use coping skills aimed at regulating their emotiona l reactions to problems . 42 Rydelius (1981) studied the histories of 229 Swedish children o f alcoholics over a period of 20 years . The researcher compared them with a control group to see if they were more at risk for problems of social adjustmen t including alcoholism, physical and mental illness . The adult sons of alcoholic s were more frequently registered with the Social Assistance, Criminal Offenses , and Temperance Registers, implying they had more need for child welfare help , more criminality, and more alcohol and drug abuse than the control group . Th e adult daughters of alcoholics had more involvement with child welfar e personnel, but no difference in their registration with the Criminal o r Temperance Registers. Both the daughters and sons of alcoholics had mor e physical illness than the control group, the daughters visiting the gynecologis t more often and the sons requiring more surgery and visiting the hospital mor e often. The sons were more often involved with psychiatric facilities, generally fo r their own drug and alcohol treatment . In their 20-year longitudinal study of multiproblem urban families, Mille r and Jang (1977) found that adult children of alcoholics had significantly mor e problems of every kind than the children of non-alcoholics . The ACOA ha d more alcoholism (36% compared to 16% and a national average of 8%), mor e mental health problems, more suicide attempts, more severe marital difficulties , and more difficulties economically and in employment . The greater the degre e of parental alcoholism, the worse was the outcome for the children involved , both as children and as adults . Children who had two alcoholic parents had th e worst outcome. Those with an alcoholic mother had more difficulties than thos e with an alcoholic father . 43 Intimacy Difficulties developing and maintaining intimate relationships is a patter n frequently attributed to ACOA . Children of alcoholics are more likely tha n others to marry alcoholics (Black, Bucky, Wilder-Padilla, 1986 ; Wilson, 1988). Nici (1979) found that the long-accepted idea that wives of alcoholics ar e "repeaters," that is, that ex-wives of alcoholics will marry another alcoholic, i s true only to a point. This pattern is more often repeated when the wife is a daughter of an alcoholic . Daughters of alcoholics are more likely than ex-wive s of alcoholics to marry alcoholics. Sons and daughters of alcoholics have bee n found to be less satisfied with their intimate relationships and to have a high ris k of separation and divorce (Miller Jang, 1977 ; Parker, 1988;). Carey (1986) found no difference between daughters of alcoholics an d daughters of non-alcoholics in "intimacy adjustment" as measured by the Mille r Social Intimacy Scale (MSIS), but found a significant difference between th e two groups on the Fundamental interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavio r (FIRO-B), namely, the daughters of alcoholics had more difference betwee n their scores for Wanted and Expressed Affection than controls . Harkins-Craven (1986) found that although the clinical groups (those i n therapy) of adult daughters of alcoholics did not differ from clinical controls i n general emotional distress or the degree of differentiation from their family o f origin, the women with alcoholic parents reported less intimacy and more fusio n with their mates than controls as measured on the Personal Authority in th e Family System Questionnaire. Ecker (1989) reported ACOA had lower level s of intimacy and less individuation in relationships with their parents . In a recent study that compared ACOA in therapy and not in therapy wit h controls both in therapy and not in therapy, Settle (1988) found that the two 44 ACOA groups seemed to represent distinct populations with regard to intimac y difficulties. With regard to friendships, all groups were similar, but in lov e relationships, only those ACOA in therapy reported significantly lowe r intimacy. This clinical group of ACOA differed from the other groups by havin g less family of origin health, more maternal drinking, more physical and sexua l abuse, more depression, and more suicidal thoughts and behaviors . Settl e found that family-of-origin health predicted intimacy in love relationships an d that the clinical group of ACOA had the worst childhood histories of the fou r groups. Nardi (1981) posed the possibilities of role-confusion for the child of a n alcoholic, resulting in the child playing an adult role in the family . Goglia (1986 ) found that female ACOA were more "parentified" than a control group, bu t male ACOA did not seem to have that pattern . ACOA as Parent s The question of how adult children of alcoholics function as parents i s almost completely unexplored. (The present author found only a few popula r books and only two research studies in this area, both recent dissertations .) The popular books (Mastrich, 1988 ; Oorman Oliver-Diaz, 1987 ; Rolfe, 1990; Smith, 1988) generally espouse theories based on the authorsclinica l experience and extend the generally accepted view of ACOA in popula r literature to the parental experience. All three of the above authors assert tha t ACOA often feel inferior, have low self-esteem, and are afraid of their ow n feelings, especially anger. This results in a general emotional numbing and a n inability to respond to their children feelings appropriately . They may also find 45 expressing love difficult and be uncomfortable with physical touching beyon d infancy. In an attempt to control their anger, they may suppress it until they los e control and strike out at their children, resulting in inconsistent discipline . ACOA, in an effort to avoid failing as parents, can become perfectionistic an d attempt to control their children . They can become manipulative, using threat s of violence, silence, rage, etc . They also tend to be overly preoccupied wit h how others see them and to look to others for rules on how to parent, yet hav e difficulty actually accepting help. Finally, ACOA parents have a tendency to loo k to their children for the affirmation, support, and love they missed as childre n themselves. Having been forced into a nurturing role with their own parents , they may force their children to care for them. In summary, these authors assert that ACOA have ambivalent feelings about their children and tend to projec t their own unresolved feelings on to them . Their own emotional needs mak e them unable to respond clearly to their children needs . The only research study to explore this area partially validates the popula r theories (Wilder-Padilla, 1989). In it, a control group of 52 mothers was compared with 19 mothers who had an alcoholic father and 12 mothers with tw o alcoholic parents. Areas compared included parental attitude, perception o f their own dysfunctional parental behavior, perception of their child s dysfunctional behavior, and overall stress between the parent and child . Thi s study used two survey questionnaires, the Parent Attitude Survey and th e Parenting Stress Index. The main findings of the study were as follows : Mothers who are ACOA reported significantly higher levels of stress within th e parent-child relationship than did non-ACOA mothers . They attributed thi s stress to their own dysfunctional parenting behaviors. ACOA mothers reporte d significantly more depressive, guilt-like symptoms and they found the parental 46 role frustrated their attempts to maintain their own identity. They felt les s competent in the parenting role and reported less emotional support from thei r husbands in the area of childrearing than non-ACOA mothers . There were n o significant differences in parental attitudes between ACOA and non-ACO A mothers. No differences were found in either attitudes or stress level tha t correlated to the degree of alcoholism experienced in their family of origin, a s defined by how many parents were alcoholic . An investigation of the parenting attitudes of ACOA who are father s measured fathersattitudes using the Parental Attitude Research instrument t o measure authoritarian control, marital conflict, and democratic attitude s (Biraben, 1987). It compared groups of ACOA who were themselves eithe r alcoholics or not alcoholics. This study found non-alcoholic ACOA fathers hel d more democratic attitudes toward parenting than alcoholic ACOA fathers . In summary, alcoholism can be seen as a risk factor for dysfunctiona l parenting in two generations . Children raised in alcoholic homes are likely t o compensate in some way for their parentsimpairments . The effects of parenta l alcoholism on children can vary with many factors including : parental rol e stability, parental undependability, environmental chaos, emotiona l unavailability, sex of the parent, sex of the child, child age at onset of parent s drinking, the behavioral manifestations of the drinking, the attitude of the non - drinking parent, availability of other role models and confidants, and th e personality of the child (Creighton, 1985). ACOA are therefore not a homogeneous population and few sweeping generalizations can be mad e concerning them. The most common findings in the literature are that childre n of alcoholics tend to feel less loved by their parents and report more instability i n their homes as they grow up . Children often must assume adult functions and 47 role reversal is a common family pattern. As adults, ACOA tend to score hig h on measures of depression and anxiety . Some ACOA appear extremel y successful and achieve a great deal in life ; a significant subset of ACOA wit h more traumatic histories appear extremely troubled . In intimate relationships , these ACOA tend toward fusion in an attempt to experience intimacy . ACOA and Attachmen t Researchers in the attachment field have done little work concerning th e relationship patterns of alcoholics and their children . One study, however , suggests that children of alcoholic mothers may be negatively affected by thei r parentsdrinking quite early in life . Oonnor, Sigman, and Brill (1987 ) performed Ainsworth Strange Situation procedure with mother-baby dyad s when the babies were one year old . The 46 mothers were all middle class an d over 30 years of age. Mothers filled out self-report questionnaires abou t alcohol, caffeine, smoking, and other drug consumption . The study found highl y significant correlations between motherslevel of drinking in the pre-pregnanc y period and insecure attachment status for babies . Among mothers who wer e classified as light drinkers pre-pregnancy, 22% of the babies were judged to b e insecurely attached. Among moderate drinkers, 48% of the babies wer e insecurely attached, and among heavy drinkers, 83% of the babies wer e insecurely attached. Correlations were found in the same direction whe n drinking during and after pregnancy was computed, but they were les s significant. The researchers felt that mothers underreported drinking durin g these periods due to social desirability pressures . A high percentage of th e babies of drinking mothers were rated Type D disorganized/disoriented . Babies 48 in this category are thought to have experienced the most extreme famil y conditions including maltreatment, maternal depression, and severe loss . It wa s this category of classification that differentiated children of abstinent-to-ligh t drinkers from children of moderate-to-heavy drinkers. This study suggests tha t by the time they are one year old, children of alcoholic mothers show sever e attachment difficulties which are likely to develop into social and emotiona l problems as they grow up (Main et al ., 1985). A few researchers have assessed the attachment patterns of ACOA s using self-report measures rather than interviews . Similar measures have bee n developed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) and Bartholomew (1990) . The Hazan - Shaver questionnaire asks people to rate themselves as to how well they fit th e descriptions of the three traditional attachment categories of secure, avoidant , and ambivalent, whereas Bartholomew measure adds a fourth category calle d fearful avoidant or simply fearful. Latty-Mann and Davis (1988) used the Hazan - Shaver questionnaire to assess the attachment styles of a group of self - designated ACOA attending an ACOA conference . They found that this grou p of ACOA were four times as likely as a control group of non-ACOA to rat e themselves as high on both avoidant and ambivalent characteristics. Brennan , Shaver, and Tobey (1990) replicated Latty-Mann and Davisresults, althoug h not as strongly. They got significant results using the two similar, but different , measures of attachment style mentioned above. They found that people wh o scored themselves as high on both the avoidant and ambivalent categories o n the Hazan-Shaver measure were more likely than others to have problem - drinking parents. When Bartholomew four-category questionnaire was used , adults whose parents were problem-drinkers tended to score high in the fearfu l category. Latty-Mann is currently finishing a dissertation concerning the 49 attachment styles of ACOA and their mothers . This data is not entirel y analyzed, but points to a higher incidence of "fearful avoidance" among ACOA s than among daughters of non-problem drinkers . Jaeger (1991, persona l correspondence) is also completing a dissertation analysis of ACOA s attachment styles, and data analyzed so far indicates a predominance o f insecure attachment in the ACOA population . ACOA . Depression, and Role Reversal The high incidence of depression among ACOA suggests that finding s concerning depression and attachment status may be applicable to the ACO A population. A study of attachment in children of depressed parents found tha t insecure attachment patterns were more common among children of mother s with major depression than among those with minor depression or n o depression (Radke-Yarrow, Cummings, Kuczynski Chapman, 1985 .) Insecure attachment was more frequent among children of mothers with bipola r depression than unipolar depression . The most severe depressions in mother s were associated with high avoidance/high ambivalent patterns in children . Col e and Koback (1990) studied college age girls who were depressed and/or eatin g disordered and found a strong association between depression an d preoccupied attachment classification, with 57.1% of the depressed subject s classified as preoccupied in the Adult Attachment Interview . Of those who wer e depressed and eating disordered, .52% were classified preoccupied . This wa s in contrast to the eating disordered subjects of whom 66.7% were classified dismissing. Depression in daughters was associated with role reversal in the 50 family. The parents demanded support from the child, with their needs takin g precedence over the child well-being . Zahn-Waxler, Kochanska, Krupnick, and McKnew (1990) explain thi s process as follows: The parent is preoccupied with his/her own problems an d difficulties and tries to get support from the child . The child become s hypervigilant to the parent emotions, developing high levels of empathy an d also guilt for not being able to respond to the parent . The child attempts t o maintain the relationship, but is unsuccessful in filling the parents` needs . The child feels unloved and fears the loss of the parent . The child resulting sens e of inefficacy and low self worth results in the preoccupied pattern of attachmen t and depression . The alcoholic parent fits this description, often being unresponsive to th e child needs and needing both emotional and practical support from the child . Brown (1988) described how the child of an alcoholic learns to deny his/he r own perceptions and needs and instead, focus on the parent needs . The chil d becomes enmeshed with the parents and cannot separate from the m emotionally at the developmentally appropriate time . Bowlby (1973) noted thi s pattern in children who are school-phobic, describing these children as guilt - ridden and overconscientious as well as anxiously attached . Role reversal patterns have also been associated with abusive families . Delozier (1982) found that abusive mothers reported more role reversal an d feelings of responsibility for their own parentswell-being than did non-abusiv e mothers. Approximately two-thirds of the abusive group felt this way compare d to one-third of the non-abusive group . Bowlby (1976) explained that abuse d children may become compulsive caretakers in an attempt to maintai n attachment to their parent and as a way to deny their unconscious resentment at 5 1 not being cared for themselves . Their anger may then be expressed agains t their own children later in life . Morris and Gould (1963) theorized that abusiv e parents unconsciously identify their infants with their own parents, who, like thei r infants, "demanded, who could not be satisfied, and who did not satisfy th e current parent" (p . 298). Alcoholic parents and their offspring may fit this pattern . Type D disorganized/disoriented behavior in infants has also bee n associated with role reversal patterns in families . Main and Cassidy (1988 ) found that infants who had been classified as Type D at 12 months behaved in a controlling way with their parents when they were six years old . They controlle d either through punitive directness or in a caretaking style . Subjective Experience of Parentin g Most research on internal working models has focused on how the infan t forms models of relationships. More recent work has explored adultsmodels o f relationships with their parents and peers . Although parental behavior ha s been measured and correlated with infant behavior and attachment groups, littl e research has focused on the parentssubjective experience of parenting . W e know little about parentsthoughts and feelings concerning their children s attachment to them. Parents must feel bonded to their children in order for th e attachment relationship to develop in an optimal fashion . If the parents hav e difficulty responding sensitively to their infants, insecure attachment may result . What is the parental experience of this insecure attachment? Severa l investigators, working independently, have been exploring these question s using similar structured interviews. Bretherton and Ridgeway (1986) develope d the Parent Attachment Interview; Zeanah, Benoit, and Barton (1986) call their 52 instrument the Working Model of the Child Interview . Slade and Aber (1986 ) developed the Parent Development Interview . All attempt to empathicall y explore the parent relationship with a particular child and to understand th e parent conceptualization of the relationship . 53 CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY Statement of the Problem Adult children of alcoholics are a heterogeneous group . Their degree o f dysfunction is dependent upon the manifestations of parental alcoholism in thei r childhood families. As demonstrated in the previous review of the literature, th e little research published to date points to the probability that a significan t subgroup of adult children of alcoholics are depressed and anxious, feel lo w self-worth, and have difficulties in intimate relationships . From the point of vie w of attachment theory, they tend to have insecure models of relationships . Their attachment patterns seem more likely to follow the NC pattern of having hig h avoidant and high ambivalent tendencies or the D pattern of sever e disorganization in their relationships . How do these adult children of alcoholic s function as parents? How do they perceive and deal with nurturing a chil d when they have been poorly nurtured themselves? Do these adults pass o n their parentsinsecure patterns even if they themselves are not alcoholic ? The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how women parenting o f their own children is affected by their having had inadequate mothering a s children themselves . The subjects' conceptualization of the caregivin g relationship is examined by analyzing their internal representational models o f relationships both in childhood and as parents . These internal models are 54 analyzed for evidence of both change and continuity in an effort to understan d how having had inadequate mothering affects a woman parenting behavior . Method This study is exploratory in nature. Based on an extensive review of th e literature in the fields of ACOA, parenting, and attachment, as well as o n conversations with researchers around the country, it appears that no one t o date has attempted to explore the parenting patterns of ACOA from th e attachment perspective. The present study uses a multiple case method . The subjects are thre e nonalcoholic or recovering women whose mothers are/were alcoholic . All subjects have children who are between two and five years old becaus e attachment issues are more salient to younger children and their parents . Subjects were found through the Community Center for Family Counselin g ("Saturday Circus"), a local parent education program . At Saturday Circus, th e researcher explained the research briefly and passed out a confidential form o n which parents were asked to indicate whether or not they were eligible for th e study and wanted to volunteer to be a subject . The researcher contacted those who volunteered by telephone and chose the first three eligible volunteers to b e subjects. This is a heterogeneous group of subjects who were not chose n because they were or were not abusive with their children . The subjects diffe r in age (24, 32, and 37 years old .) Two are married to their children father s and one is divorced from her child father and lives with a boyfriend . On e subject has one child, one has two children, and one has three children . On e subject has an alcoholic mother, and the other two have two alcoholic parents . 55 All three subjects have heavily used alcohol or drugs, but are not usin g substances now. Subjects differ in class background . One came from an uppe r middle class background, one from lower middle class, and the third from a lower class background. Two of the subjects work outside of the home and th e third is a student. The researcher met with each subject privately three times. At the firs t meeting, the subjects signed an informed consent form and completed severa l self-report questionnaires concerning their parenting attitudes, childhoo d experiences, and relationship style . These questionnaires were not scored unti l the end of the study. After the questionnaires were done, the researche r interviewed each subject about her childhood relationships with her parent s using the Family Interview (Bartholomew Horowitz, 1991) . This intervie w lasted about one to one and one half hours . The interviewer met with th e subject later the same week and administered the Parent Attachment Intervie w (Bretherton Ridgeway, 1986) concerning the subject parenting experience s and relationships with her children . Both interviews were audio-recorded an d transcribed verbatim by the researcher using the protocol used in attachmen t research, noting pauses, laughing, and any other verbal peculiarities . Bot h interviews were analyzed by the researcher . In addition, the Family Intervie w was analyzed by two raters, Kim Bartholomew, Ph .D., a researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, who wrote the Family Interview used i n this study, and another rater trained by her. The two independent raters eac h rated the interviews separately and their scores were averaged . The averag e scores were reported in this study . The primary researcher was blind to bot h the independent interview ratings and the questionaires until after the mai n analysis was completed . 56 The researcher met briefly with each subject a third time approximatel y two months after the second interview to let the subjects examine the intervie w transcripts, discuss any feelings and thoughts that had emerged from the firs t two interviews, and to give the subject an opportunity for closure . This las t meeting was not transcribed . Instruments 1. The Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) (Jones, 1983). Th e CAST is a 30-item self-report inventory with a yes/no format that deals with "(a ) psychological distress associated with a parent drinking, (b) perception o f drinking-related marital discord between parents, (c) attempts to control a parent drinking, (d) efforts to escape from the alcoholism, (e) exposure t o drinking-related family violence, (f) tendencies to perceive parents as bein g alcoholic, and (g) desire for professional counseling," (Jones, 1983, p . 5) Th e test manual reports that, in a sample of adults, a Spearman-Brown split-hal f reliability coefficient of .98 was obtained. No test-retest reliability studies hav e been reported. The two validity studies reported in the CAST manual bot h showed significant score differences between diagnosed or self-reporte d children of alcoholics and randomly selected control group children (Jones , 1983). High scores on the CAST appear to be related to low family cohesion , high family conflict, and low overall family support (Dinning Berk, 1989) . 2. Adult Attachment Questionnaire (Bartholomew Horowitz, 1991) . Thi s is a short self-report questionnaire that asks people to rate themselves on fou r different relationship styles (which correspond to the four attachment patterns) . 57 It uses both categorical and Likert-type ratings . No psychometric measures fo r this questionnaire are available . 3. Mother-Father-Peer Scale (Epstein, 1983). This scale includes th e following measures: the degree to which mothers and fathers are reported t o have been independence-encouraging versus overprotecting, the degree t o which mothers and fathers have been reported to be accepting versus rejecting , and the degree to which peers are reported to have been accepting versu s rejecting. There is also a measure of defensive idealization of the parents . Al l items are responded to with respect to when the testee was a child . Reliability ratings for the M-F-P scales range from .88 to .93. The mother self-report o n the mother acceptance scale about her childhood has been found to be highl y correlated with her sense of loveworthiness in adulthood and with her child s behavior (Ricks, 1985). 4. Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI) (Bavolek, 1984). This 32- item self-report inventory is designed to assess the parenting and child-rearin g attitudes of adults and adolescents . Using a five-point Likert scale, response s to the items of the inventory provide an index of risk for practicing abusive an d neglecting child-rearing behaviors . The subscales on this inventory are : Inappropriate Expectations of Children, Empathic Awareness of Children s Needs, Belief in the Use of Corporal Punishment, and Reversing Family Roles . The four parenting constructs were developed from a literature review . A content validity criterion of 80% agreement among experts that items wer e perceived as an accurate measurement of each construct was established an d met. Items in each of the four constructs resulted in an internal reliability equal 58 to or greater than .70. The total test-retest reliability of all the items is .76. Studies to establish the diagnostic and discriminatory validity of the AAPI hav e found that scores on the AAPI were capable of discriminating an abusive paren t population from a population of non-abusive parents (Bavolek, 1989) . 5. The Parent Attachment Interview (Bretherton Ridgeway, 1986) . Thi s is an in-depth, structured, but open-ended interview which inquires about th e subject experience of parenting and relationship with a particular child fro m an attachment-theoretical perspective. It focuses on the parent point of vie w on attachment issues such as emotional communication, separations, an d negotiating autonomy. It inquires additionally about intergenerationa l similarities and differences with the subject family of origin . The origina l interview was evaluated on a sensitivity-insight scale, the scores of which wer e found to correlate significantly with other measures of attachment which wer e administered prior, concurrent, and subsequent to the interview . I n readministration, the interview has also shown some indication of stability ove r a one and a half year period, although these findings must be considere d provisional at this time (Bretherton, Biringen, Ridgeway, Maslin, Sherman , 1989). The current researcher did not use the original sensitivity-insight scal e to evaluate the interview because it was too general to suit the purposes of thi s research. Instead, a detailed content and process analysis of the mother s internal representational models of caretaking was done, based on the curren t researcher understanding of attachment theory . 6. The Family Interview (Bartholomew Horowitz, 1991) . This is an in - depth, structured, but open-ended, interview which inquires about the subject 59 childhood family relationships from an attachment-theoretical perspective . I t explores the subject relationships with both parents with an emphasis o n emotional communication, separations, rejections, toss, and changes in th e parent-child relationships as the child grew up . The present author, wit h Bartholomew permission, added questions that were specific to the ACO A population in this study. These added questions inquire about the effects o f parental alcoholism in the subject family, alcohol and drug use by the subject , suicide attempts among family members, depression in family members , incidents of role reversal in the subject childhood, and counselin g experiences of the subject and her family . Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) reported that interview ratings wer e based on the mean scores of two coders . Reliability was calculated wit h coefficient alpha. Reliability figures for the ratings of the four relationship style s ranged from .75 to .86 overall. Reliability ratings for the individual scales rang e from .7 up, and reliability for the entire ratings is much higher now than whe n the cited article was written (Bartholomew, personal communication) . Th e article cited above contains complete psychometric information about th e construction and validation of this interview . Analysis The data provided by the subjects in this study was analyzed in severa l different ways. Each subject data was analyzed separately . First, the conten t from both interviews was reported and summarized . Then, the researcher s personal observations and feelings toward the subject during the intervie w were noted. The interview material was examined next for how the informatio n could be explained by findings in the child abuse literature and by theories in 60 the ACOA literature . The interviews were then examined for evidence of rol e reversal in the subject current family and in her family of origin . The rest of the analysis of the interviews was done from the point of view of attachment theory. First the subject childhood attachment experiences wer e examined and a guess was made as to the attachment category of the subject s parents. The subject attitude toward attachment was examined for evidenc e of valuing or devaluing attachment . Included in this was her attitude toward th e process of being interviewed. The next part of the analysis examined th e subject coherency in the interviews . This included analysis of her ability t o remember experiences, how she presented general and specific memories , contradictions in the content, evidence of idealization of relationships, evidenc e of disorganization in internal models, and openness and flexibility in integratin g new information. The subject attachment behaviors as a child were the n noted along with the parental caretaking behaviors of the subject parents an d of the subject herself with her own children . Next, the interviews were analyze d concerning emotional processing . Emotional processing in the actual intervie w was noted as well as the subject reported emotional processing . Thi s analysis dealt with how the subject manages affect, including what emotions th e subject feels and doesn feel, how her emotional processing has change d since childhood, and how she talks about and deals with the emotions of othe r people, especially her children . The subject parental behavior was the focus of the next part of th e analysis. Special attention was paid to how the subject and her child deal wit h separations and secure base behavior . The subject sensitivity and insigh t with her child was discussed next . The last section of the main analysi s examined the subject internal models of self and others in childhood and 6 1 adulthood, both with peers and as a parent . The last part of this section was a n analysis of how the subject internal models of self and others had or had no t changed since childhood . At this point, the results of the independent analysis of the Family Intervie w were compared to the analysis done by the main researcher . Next, the dat a from the various self-report measures was examined and analyzed as to ho w supportive of the interview data they were . Each case analysis ended with a review of the study hypotheses as they relate to that subject . After the thre e cases were analyzed separately, the study hypotheses were reviewed in ligh t of the entire data. Additional findings from the three cases were then presented . The researcher is aware of the phenomenon of illusory correlation i n which the one tends to see what one is looking for and not see what one is no t looking for. This research utilized several safeguards against this possibility . First, several self-report measures were used in order to provide a mor e objective measure of remembered childhood experience, parenting attitudes , and relationship style. Also, the Family Interview was analyzed by tw o independent raters whose ratings were not revealed to the main researche r until after the main analysis was completed . These two raters necessarily ha d the same theoretical orientation as the main researcher . The subjective natur e of the analyses must be seen as a limitation of the present study . Hypotheses The hypotheses for this study are as follows . 62 Hypotheses Concerning Conten t Hypothesis 1. Daughters of alcoholic mothers will have insecure model s of relationships and will fit into Bartholomew Preoccupied or Fearfu l categories. Hypothesis 2. These subjects will report incidents of role reversal wit h both their parent and their children . Their levels of denial will vary dependin g upon their attachment behavior. Subjects with a balanced view of attachmen t relationships will show less denial . Denial is demonstrated by memory loss , perceptual distortion, emotional rigidity, and behavioral incongruity . Hypotheses Concerning Internal Representational Model s Hypothesis 1. A subject internal representational models will b e consistent across relationships--the models will differ only slightly according t o with whom the person is in relationship (parent, child, peer) . Hypothesis 2. Subjects may have experienced changes in thei r attachment behavior and internal representational models over time . Th e direction of these changes may be either from insecure to secure or from secur e to insecure attachment . Hypothesis 3. Subjects may display behavior indicative of all the fou r attachment styles either because they have more than one internal model or ar e in transition from one style to another . Hypothesis 4. A change in one relationship will affect other relationship s in which the subject is involved . Not all relationships will change at the sam e speed. All internal models may be in the process of changing . 63 Hypothesis 5. As internal representational models of relationship s change, emotional sensitivity and emotional openness both to the self an d others will change . Hypothesis 6. As her internal representational models change, th e subject ability to perceive her child attachment needs accurately an d respond to them appropriately will change . Hypothesis 7. Transition and change in internal representational model s will have come about through the subjectsengaging in substantially differen t kinds of relationships than they had experienced in the past . Hypothesis 8. Having and caring for a child will be a catalyst for change i n internal representational models . Hypothesis 9. Attachment theory will offer a more complete explanatio n for the relationship between being cared for and caring for others than th e current theories about ACOA and intergenerational child abuse . 64 CHAPTER IV CASE ANALYSE S This chapter consists of the three case analyses. They are entitled Anne , Carol, and Bobbi. The cases are analyzed in detail separately . In the fina l chapter of the dissertation, the cases are compared and discussed in light of The hypotheses for this study. The case analyses are organized in the followin g manner: I. Content Summary: Family Interview Parenting Intervie w II. Interviewer Comment s Ill. Child Abuse Literatur e IV. ACOA Analysis V. Role Reversal: As a Child As a Paren t Attachment Analysis : VI. Childhood Attachment Atmospher e VII. Attitude Toward Attachment VIII. Coherency of Mind : Memory, Idealization, Flexibilit y IX. Attachment Behavior: As a Child ; Parent Caretaking Behavior ; As a Parent X. Emotional Processing: Content and Process in Intervie w XI. Secure Base and Separation s XII. Sensitivity and Insigh t XII. Self and Others : Childhood ; Adult with Children; Adult with Peers 65 XI11 Independent Raters XIV. Questionnaires : CAST ; Relationship Questionnaire ; AAPI ; MF P XV. Hypotheses The interviews for this study were transcribed exactly as they were spoken , including hesitations, laughs, repeated words, and unfinished sentences . Laughter and pauses of one second and longer are noted in parentheses in th e transcripts. This allows the researcher to analyze the process of thought an d expression as well as the content of the subject interview . The followin g analyses contain liberal quotations from the from the interviews . The entir e transcripts of the interviews are available by writing to the author at 190 2 Jefferson St., Eugene, Or. 97405. 66 Anne Content: Family (Childhood) Intervie w Anne is 32 years old and works as a free-lance writer . She is married an d has two children, Sam, nine years old, and Joey, five years old . Anne grew u p in an upper middle class family. Her father was an engineer and her mothe r mainly stayed home with the children . She was the youngest of three childre n with two brothers, six and seven years older than she . Anne reports that he r mother was and still is an alcoholic . She says that her mother drinkin g increased after the family moved to another state when Anne was eight year s old. Apparently in their new home, Anne mother had a hard time makin g friends and was alienated from her husband . Anne characterizes her mother s behavior in Anne growing-up years as alternately withdrawn and extremel y angry. She says that her father was a "workaholic ." For the most part the years in Ann Arbor were him withdrawing t o work and her withdrawing to the couch with her cigarettes and he r drink and her books where she read, and just, kind of where sh e lived. Anne parents were frequently emotionally estranged when she wa s young, but they are still married now and, she reports, happy together . Ann e says she was "an oops" and that she was glad she was a girl because sh e thinks that pleased her parents more than if they had had a third boy . Still, sh e reports feeling like she had to be an "easy kid" so as to not make them regre t having had her . Anne remembers her father as being a "classic 50 and 60 dad, kind of distant, but quite benevolent." As a father, "he was definitely afraid to get close ." She remembers having little actual time or contact with him, but feels he "didn 67 wish us ill." She has a few memories of loving interaction with him which ar e very significant to her. She thinks his difficulty with intimacy was a result of hi s childhood since, "He the kind of person who was not loved much, didn se e much love as a kid." Anne says her mother was inconsistent, sometimes distant, sometime s angry, and sometimes loving. In the interview, Anne spoke of her mother , saying "she was always there" and moments later, saying "I remember the rea l loneliness that I had" when with her . Anne identified with her mother s femininity as a child and remembers doing "female things, kind of being a littl e lady" with her. She recalls her mother being generally distant except whe n Anne was sick; then her mother was very attentive and loving . Says Anne wit h a laugh, "Consequently I got psychosomatically sick a lot as a kid ." She says her mother withdrew frequently, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes . Ove r the years, her mother seemed to get more depressed and her angry outburst s increased. Anne says she and her brother called her mother , the Arctic Blast... because, you know, she be this, this wall of ic e for a while. You never knew what was going on and then, Boom ! You know, she just malign your character and ... just attack... Leave you half frozen and half dead . By the time Anne was about 12, her mother angry episodes were frequent an d Anne felt frightened and rejected . Anne remembers being lonely as a child . Her earliest memory is of lyin g alone in her crib crying . She says when she was unhappy or upset she woul d go into her room and cry, "in hopes if I cried loud enough someone would hea r me and come in and take pity on me and hug me and make things better . But i t usually didn work really well (laugh) ..." She says her parents were "stony - faced" when she was upset . She does recall that sometimes "there would be, 68 you know, intellectual recognition of the distress I was in" along with "a stiff squeeze" rather than a hug . Anne reports that her parentsmain disciplin e method when she was small was isolation . When she was older, sh e remembers them using threats of abandonment or disowning her, a techniqu e she sarcastically says was not very effective . Anne found her parent behavior to be unpredictable and dealt with i t partly by trying to smooth things over in her family emotionally, to distract the m from fighting by "asking irrelevant questions" and being "the very best little girl I that could be ." After age 12, Anne attempted to stay away from home as muc h as possible . She got involved with boys early and had a serious high schoo l boyfriend with whom she was sexually involved . She feels now she had bee n starved for affection and got it from boys . As a teenager Anne began to hav e what she later came to call panic attacks . She was often very unhappy an d remembers doing "sort of suicidal things like cutting ineffectually at my wrist s with not very sharp knives usually just because I just get so upset I just wante d something to interrupt the, the distress ." Anne says that her relationship with her parents improved when she lef t home to go to an out-of-state college . She characterizes their presen t relationship as "quite friendly." She says, " ...for the most part we have a good time together. It very guarded on my part . I mean, I, they make me nervous ." She says she is ...not going to drive myself crazy getting along with them any more . They can do what they can do and I gonna do what I gonna do , and if we can, you know, know each other and have a pleasan t interaction from time to time, that great . Anne has tried to make the best of a difficult childhood . She feels that " I certainly didn have the most tragic kind of experiences" and says "Ie just kind 69 of turned it into a perfectly acceptable experience ." Concerning her childhood , Anne says "It not such a, it not a complete sense of loss ..." and that som e good things have come out her painful experiences , some really good things like, you know determination to be a reall y good friend and a very accepting parent and, and all that, and t o keep talking to my mate and not let ourselves get to the point that we (giggle) have lack of communication . Content: Parenting Intervie w This interview focussed mainly on Anne relationship with her secon d child, five-year-old Joey. Anne was very happy to be pregnant with Joey sinc e she was enjoying her first child and wanted to have two children . She says he r husband was also happy about her pregnancy and she had support from a mothersgroup she attended . She remembers feeling interested in an d protective of her unborn child . After a difficult labor and birth, Anne wa s disappointed to have had a second boy . As soon as she held him in th e delivery room, however, she felt sympathy for him for his difficult birt h experience and "we started to have a good bonding experience ." Anne reports that Joey was very sweet and was an "easy baby," whic h made it easier to accept that he was a boy . She says she doesn wish he wa s a girl, and since she only can handle two children, she "borrow(s) friendsgirls ." Anne breast-fed Joey because "it was just sort of an instinctive thing ." H e wanted to stop nursing at eight months before Anne felt ready to stop . After a few weeks of trying to force him to nurse, Anne weaned him . She remember s Joey being a very sociable and adaptable baby . Anne describes her son currently with the following adjectives : bright ; sensitive; adaptable; empathetic; strong-willed. In general, she describes him 70 in positive ways and supports her general descriptions with specific instances . Activities Anne enjoys doing with Joey include going out to lunch and talking , going to children movies, playing games, and chatting while shoppin g together. Anne says that she almost always feels close to Joey, especiall y when the two of them are alone together without her older son . Anne says the most difficult times for her with Joey are when he whine s and complains when he is tired or overwhelmed . She says then she remind s herself that is not going to grow up faster just because she is impatient . Sh e also gets frustrated when he won cooperate with her plans . She tries to us e empathy with his feelings to get him to cooperate with her . Joey generall y shows his will through passively resisting rather than with direct, angr y resistance. Her two children fight quite a bit and Anne is trying to learn not t o intervene in their fights, but to encourage them to settle them themselves . Sh e describes a tendency to try to make them be happy as she had tried to do in he r family of origin. Anne returned to therapy last year to try to deal with this need . Anne could remember times Joey was upset or scared and tell how the y had dealt with those times . Generally she tries to be empathetic and talk abou t fears rationally. She tells of staying near him when he was sick and tryin g relieve his discomfort. When he is angry, she encourages him to talk about ho w he feels without anger . Anne seems to have little difficulty with autonomy issues with Joey . Sh e sets firm, but flexible limits; he seems agreeable to her limits . Although sh e wants him to be competent at doing things himself, she is usually willing to hel p him when he asks for assistance . She says she doesn mind indulging hi m because he is the "baby of the family ." Anne has never been separated from Joey for more than three days at a 7 1 time. She reports that he gets a little sad at separations, but doesn get ver y upset. He puts up some resistance to going to day care or having her go out a t night with her husband. Anne tends to make light of his feelings in this area . Anne says that she and her husband enlist similar childrearing practice s with the children, although her husband is more easygoing and les s overwhelmed by "kid action." She says they are equally warm and involved, bu t Anne spends more time with the children since her husband works full time . Anne says that she is affectionate with the children, doing things like walkin g with an arm around them or stroking their hair . Anne reports that she used to occasionally spank her children . Sh e stopped it when she decided that it wasn improving the children behavior o r making her feel any better. She does not have a clear idea of how to disciplin e her children in order to reduce their fighting with each other . She says whe n she gets overwhelmed she sometimes yells at the children, but never th e personal, hurtful kinds of things her mother yelled at her . She says she think s she sounds more patriarchal like her father. Anne says that she wants he r children to like her and sometimes has difficulty being the bad guy because o f that. Anne volunteers that she has very high standards for herself as a paren t and tries not to let her feelings of insecurity affect her children . She says sh e tends to sometimes feel overwhelmed by the children and then becomes mor e withdrawn. Anne reports that her relationship with her parents has changed onl y slightly since she has had children. They treat her more as an adult and fee l like she now understands better how hard it is to have children . Mostly , however, Anne feels their relationship changed more when she moved out o f their house and went to college than when she had children . 72 Anne thinks she and Joey are similar in their easy-going nature, but feel s he is more secure than she was as a child and needs approval less than sh e did. She feels she has grown through seeing how Joey lives "for himself" an d not necessarily to please others . She expects him to be a rebellious teenage r and expects to have difficulty letting him grow away from her . However, sh e anticipates him being a delightful, marvelous adult with whom she will have a close relationship . Anne feels that she is able to be a better parent than her parents becaus e her parents did give her some love and she could feel that . She says she als o learned clearly how not to treat children . She concludes that if you can surviv e it, there may be benefits to having a difficult childhood . Interviewer Comment s At the start of the first interview, Anne appeared a little scared, but later became fairly relaxed. She was very open verbally with the interviewer, an d eager to be helpful. She tended to speak quickly and give long answers to th e questions. She made eye contact with the interviewer sometimes, but no t consistently. Anne seemed fairly well controlled emotionally, especially durin g the childhood interview, showing emotion only briefly . During both interviews , she was frequently mildly sarcastic and made humorous comments about he r parentsshortcomings and her difficulties with her children . Her answers wer e punctuated with laughter and expressive demonstrations of how people talke d or felt. Anne later reported that she was "chatty" during the first intervie w because it made it easier to talk about these difficult things . Although she wa s talkative and helpful, Anne was only moderately warm . She behaved 73 appropriately for the interview. As the interviewer, I liked her and fel t comfortable with her, but sensed that she was somewhat contained emotionally . Child Abuse Literatur e Although Anne was emotionally rejected and abused as a child, she doe s not appear to be abusing her own children . This could be predicted since sh e demonstrates many of the research-based qualities of a non-repeater . First , she was not as severely abused as many children . She was emotionall y rejected and abused, but not physically or sexually abused (that she reports) . She had one parent, her father, who, although not consistently available , generally liked her and offered some support . Second, she remembers he r abuse and is, or was, angry about it . She feels she didn deserve it, althoug h she occasionally minimizes the effects of it. She doesn idealize her parents , nor does she see them as all bad . Third, she married a man who grew up in a healthier family than her own and who is supportive of her and their children . Fourth, she has had three short-term therapy experiences in which sh e processed some of her childhood pain . In dealing with her panic attacks, sh e realized, "Basically, I was afraid of, that I would die of a broken heart ." Sh e recalls going through a time of deep sadness and grieving for her los t childhood. Consequently, she was able to regain access to her childhoo d suffering and increase her sensitivity to her own children . In summary, th e research on intergenerational child abuse would predict that Anne would b e likely to not abuse her own children . 74 Adult Children of Alcoholics Analysi s The literature contains little information or research specifically abou t women alcoholics as mothers. When the father is alcoholic, usually the non - alcoholic mother is responsible for most of the child care and the children ge t more care and stability. When the mother is alcoholic, the effect on the childre n would be expected to be more severe, especially for the female children wh o look to their mother as a role model . In Anne case, her mother was sometimes sober and dependable . Othe r times, she seemed to use drinking as a way to withdraw from the burdens o f childrearing, a distant husband, and an unsupportive social environment . Drinking made her especially unpredictable to her children . It could make he r more withdrawn, more open, or more angry. According to Anne , When she was, I think, first starting to get a buzz on, she was very, you know, kind of, jolly, and we have a little more famil y togetherness...And then, but I think, the longer she drank and the more she drank, she got real remote, you know, she just got so that she didn really care about much other than her (3 sec . pause) her wall. It could also fuel her angry attacks on the children . As the literature predicts, Anne responded to her mother unpredictabilit y and her father disengagement by trying to maintain family harmony throug h controlling her own feelings and behavior and trying to smooth over everyon e else also . Anne remembers feeling she had to keep everything together fo r the family emotionally . Urn, I think i had the real strong sense that if I allowed things to reach their natural conclusion, you know, negative interactions--if I allowed them to go, then life as we knew it would just implode an d cease to exist. So for me it was really a survival thing, that I not onl y be nice, but make sure everything else was OK too . So I was a busy little girl . (laugh) 75 The literature about children of alcoholics says that the family denial o f the problem of alcoholism leads the children to deny that anything is wrong an d therefore to deny their own feelings of pain . Anne fits this pattern, saying tha t she was in denial that anything was wrong in her family until she was about 12 . She says she was loyal to her parents . "I knew that my life depended o n absolute and unquestioning loyalty..." That denial broke at adolescenc e however and she felt she then "was ready to admit that something was quit e wrong." At that point, rather than staying tied to her family and continuing to try to control them, Anne opted to leave emotionally . She tried being honest wit h her parents and she tried fighting with them . She eventually opted to lie to the m about her activities and do as she pleased . As an adult, she expressed he r attitude toward changing her parents as, "Ie spent so much of my life, uh , convoluting myself to try and you know, change other people that I tired an d (small laugh) I not going to really bother too much any more ." As a mother, Anne tries to avoid her parentsmistakes . She succeeds to a large extent, although she does evidence some of the difficulties the literatur e predicts for ACOA parents. Anne has very high standards for herself as a parent. She still feels somewhat insecure and has difficulty accepting he r children negative feelings if it undermines her feeling of being a good mother . She has to fight her childhood tendency to try to please everyone, including he r children. She also tends to get overwhelmed by her children sometimes an d withdraw to the couch as her mother did . Anne suffers from an affective disorder and reports she used alcohol fo r ten years to try to deal with her emotional pain . She no longer drinks and i s somewhat able to control her panic attacks. With the help of therapy and he r husband who is not from an alcoholic family, Anne has recovered much of the 76 emotional truth of her childhood . Role Reversal Anne shows a limited tendency to reverse roles both as a child with he r own parents and with her own children . In both situations, the role reversa l occurs mainly in the emotional realm. Support for this view comes both fro m Anne own appraisal and from analysis of her style of thinking about he r parents and children . As a Child In answer to the question "What kind of young child were you?," Anne first answers from her mother point of view, telling how her mother was shocked t o be pregnant again, and eventually explaining that she had to be a good, nic e child in order not to make her mother regret having her . From the beginnin g she defined herself in terms of what her mother felt rather than from her ow n self. Anne also remembers feeling that, for her own survival, she had to tak e responsibility for the family emotional happiness . Her parents did not seem t o be able to regulate things in this area, so Anne tried to take over that job- - "...what I did for the family was just to be, to facilitate everything whenever I could." "So for me it was really a survival thing, that I not only be nice, but mak e sure everything else was OK too . So I was a busy little girl . (laugh)" Later in th e interview she recalls, "I had to be such a good little girl and to be making sur e everybody was happy all the time . I wasn able to be just an irresponsible ki d and do my kid stuff." Recounting being separated from her parents at age five for three weeks, 77 Anne doesn recall being very upset, but curiously, remembers her parent s coming back "looking very happy." She talks about her parentsneeds as if sh e were aware of them at the time. "But I also knew that (3 sec . pause) it was important for them to be happy and this was gonna make them happy ." Thi s concern for her parent needs shows again, that as a young child, Anne wa s aware of and felt somewhat responsible for satisfying, her parentsneeds . When she reached adolescence, Anne apparently stopped trying t o maintain control in this area. She recalled a time that her mother blew up at he r and her brother, saying "1 think her real fury was in (2 sec. pause) our lack of telepathy." She implied that her mother expected her to know how she felt an d to be attentive to her mother wishes without being told, an attitude Anne ha d apparently given up . To a question about whether or not she felt like her parents understan d her now, Anne answered, after some pauses , No. They, they see part of me and they approve of that that the y see and they are pretty much learning to enjoy harmoniou s relationships. They get what they can out of it . I wish they could ge t more, but I not... Her answer focusses her parentsinability to understand and how they ar e missing out on something rather than focussing on how she feels about no t being understood. This is a throwback to her tendency to see herself throug h their eyes instead of her own experience . Questioned about how her relationship with her parents has change d since she has had children, Anne answers first that "theye been happy to se e me understand firsthand how hard it is to have kids ." This implies that Anne s parents want her to understand them and accept them, a role reverse d expectation. She says they have occasionally been helpful with her children, 78 but mostly they rarely talk any more about "what a terrible teenager I was, th e awful phase of their lives I caused..." When they do, Anne sarcastically say s she gives them "a little bit of recognition for all their pain and suffering ." Apparently they still have not given her recognition for her pain and suffering . In summary, Anne childhood role reversal tended to be mostly in th e area of emotionally stabilizing the family through being a "good girl" an d controlling her behavior to try to make everyone happier . She abandoned thi s strategy at adolescence to live her life as she pleased at the cost of emotiona l abuse from and conflict with her parents and general family disharmony . Sh e does not feel responsible for her parents at this point although she seems mor e understanding of them than they do of her . She still tries to maintain pleasan t relations with them by being friendly and superficial . As a Parent As a parent, Anne shows a tendency to want her children to provid e emotional support to her. She describes five-year-old Joey as bein g empathetic and mentions several times how he empathizes with her feelings . For instance, she says, In general he will come up and say things like ou look reall y discouraged(laugh) which usually, urn, lifts the clouds o f discouragement off my head because it neat to have somebod y so insightful who can come there and, urn, be with me in m y feelings . In describing fun things they do together, Anne recounts how they tal k about Joey activities and friends, but also adds that, That just kind of a nice time to (2 sec . pause) for me to tell him, you know, what been happening in my life, you know, oy, I e got this real challenging thing I working on, this book, and I 79 trying to get it done by Friday and it really hard . It takes me s o long to write it and uh,And he tells me what he working on, an d (laugh) it kind of, kind of, a neat little friendship . Anne reports that when she is angry at someone else sometimes th e children just "lay low" an d sometimes theyl both try and empathize with me ...And they, I guess theye kind of parroting me. They try and be real specifi c about what it is wee complaining about ...you know, I think they e supportive in that way. Theye, they validate my feelings, too . (laugh)." Again here, as above, Anne perceives her children as empathizing with he r feelings and giving her support . As an example of Joey empathy, Anne tells a story about a week whe n she was grieving about her childhood and how Joey threw tantrums and brok e his toys all week. Anne and her therapist felt that Joey was trying to distract hi s mother from her grief. If their interpretation was correct, then Joey was actin g out of a need to take care of his mother, a role reversed position . Of course , Joey could have been simply acting out his own fright or anger at his mother s changed affect and her depression .. Anne reported that she explained to Joe y that he didn have to take care of her, but added, "If you want to give me extr a hugs sometimes when you see me looking sad, great (small laugh) . I can us e them." Here she is definitely using her child as a source of comfort, the kind o f comfort she wished for, but rarely got from her parents . If Joey can be supportive to her, he can also hurt her. When Joey get s angry, Anne reports that he "usually yells things, what, what he thinks can b e most hurtful-- wish you weren my motherand things like that . And simila r things to his brother ." Anne admits to momentarily feeling hurt by these thing s and feeling vengeful toward Joey, although she tries not to show it . Anne says she tries not to let her feelings affect the children . She says 80 that sometimes though, Joey says to her, "You look aggravated ." She finds i t funny that he uses these long words . Anne says she tries to be specific abou t what she is feeling if Joey asks . Although Anne tries not to make him th e emotional sympathizer for the family, he seems to keep a watch on her feelings . She reports that once when she was irritable, "He just said (dramati c voice), ell, excuse me!(laugh) and stomped out . (laugh). It just, again, it jus t cracks me up. So, he has many ways of diffusing the household tension . He s very adept." Anne interprets Joey behavior as diffusing tension and keepin g people happy, a role she played as a child, but she doesn see herself a s asking him to do that. It is interesting that Anne interprets Joey behavior a s being motivated by diffusing tension ; she doesn look at other possibilities t o explain his behavior . Anne says that she still has the tendency to want to keep everyone happ y in her family and returned to therapy a year ago because "it was driving me nut s trying to keep people happy ." When asked directly if anyone besides herself i n the family tries to maintain family harmony, Anne replies that , sometimes Joey (3 sec. pause) let see (3 sec . pause) he tries to be (1 sec. pause) empathetic and tries to help people feel better by it...1 can think of any specific incidents where he tried to gloss , you know, gloss things over which is what I used to do . Sometime s he tries to get at the heart of the matter, which is, (3 sec, pause) commendable, I suppose. (small laugh) . "What really th e problem here?" Joey seems to be doing his best to mediate between family members an d maintain harmony. His method is different than Anne was as a child, but hi s purpose is the same . Anne not only sees her children as direct sources of emotional support , she also indirectly depends on them to make her feel loved . Anne says that she feels that with her children, she wants , to be wanted, you know, I want my kids to want me as a mom, I want to be popular. I want them to like me . And there are definitely time s when 1 have to put that aside cause just discipline-wise it doesnt work to always be the nice guy... .Uh, I think I was, I tried to be pretty affectionate with my parents as a way of ingratiating myself into th e family unit. And I probably still do that ; that certainly part of my motivation. I want to be, I want them to look back and think, yeah , boy, my mom was always giving me pats on the back and stuff. Anne talks about being affectionate to her children as a way of obtaining lov e for herself rather than as a way to meet their needs . In summary, Anne shows some tendency to role reversal with her childre n in the area of emotional nurturing. As a child she felt her feelings wen t unacknowledged most of the time . Except for several important exception s when her father empathized with her, Anne felt lonely and like she neede d more love than she got. As an adult Anne is still trying to be liked and to ge t support from others, including her children . Although she may not b e consciously encouraging them to be sensitive to her, Anne is pleased when he r children empathize with her and she uses them as a source of emotiona l support. As Anne played a role in stabilizing her family emotionally when sh e was a child, so she allows her younger son to play a similar role now . Attachment Theory Analysis This portion of the analysis will examine Anne transition to parenthoo d from the point of view of attachment theory . It begins with a review of Anne s attachment relationship with her parents . It will then address the changes ove r time in her internal representational models of relationships . This will include analysis of Anne state of mind in regard to attachment demonstrated by he r coherency in discussing attachment relationships during the interview, her 82 emotional processing in the interview, the feelings she reports, the attachmen t behavior she discusses, her ability to serve as a secure base for her children , and her sensitivity and insight as a mother . Anne and Her Parent s There is a evidence to support the conclusion that Anne parents acte d out both the Disengaged style of parenting and the Preoccupied style . In th e Disengaged style, caretakers habitually ignore their children distress an d reward.independence and emotional control . The parents themselves don t value closeness and dislike physical contact with their children . Anne s parents, especially her father, often fit this pattern . As well, Anne mothe r showed some behavior that fits the Preoccupied style of parenting in which th e caretaker is Preoccupied with her own emotional needs and is onl y inconsistently responsive to her child . Anne description of her mother s drinking, withdrawal, and sudden angry attacks suggests she behaved in thi s way. . She says that she doesn have "a whole lot of specific memories" abou t her mother before she was ten years old and says that maybe that is due to he r mother being distant, "I think she kind of always wanted to be left alone t o some degree"... and used alcohol to..."put up a little bit of a wall from her kids." Anne does remember having talks with her mother while her mother cooke d and Anne sat "on the other side of the divider, which I think she needed ." Ann e remembers these talks as being "fun" even when her mother disapproved of he r daughter behavior . Anne reports that her parents were somewhat affectionat e at bedtime, with some hugs and kisses, but in general were not particularly a3 physically affectionate. They were more likely to say, "youe a good girl" than t o use a "spoken endearment." Only when Anne was sick was her mothe r attentive, behavior that Anne attributes to guilt . Anne earliest memory is of lying in her crib crying, having no one com e to comfort her and feeling "irritation." As a child, Anne reports her parent s responded to her crying by not being "particularly sympathetic ." She says, " I think they figured it would go away if they ignored it ." She says sometimes the y would be "pretty supportive" if she were upset, and verbally give "intellectua l recognition of the distress I was in." When Anne was in a lot of pain and went t o her school counselor for help, her counselor called her mother in to talk . Upo n seeing Anne in the counselor office holding hands with her boyfriend, Ann e reports that her mother stormed out and refused to talk with them . Apparentl y Anne mother also chose to ignore Anne suicidal gestures . All of thes e behaviors suggest a disengaged style of parenting that frequently leads to a n avoidant attachment strategy in children . Anne reports that her parentsmethod of dealing with her teenag e rebellious behavior was to threaten to disown her. "ut! Out you go! ...Wel kick you out of the family...It just seems like such a quick step to absolute desperation." They were unable to deal with conflict or negotiate the change s in their relationship with Anne when she reached adolescence . Anne says tha t she was happy to leave and be her own person and that they were both happie r when she was gone from the house more . Of course, her unhappiness an d panic attacks belie the easy solution that avoiding each other seemed to offer . A child who does not feel secure with her parents feels uneasy bein g separated from them out of fear they may not be there when she returns . Ann e recalls feeling "bereft" when sleeping at friendshouses as a child and says that 84 even now she feels lonely when she is away from her family . Despite he r desire to leave her parentshome, when she went away the summer befor e college, she got sick and "had to go home for a while and had to get my mom t o take care of me, which she did . And then I was OK again (small laugh) and I went back into the world." This is a replaying of the secure base phenomeno n in which Anne had to return home for nurturing, which, of course, she had to ge t sick to receive. Anne tells of a time when her mother got angry, told them she was leaving, an d ran out during dinner. Anne remembers her father taking over and talking to th e children about what they would do if mother didn come back . The bonds i n this family were so fragile that the family actually believed their mother might no t return. All of the above evidence suggests a Anne parents had a Disengage d style of parenting that often encourages an Avoidant strategy in children . Anne mother also had a Preoccupied tendency that encourages a child to b e Ambivalent with regard to attachment . Attitude Toward Attachment Anne clearly values attachment. In the interviews she talks about love an d closeness as desirable qualities of a relationship . She talks about her ow n efforts to get care, such as her frequent childhood illnesses that would attrac t her mother nurturing . Anne sees the effect of lack of nurturing in her father , how he "never really felt that he was OK ...whenever topics would get too personal, he very adeptly step into another topic with you ." She calls he r father few times of empathetic interaction with her "the most wonderful 85 moments of my childhood." Anne says she wishes her parents could have given her more love . Sh e says, "I think it was, you know, I needed more love" but feels that she got enough to be able to "be a real good friend, a good wife, and a good mom ." Loyalty is important to her. She mentions it as one of the qualities of being a good friend and she mentions several times how she has learned to b e compassionate and accepting of others . Similarly, Anne speaks often about being close to her children . She fel t close to them before they were born and she hoped for a "snuggly" baby . Sh e enjoys spending time with Joey alone talking and she tries to empathize wit h his feelings. She wonders if she will be able to let him go when he is a n adolescent. Anne was very happy to be interviewed and was not at all hostile t o the purpose of the interview. She was happy to be of help and felt strongly tha t the topic of the research was important . Coherency of Mind Anne is quite coherent in these interviews . She hears the questions an d answers them fully. Her answers are organized and her stories as a whole ar e consistent. She neither gets lost in anecdotal storytelling nor has poverty o f memory. Anne does not get disorganized when talking about attachmen t issues. She is able to relate an incident and the corresponding emotions sh e felt without losing control or shutting down . However, she does occasionall y show evidence of some defense mechanisms in the interviews . The mos t common is that she tends to laugh when she talks about difficult topics . Sh e also uses sarcasm to distance herself from some more painful memories . (Thi s will be discussed more fully in the section on Emotional Processing .) On some 06 occasions Anne pauses for long periods before speaking . For instance, when she first talks about her relationship with her mother, she pauses for 10 second s before she can speak . This points to an initial difficulty and time needed t o organize her feelings and thoughts about her mother . Specific and General Memorie s Anne is able to generalize well about both of her parents and also ha s some specific memories, but not in every case. The specific memories she ha s are coherent and supportive of the general descriptions . She rarely says tha t she can remember something when asked . In some cases, however, sh e cannot think of specific instances to illustrate her general descriptions . Fo r instance, she describes her father as being "locked in" but says, "Specifi c instance. I not sure .] can . No, I think it was just a general, that the way h e was." Anne twice mentions that she has few specific memories about he r mother, especially before age 10. In the interview she also can recall th e details of a time her mother "ripped into" her in an incident she tries to recall . She says, "Ie kind of blocked out the details of this kind of thing ause it wa s just so unpleasant ." Anne also has both general and specific memories abou t her son, Joey. Her specific memories support the general descriptions sh e gives. Idealization of Relationship s Anne does not idealize her mother at all . She says very little that i s positive about her, but gives the impression that she has some compassion fo r her. Although she doesn idealize her father, Anne tends to think of him as 87 benevolent and loving and doesn express anger about his distance from her . Her positive feelings about him must be seen in the light of comparison with he r feelings about her mother . Openness and Flexibility of Internal Model s Anne seems to be open to change in her thinking about relationships, bot h through what she says and how she processes her thoughts . She has a fir m sense of how she feels now, but is open to new information . An example o f content-oriented openness comes in Anne description of Joey as an infant . Questioned about her expectations about Joey as a toddler or preschoole r when he was a baby she said "I really wondered because I didn know ." Similarly she has a few expectations about Joey as an adolescent or an adul t based on his present behavior, but appears excited about finding who he wil l be in the future. Several times in the interviews Anne seems to discover some new insigh t as she talks. At one point, Anne tells a story about how she cried so much fo r her childhood pets that died, and she realizes as she speaks that perhaps th e animals represented her own child self that "died" . She integrates this in th e moment and seems interested in her insight . Another time she expresse s surprise that she didn miss her parents when they went away for a few week s when she was five. She had not thought of that before . Later, discussing one o f her therapists, she slightly changes her. attitude about the "anger" therapy and its effects. In the parenting interview, Anne also shows some openness to change . I n discussing Joey fears about being left at day care, Anne first says he is not a8 worried. Then, she begins to explore her memories about the topic and soo n realizes that he is somewhat worried. Another time, asked to compare herself t o her parents, she realizes that she sometimes sounds like her father . Sh e seems surprised at this thought and also reflects on the things she says whe n she making pronouncements and how ridiculous they seem now to her . Sh e notes that caring about the things the children break rather than about them i s "probably somewhat belittling." In summary, Anne is open to discovering ne w information about her attachment relationships. She has insight into her ow n process and is able to integrate new information fairly easily . Attachment Behavior In the childhood interview, Anne describes various behaviors which wer e designed to elicit care from her parents when she was a child . Some of thos e behaviors are : 1. Lying in her crib crying. 2. Talking with her mother about things. 3. Crying in her room alone. 4. Getting sick to stay home, from school, including in college. 5. Not missing her parents at five years old. 6. Hugging her mother when mother was upset about accident . 7. Early sexual relationship with boyfriend . 8. Calling teen hotlines and seeing her school counselor . Anne says her earliest memory is of lying in her crib crying and havin g nobody come. She later recalls crying alone in her room hoping someon e would come in and comfort her and thinking, "Nobody loves me ." We could also 89 include in attachment behavior what Anne calls psychosomatic illness, that is , getting sick in order to stay home from school and cared for by her mother . Sh e even uses this behavior to get reassurance before she leaves for college . Anne talking with her mother about things before dinner was also a way sh e felt close to her mother. Anne feels that she transferred her need for love and security to he r boyfriend, Cliff throughout high school. She also tried to get help from he r school counselor, teen hot-lines, and from her older brothersgirlfriends . Anne seems to have continued to search for security and love even whe n it was not easily obtainable . She didn become passive or hardened agains t her need for love. Some of Anne parentscaretaking behaviors include : 1. Father acknowledged her difficulty and helps her with zipper . 2. Father empathized about alienation at party. 3. Mother took care of her when sick by patting her head, holding he r hand, giving her good things to eat, sitting with her, talking, spending tim e with her. 4. Mother talked with her while preparing dinners . 5. Parents gave "verbal dollops" of encouragement . 6. Parents sometimes gave intellectual recognition of distress. 7. Parents ignored many signals of distress including crying, suicida l gestures, and the school counselor request to talk . Anne parental caretaking behaviors include : 1. Recognizes and acknowledges children feelings when they ar e upset. 2. Protects children when they are sick or hurt. go 3. Touches children--arm around shoulders, stroking hair, snuggling a t bedtime. 4. Breast-fed children. 5. Helps children when they ask for assistance . 6. Talks things over and explains things . 7. Sometimes feels overwhelmed and withdraws . 8. Minimizes children fears of separation . 9. Wants children to get over negative feelings quickly . In general, Anne seems to be more involved with and responsive to he r children than her parents were to her . She engages in many kinds o f attachment-responsive behaviors. In the interview, the behavior she mentione d the most times wqs talking with her children and explaining things to them . Sh e also frequently mentioned protecting them and empathizing with their feelings . Like her parents she is likely to give verbal encouragement to her childre n when they are distressed . She is however, more likely to acknowledge thei r feelings and is more physically affectionate . Emotional Processing How a person processes emotions, especially painful emotions, i s important to internal working models because these templates are not jus t cognitive models, but also influence how people moderate distress . Childre n whose parents respond to their distress with protection and assistance remai n able to experience their emotions freely . Children whose parents ignore o r punish expressions of distress learn other strategies for dealing with thes e feelings. By examining how parents and children deal with emotions, we can 91 get information on their internal representational models of caregivin g relationships. Through these interviews, we obtain information abou t emotional processing that is both content-oriented and process-oriented . Content Anne remembers crying a lot as a child and feeling that her parents wer e generally unaware of and unresponsive to her distress . She says, "I really thin k they probably felt that 1 would be spoiled if they nurtured me emotionally and, I don think that would have happened ." Anne reports that the family generall y used "little bits, little dollops, of verbal support to each other, like h, that to o bad. Youl do better next timetype thing ." She does, however, have severa l very clear specific memories of her father being empathetic and understanding . One is when he helped her learn to zip zippers and empathized with ho w difficult that was for her. Another memory is of his understanding her alienatio n and sadness at a New Year party when she was about 11 years old . Ann e says these few experiences of his "just accepting it and me, unconditionally " were "the most wonderful moments of my childhood." As a result of her parents behavior (or the way she perceived their behavior) Anne internalized thei r attitudes toward distress. Anne reports that until the age of 12, she was i n denial about her feelings of pain and sadness . She says, "I was very loyal t o my parents." At one point in the interview, discussing her childhood grief abou t pets dying, she realizes in the moment that she may have been crying fo r herself when they died. She says, ."I didn know that (2 sec . pause) that I really had anything to be that sad about. I just kind of assumed I was being kind of a , kind of a wimp or something." 92 In her teen years, Anne acknowledged her distress and tried to get hel p with her feelings from her boyfriend, a school counselor, and teen hot-lines . She also began to have panic attacks . As an adult she drank alcohol to contro l the attacks. As she reduced her drinking, the attacks became worse and sh e eventually sought therapy to deal with them . Process In the childhood interview, Anne frequently talks about her emotions . Sh e is able to recall both negative and positive feelings and often describes hersel f as a child as lonely or sad. As an adult, she talks of having a "sense of loss " about her childhood. Still, she frequently giggles or makes jokes about he r childhood feelings, demonstrating some discomfort with them . Anger is th e most difficult emotion for Anne to acknowledge . In the interview, whenever sh e alludes to feeling angry, she qualifies it with why she doesn really feel angry , often laughing nervously or pausing mid-sentence . "For a while I wa s extremely, (small laugh) extremely angry about it, but, (3 sec pause) I realiz e that I have the power to make my own life..." And later she says "I don think i t lasted all that long because, the anger, because, probably because Ie bee n busy with my own life and kids.." However, although she reasons that it no t necessary to feel angry, Anne reports that she didn actually feel less angr y until she entered therapy. She says that she had difficulty with one therapis t who encouraged her to express anger and wanted her to use Bataca bats to hi t things. Anne felt this wasn really effective for her because "I don think I us e anger to deal with my frustrations as much as (3 sec. pause) I don know what I do, but that not my first reaction to (3 sec . pause) to pain, I think." She adds, 93 about expressing anger, "doing it was just not really making me feel an y better...in thinking about it, you know, you can fight, you can beat back all yo u want, but it not gonna change anything ." This attitude toward feeling angry i s reminiscent of Crittenden (1988c) observation that at a certain age, som e children stop reacting angrily toward their unsympathetic parents and begin t o act compliant instead, a pattern Anne followed . Anne seems slightly confuse d about how she responds to frustration and pain, demonstrating som e disorganization in that area. Despite her discomfort with expressing anger , Anne recalls, "it was during the course of that therapy that 1 realized that it was just, it was all kind of sad and I really much rather just kind of go on ..." Sh e discovered that her anger masked a sadness "over the lost childhood ." Although Anne frequently mentions her childhood sadness, sh e sometimes giggles about it or make slightly demeaning comments about it . Fo r instance, about her childhood crying she says, " ...I think, I certainly cried my share, perhaps a little more." She tells of crying alone as a child and makes i t sound slightly humorous, using an affected voice to say she felt, "Nobody love s me. OOhh ." Then, laughing she says, "1 guess that my mom decided tha withdrawal of affection was definitely the way to motivate children ." She tell s how her mother slapped her at a shopping mall for calling her mother a nam e and says "I know exactly where I was standing. Every time I go to that shoppin g center in Scarsdale (laugh) I laugh ." The laughing here is a defense agains t her sadness or fear of her mother. In the childhood interview, Anne was asked about how she felt during th e interview. She responded in an intellectual fashion that she was very glad tha t someone was doing this research and she was happy to contribute to the study . She then alluded to the interview being like "exercising to the point of 94 discomfort," acknowledging that "it painful to think about it ." She the n volunteered that "I used to laugh whenever I felt any pain at all ." She said tha t one of her therapists wanted her to not laugh at all, but Anne defended he r laughing by saying, "I mean, life is pretty absurd and nobody gets through i t unscathed... Ie just kind of turned it into a perfectly acceptable experience ." When she arrived for her second interview, Anne told the interviewer that sh e had been "chatty" during the first (childhood) interview because that made i t easier to talk about difficult feelings . In summary, as a child, Anne denied her feelings of pain, and in her tee n years, although she was unhappy, she tried hard to be independent and den y she needed her parentssupport . As an adult, Anne is able to recognize he r own feelings, although it is sometimes delayed recognition . She is still no t comfortable with strong negative emotions and regulates them with chattiness , humor and sarcasm. She does not talk much about pleasure, excitement, o r other joyful emotions in her childhood except for certain memories when he r father was especially kind to her. Anne panic attacks can be seen as a way to express all the negative feelings (anger, fear, sadness) that she felt she had t o deny to live a normal, happy life . Anne is fairly balanced in her processing o f emotions, but with a mild avoidant tendency. Her defenses allow her to bot h acknowledge her feelings and manage them in an adaptive manner . The following portion of the analysis focuses mainly on Anne s relationships with her children and her ability to be a sensitive and responsiv e caregiver to her younger son, Joey . 95 Secure Base and Separation s Secure base behavior for the caregiver refers to the caregiver ability t o be available to protect and comfort her child when the child needs her and to le t the child explore when the child wants to venture out . The child may explore o r play, then come back to the caregiver for reassurance before venturing ou t again. A caretaker can perform this function for her child if she can accuratel y perceive when her child needs protection and when her child needs autonom y and if she is willing and able to provide each kind of care when it is needed . Secure base behavior begins when the child is an infant, reaches a height i n the toddler years, and continues in some form throughout childhood . Paren t and child ideally form a "goal-corrected partnership" in which they can shar e their needs and plans and negotiate needs for closeness and distance . A t adolescence the child moves further from the parent, but still needs to return fo r parental support periodically. Adolescence offers a challenge to parents an d children to renegotiate their ways of expressing autonomy and intimacy . In general, Anne seems sensitive to Joey needs for protection and fo r exploration. She leans more toward wanting to be close to him than letting hi m go, but she is aware of her tendencies and consciously tries to respon d appropriately to Joey. Anne feelings of wanting to protect Joey began befor e his birth. She says that during both of her pregnancies she felt very close to he r unborn babies and she spontaneously mentioned feeling protective an d interested in them. Anne breast-fed Joey, and when he indicated at eight months old that h e wanted to stop breast-feeding, Anne was unprepared and tried to continue , saying, "it was like a kind of death, and it was really tough to let him just go off..." She finally decided "that I would respect his feelings (laugh) in this matter" and 96 weaned him. After "a few weeks of physical and emotional distress" which sh e attributes to hormones, she felt "great ." This is an early negotiation of autonom y in which Anne was able to give precedence to Joey needs over her own . Children often need to use their parents as a secure base when they are il l and feeling more vulnerable than usual . Anne statements indicate that she i s very supportive of Joey when he is sick and stays with him, trying relieve hi s discomfort. She says, after one particularly severe illness, "I had to stay clos e for a few months." Anne reports that Joey goes to sleep easily after a pleasant bedtime ritua l and rarely wakes at night. If he does have a bad dream at night, Anne goes t o him and they talk about it briefly and he goes back to sleep . His eas y willingness to go to sleep suggests that he is not overly frightened by bein g apart from his parents. Anne says that Joey has few fears and when he does, she reassures hi m an a rational way. She reports that Joey is sometimes hesitant to go into hi s day care school. He resists passively until Anne talks about how shel pick hi m up sooner if he goes in sooner . He will then go in . Anne understands his need to be reminded about her return . Despite his reluctance, Joey willingness t o cooperate suggests that he has been able to use his mother as a secure bas e in the past and trusts that she will be dependable again . In answer to direct questions about giving Joey autonomy when he want s to do something Anne feels isn safe, Anne relates how they have negotiate d these situations. She seems flexible, but also sets firm limits . This area doesn t seem to be very controversial for them. Anne is also willing to assist Joey wit h things when he asks for help, even if she knows he can do it himself . She says , I kind of admitting to myself, OK, I going to baby him a little bit, 97 but I, I will try not to warp him permanently by still insisting that he learn to be competent at it himself and kind of slowly get just past it, past the point of his wanting me to do it even. She good naturedly negotiates this sort of help with him . Although she appears to handle these areas sensitively with Joey, at othe r times in the interview Anne shows some conflict in dealing with issue s concerning separation. She sometimes seems annoyed with her children fo r wanting to be close to her and also fears their eventual independence . Fo r instance, although at one point in the interview, Anne seems to understan d Joey fear of going in to day care, at another point she discounts it . She says that Joey puts up a "token resistance" to going to day care, but "doesn eve r throw a, a big fit about it." These phrases imply that she doesn take hi s feelings seriously. Asked about Joey feelings about this, Anne first says , Urn, I think he feels secure in our relationship, so he doesn worr y about me not coming back, although once in a while we talk abou t that. He says, boy, sometimes, I mean, he does, sometimes worr y about it. Boy, what if you didn come back And I, you know, we tal k about all the reasons why I wouldn always come back . And if I couldn make it back for some reason, you know got stuck in traffi c or whatever, that I would have somebody else who knows him an d loves him pick him up and, and, somebody would take care of hi m until I got back. So, he, you know, it does concern him, but h e doesn obsess about it . After first denying that Joey feels somewhat anxious about separations , Anne remembers and realizes that he does . She is open to accepting the ne w information, but her first tendency is to deny his worries. As with most othe r emotional situations, Anne reassures her son with logical conversation . She i s willing to be available to him when he needs her, but her comfort mode i s mainly intellectual . Anne mixed feelings about separations are clear when Anne tells how , when she and her husband go out on a date, her nine-year-old son says, "I 98 don want you to go ." And both children begin to hang onto her . In th e interview she laughs heartily about this and says , Well I try not to laugh too much, I mean, it getting, he realizin g the humor in it because he so big and, um, but (3 sec . pause) it used to be kind of smothering for the older kid to be so--he used t o really make a big stink every time I left him and it didn feel like I jus t could never get away without drawing, urn, a quart of blood . Anne uses sarcasm and humor to discount and distance herself from he r children fears, apparently forgetting her own childhood fears of separation . In adolescence when children grow away from their parents, the secur e base behavior must be radically renegotiated . Both parentsand children s needs for closeness and distance must be reevaluated . Anne says she expect s Joey to be pretty rebellious as a teenager and that she expects it will be difficul t for her to let him grow away from her. She says, "I expect it gonna be prett y hard for me to, uh, (2 sec. pause) figure out how to (4 sec. pause) guide him without trying to stifle him and, and drive him away, you know ." She continues , I think it going to be really hard for me to see him get himself i n danger. Hopefully we can negotiate the danger part of it . Urn, it s gonna be painful for me, you know, the breaking away that he s gonna need to do . Anne has some insight into her own feelings as well as into her son s needs and wants to do what they both need . However, her own difficul t adolescence causes her to project feelings onto Joey . Anne never felt clos e enough to her parents . Then, at adolescence she wanted more freedom an d had to separate from her parents without ever having gotten the closeness sh e had needed. Earlier in the interview Anne had discussed her feeling that i t would be more difficult to let a girl child grow away from her at adolescence . She thinks it will be easier with boys. As Anne lost her parents, she is afrai d she will also lose her son . She reassures herself, saying that boys "just really 99 seem to benefit from having a (2 sec . pause) a benevolent mom. You know , somebody who friendly to them ." These particular words, "benevolent" an d "friendly," are the words that Anne used in the family interview to describe he r father. This suggests Anne projection about children and their opposite se x parent in her current expectations about her children . Anne expects tha t children are more likely to feel close to their opposite sex parent afte r adolescence. There is a hint her feeling of loss here as Anne says about he r mother, "With my mom, it sort of an abnormal situation . I treat her basicall y sort of like an invalid, which she is ." Anne still has some conflict about separations from her children . On th e one hand, she has always wanted to be close to them and accepts thei r dependency, for instance, wishing Joey would nurse longer and not minding hi s requests for her help. She anticipates that it will be hard for her to let Joey gro w away from her at adolescence. On the other hand, Anne discounts Joey s uneasiness about going to day care and laughs at both children protests a t her going out. Anne own unexamined conflicts about closeness and distanc e prevent her from being completely comfortable with her children feelings . Sensitivity and Insigh t Anne seems on the surface to be a sensitive and insightful mother . Sh e clearly enjoys her children, is helpful and reassuring to them, and wants them t o be happy. There are many instances of this in her interview . Anne report s staying close to Joey when he was sick and trying to ease his discomfort . Sh e tells how she reassured him when he worried about his parents dying . Anne tells of playing board games with Joey even when she was ill and how she likes goo bedtimes when they can snuggle and read. She seems to be very different fro m her own parents. However, Anne interview reveals several striking instance s of insensitivity that invite a closer look at her internal models of relationships . Anne style of relating to her children is rather intellectual . Her intellectual approach to parenting is revealed by the fact that, throughout the interview , when questioned about how she deals with various situations with her children , Anne generally relates what she says to her children . She often tells th e interviewer what she says to her children, but very infrequently mention s touching or holding except when specifically questioned about it . A particularly striking example of this comes when Anne talks about an auto accident he r children were in. She relates her response to them, "And I could be there an d explain things to them, hold them, urn, he needed to be held, talk to them, and I wasn telling them anything that wasn true ." Anne mostly focusses on talkin g to her children in this very physical crisis. She even feels that she has t o explain to the interviewer why she held her son . Responding to her children rationally and even intellectually could just b e part of a personal style if other elements were not present. Anne fel t emotionally unsupported as a child and wants to be a better parent to her ow n children. She felt loved as a child the few times her father empathized with he r feelings. As a parent she now tries very hard to empathize with her children s feelings. But her empathy in many cases has an intellectual quality to it . A n careful analysis of the interview reveals that she actually views empathy as a child-rearing tool with which to manipulate her children into feeling better . Several examples of this follow : Anne talks about feeling frustrated when Joey whines or complains but reminds herself he is only a little kid and to be patient with him . She says "when 101 he showing how strong-willed he is, I feel frustrated first and then I realize tha t there are things I can do that, to get out of it basically, by validating hi s feelings..." Later she says , So I have to, if I quick on my feet and, and can empathize wit h where he is at emotionally, that can usually work through it . Bu t until the process has been gone through, he doesn, he doesn t give any ground . The implication is that Anne is not validating his feelings because she trul y understands him or to help him, but to get him to cooperate with her . At another point, Anne takes about 13 seconds to remember a time whe n Joey was sad or upset . In telling the incident, she demonstrates clearly th e mixed response she has to actually empathizing with her children sadness . She relates that Joey had a fight with his brother and then ran out of the hous e saying, "I feel like nobody cares about me at all ." In her telling, Anne imitate s Joey voice with a tinge of sarcasm, as if mocking him and also distancin g herself from his feeling. Anne reports that she ran after Joey while shouting , "that must be really hard for you ." She caught him, and told him he could no t run away like that. Then she urged him to talk with her about what happened , saying, "I know youe sad . Let work it out ." She continues , He didn, he didn entirely want to work things out then . I think h e really wanted a lot of sympathy and I don know, I was taking kin d of an analytical approach to it. Like, yeah, OK, you feel this way, bu t let, let move on to the next part of it . And he going (Ann e imitates with dramatic wailing) "Oh I feel this way!" He kind o f wanted to, you know, self pity is a fun feeling for, for a while. I thin k he kind of wanted to wallow in it a little bit . t wasn really letting hi m do that, but (sigh). Here she shows her pattern of attempting to use empathetic statements t o manipulate her son to feel better. After she had acknowledged that he was sad , she wanted him to "move on to the next part of it" as if they were going through 102 an exercise. When he didn, she demeaned his sadness as self-pity and calle d it wallowing. She also imitates him as if he were amusing . She seem s uncomfortable with the intensity of his feelings . Later, Anne describes another time, "he just looks really sad and walk s away" and again she uses a mocking, dramatic voice that implies lack o f respect for Joey feelings . Anne style of expression suggests a mixture o f acknowledgment and discomfort. Anne confusion about how to respond t o Joey sad feelings is evident later when the interviewer asks her what she feel s like doing when Joey cries . She replies that she feels like going and huggin g him because "to see him sad like that triggers memories of me being sad for , you know, probably hours at a time ." She says she doesn go hug hi m because she is trying to disengage from her children fights and , Well, I realize that he, you know, he doesn have to be sad for hours at a time. You know, I tell myself that if it hasn worked out i n ten minutes, or so that I can go and intervene and save hi m essentially. But, but that hardly ever happens . He doesn usuall y need to be saved. Anne is insightful in realizing that Joey crying brings up her childhoo d feelings and that comforting him might be a response to her own unfulfille d needs and not his present needs . However, she sees responding to Joey s feelings as "saving" him, rather than responding to him . It is as if she identifie s both with the crying child and the disengaged parent . Although Anne has given up trying to get her parents to take care of he r and be responsive to her as an adult, she shows a lingering preoccupation wit h her childhood by comparing herself with her mother . For instance, in talkin g about her reaction to her children being in an auto accident, Anne talks almos t entirely about her own reactions in comparison to her own mother . She says 103 she wanted to have kids to redo the things my mom did in the right way, and I just about, one of the first things I thought was, well, I feel really bad if I weren t thoughtful and nice in general and then here came this acciden t and I thoughtful and nice . You know, but I just had a real clea r conscience about that. Anne saw this as an opportunity to be a good mother, rather than jus t wanting to help her children in a crisis. It as if she is parenting not just he r children, but herself at the same time, still being caught up in what her mothe r would have done . Anne appears to be moderately sensitive and responsive to her children . She is available to comfort and guide them . Her way of discussing them in th e interview was interesting however. She frequently talked about how she mad e decisions in a situation by talking about her needs rather than the children s needs. For instance, in answer to a question about physical punishment, Ann e told why she stopped spanking the children . In her explanation of why sh e stopped spanking them, Anne said three times that spanking them didn mak e her feel any better and once that "it wasn improving the behavior ." She neve r once mentioned her children needs or welfare as a reason she stoppe d spanking them. This awareness of her own feelings and seeming lack o f thinking about her child needs seems odd considering that Anne seems t o provide well for her children emotional needs . In her discussion about spanking her children, Anne showed anothe r instance of lack of insight into her children needs . She said , And one of the things that I realized when I stopped spanking Joey , he was having a great time . He loved being spanked . For him , anything physical is, is great. And if it dramatic and physical, wel l that even more fun . I think he, he have felt just, you know, that i t was enjoyable to have this kind of thing going on where it was , there was lots of contact, or, or just seeing me jump through the 104 hoops might have been what it was . Although Joey may like physical contact and dramatic emotions since both o f these may be in short supply in his family, it seems unlikely to this researche r that he loved to be spanked or found it fun . Near the end of the parenting interview, Anne discusses some of he r feelings about being a mother. In this excerpt, she again reveals how some o f her nurturing behavior toward her children is actually in response to her ow n needs rather than theirs. She says she wants , to be wanted, you know, I want my kids to want me as a mom, I want to be popular. I want them to like me . And there are definitely time s when I have to put that aside cause just discipline-wise it doesn t work to always be the nice guy....Uh, I think I was, I tried to be pretty affectionate with my parents as a way of ingratiating myself into the family unit. And I probably still do that ; that certainly part of m y motivation. I want to be, I want them to look back and think, yeah , boy, my mom was always giving me pats on the back and stuff. Anne talks about being affectionate to her children as a way of obtainin g love for herself rather than as a way to meet their needs . She is still involved i n trying to be loved . Self and Others In this final section, we will examine Anne probable internal models i n terms of the global nature of her relationships with others . Childhoo d As a child, Anne attachment figures were her parents . She also tried t o get care and love from her boyfriend and her brothersgirlfriends . In general , her attachment figures were inconsistent. They were sometimes attentive an d available and sometimes withdrawn or hostile. 105 they would be available . As a younger child, she tried to elicit care by bein g good, helpful, and bright . Anne apparent internal models of her caregiver s and herself are outlined below . With father: Anne sees her father as distant and benevolent and does not have a lot o f specific memories about him. Some specific memories are of empathi c interaction; others are of distance. Anne occasionally felt loved by her father , but usually at a distance. The resulting internal models of her father and her sel f probably were : Other: My father is inconsistently available and inconsistently responsive , but he loves me. Self : I am lovable, but not very important. I only sometimes deserv e attention. With mother: Anne sees her mother as angry, withdrawn, and inconsistent . She give s Anne superficial approval for good behavior and is caring mainly when Anne i s sick. She is sometimes available and interested in an intellectual way . Anne s efforts to be ingratiating sometimes resulted in maternal care and sometimes i n maternal withdrawal or attack . The resulting internal representational model o f her mother and her self probably were : Other: My mother is sometimes available, sometimes withdrawn, an d sometimes hostile. Her behavior is out of my control . Self : I am not lovable or good enough. I am OK only if I do what mothe r wants. 106 In general: Anne resulting model of herself with others probably was : I am only acceptable when I am good . My vulnerability and neediness ar e not acceptable. I cannot control when will be responded to . As an Adult with Childre n As an adult Anne is determined to be a better mother than her mother was. She said that one of the reasons she wanted to have children was t o "redo" what her mother had done and do it right this time . In her relationshi p with her children, Anne is the caregiver and attachment figure for her children . She sees her children as needing her protection, guidance, love, an d companionship. She sees herself as able to provide what they need . In takin g care of them after an auto accident, she says she felt, "I just knew that I was exactly what they needed ." Anne also sees her children as a source of support for her . She mention s several times in the interview how Joey especially is sensitive to her feeling s and offers empathetic comments that make her feel good . Her children are als o an indirect source of support for her by making her feel like a good mother . Fo r example, in discussing the car accident, Anne said, "I just felt like, wow, here s the chance for me to really show what I can, what I can do for these kids." Th e clue here is that Anne is concerned not just with helping her children, but wit h enhancing her self image of being a good mother . (For a more detaile d discussion of these points, refer the sections on Role Reversal and Sensitivit y and Insight.) 107 In her role as caretaker of her children, Anne internal representation o f them is: Other: Children are worthy of protection, care, and love . When she sees her children as attachment figures for herself, Anne feel s in general that they love her and approve of her, both directly and by bein g happy. When they are upset and she can "fix" them easily, she ignores thei r pain. In this role, Anne is somewhat insecure and tries to prove to herself an d her children that she is a good mother. If she can keep them happy, she feel s like she is doing all right. She takes classes and tries new techniques in a n attempt to improve. Her internal model of her children and her self in this role is : Other: The children usually give me love and approval for being a goo d mother. Self: I am deserving of love if I do a good job . As an Adult with Friends: Anne provides little information in this area . Anne mostly discusses other s as recipients of her friendship and mentions one difficult relationship . Ann e says several times that she is a good and loyal friend . Her internal model o f others as friends and her self might be: Others: Other people are worthy of love and loyalty . They are sometime s undependable and inconsistent toward me . Self: I am loyal, compassionate, and accepting. I deserve to be treated well . Continuity and Change in Internal Model s if as predicted, as a child, Anne integrated both sides of the relationshi p with her parents and as a parent, acted out the parental side of her internal 108 model, Anne would be, as her parents were, inconsistently responsive, angr y and attacking, and withdrawn . Her occasional responsiveness and carin g would be mainly verbal and intellectual . Anne appears to have changed he r internal models somewhat but not entirely. She is generally caring with he r children, but has occasional lapses in which she attempts to ignore or minimiz e their feelings of distress. She is generally available, but occasionally get s overwhelmed and withdraws to the couch at those points just as her mother did . Anne feels she has definitely eliminated from her parenting the angry attack s her mother inflicted upon her. Anne nurturing style still tends to be verbal an d intellectual like her parents. It seems that Anne has modified her internalize d models by reducing or eliminating the hurtful elements such as withdrawal , hostility, and inconsistency. But in their place she has not completely develope d new positive elements such as genuine empathy, acceptance of "negative " feelings, and seeing things from her child perspective . She has adopted a way of responding that sounds like genuine empathy, but stops short of reall y seeing things from the child point of view and accepting all of their needs . Just as Anne has modified, but not completely abandoned her parents models of child rearing, she has also modified, but not completely changed he r internal model of her self as a receiver of care. As a child she felt that only part s of her were acceptable and she had to be very good to be loved . She denie d her feelings of neediness . Anne no longer denies her need for emotiona l support and she acknowledges the need to accept all of her feelings, positiv e and negative . However, she is still somewhat uncomfortable with anger an d sadness. As when she was a child, Anne strives to be popular and liked by he r family by being nice and doing the right things . She uses her children a s attachment figures indirectly by needing their emotional support and approval . log Anne children are young and appreciative of her now, but when the y become adolescents, they may want more distance from her and possibl y become critical of her. Anne could become hurt and angry with her children, a s her mother did with her, if they withdraw the validation she gets now for being a good mother. In summary, Anne is still somewhat insecure about being loved by thos e she is close to. Some of the effort she puts into being a good mother appears t o be as much to shore up her self image as out of sensitivity to her children . Ann e would probably be rated as balanced in her view of attachment and he r parental behavior. She shows some tendency toward being avoidan t (dismissing) in her low tolerance for her children feelings of distress . She als o shows some tendency toward the ambivalent (preoccupied) style of relationshi p in her continuing need for reassurance from others that she is all right . She ha s modified her internal representational models, but not completely change d them. She has been able to change on the intellectual level more than th e emotional level. For instance, she can talk to her children about their sa d feelings, but she cannot actually allow them to feel that way for very long . Th e changes Anne has made appear to be from the internal pressure to be hersel f at adolescence and from doing therapy . Independent Ratings of the Family (Childhood) Intervie w Two independent raters with extensive experience rated the Famil y Interview. Their findings were not examined by the main researcher until afte r the above analysis had been completed . These ratings are measured on a scale of 1-9 with the higher end of the scale conveying more of a particular X10 quality. When scores are hyphenated, the true score falls between the two . The raters assigned Anne a score of (3) for Acceptance by her mother an d (8) for Rejection by her mother. They gave her a (6) on the maternal Neglec t scale. They gave her mother a very low Consistency score of (1-2) . Anne s mother was a rated a (8-9) on the Emotional Expressivity scale, scoring in th e histrionic range. Anne tendency to Role Reversal with her mother was rated i n the middle of the scale at (5). They rated Anne at (7) for Expressed Anger at he r mother now and at (3) for Idealization of her mother. The raters gave Anne a score of (4) for Acceptance by her father and (6) for Rejection by her father. These scores reflect Anne slightly close r relationship with her father. They rated her father as (5) on the Neglect scal e and (5) on the Consistency scale . His Emotional Expressivity was rated as (3) . They found a very low tendency to Role Reversal for Anne father, giving him a (1) on this scale. Anne was given a score of (5) for Expressed Anger at he r father now and (5) for Idealization of her father . These ratings are consisten t with the previous detailed analysis. The main researcher did not see as muc h idealization as the independent raters, however . The raters gave both Anne mother and father ratings of (7) fo r Dominance in the relationship with her and ratings of (3-4) for curren t closeness. They rated Anne seeking Proximity with and comfort from he r parents during childhood as a (4) for her father and (5) for her mother, citin g Anne sickness, crying, and suicide attempts . They rated her as a (5) o n general Coherence, a moderate rating, citing her laughter, idealization, an d occasional defensiveness. They counted 21 instances of inappropriat e laughter, no "I don know," and no instances of insistence on no t remembering. These rating are in agreement with the main researcher, with the exception of the independent raters lower score for Coherency . The raters assigned Anne a high score of (8) on Separation Anxiety and a high average score of (6) on Self-confidence . They felt her adolescent rebellio n was high enough to rate her (7) on that scale . They rated Anne as low averag e on Warmth (4) and Trust (4). They saw her as higher than average in Jealous y (7), Emotional Dependence (6-7), and Caregiving (6-7) . Again, these ratin g agree with the previous analysis . The independent raters saw Anne model of her Self to be Moderat e (rather than Low or High). They think that although her self confidence i s moderate, so is her emotional dependence on others . She still is emotionall y enmeshed with and feels hurt by her parents . They rated Anne model o f Others also as Moderate. This rating is based on her coping style of seekin g support from others--getting sick, calling crisis lines, going to counselors, cryin g to be heard, etc . They note that she values close relationships with friends an d her own family and is moderately emotionally expressive . The raters assigned a score (from 1-9) for each attachment category (o r relationship style). These scores show how much of the qualities of that styl e the person seems to demonstrate . They rated Anne as (3) on the Fearful style , citing her compliance as a child. They gave her (3-4) on the Secure style base d upon her attaining some disengagement from and acceptance of her parent s and her reasonable coherence in the interview . They rated her (4) on th e Dismissing scale, giving as examples her defensive laughter, reaction to a funeral she discussed, and her panic attacks which reveal her ability t o disconnect from her feelings. They rated Anne highest on the Preoccupie d category (6), citing no specific evidence. These ratings of attachment style ar e somewhat different from the opinion expressed by the main researcher who felt 112 that Anne rated highest in the Secure category but with significant elements o f both the Preoccupied and Dismissing style. The differences are not great , however. Anne clearly show elements of all four styles with none very high o r very low. Questionnaires In this section the written questionnaires Anne completed will be analyze d to see if they validate the interview information . Children of Alcoholics Screening Tes t Anne replies on the CAST confirm that she had an alcoholic parent . O f thirty questions about possible childhood experiences with alcoholic parents , Anne checked Yes to 18 questions and No to 12 questions . Relationship Questionnair e Anne skipped the first question on the relationship questionnaire whic h asked her to choose the one style that best described her relationship style . Possibly she misunderstood the instructions. She did rate herself on the Likert- type question about the four relationship styles which has a scale of 1-7, with I being "Not at all like me" and 7, "Very much like me." On this scale, Anne rate d herself highest on the "Secure" relationship style . She gave herself a 6 on thi s scale. Anne rated herself lowest on the "Fearful" scale, giving herself a rating o f 1. Anne rated herself as 3 on both the "Preoccupied" style and the "Dismissing " style. A person with the Secure relationship style has a positive image of the self 113 and a positive image of others. Anne endorsed this style as being the most lik e her. A person with the Fearful style has a negative self image and a negativ e image of others. This is the style Anne said was least like her . A person wit h the Preoccupied style has a negative image of the self and a positive image o f others whereas the Dismissing style has a positive image of the self and a negative image of others. Anne saw herself as somewhat like these latter tw o mixed styles. This suggests that generally Anne sees herself as worthy of lov e and others as dependable and caring . She occasionally feels like either she i s not worthy or others are not loving, but she rarely feels like both of these ar e true. From the interviews, the researcher saw Anne as being Secure wit h Dismissing and Preoccupied tendencies. Anne sees herself exactly as th e researcher did. The independent raters concurred with Anne in rating he r lowest on the Fearful scale. They agree on a low average rating on th e Dismissing scale. However, the raters see Anne as higher on the Preoccupie d style and lower on the Secure style than she sees herself . Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventor y This inventory has four scales, Inappropriate Expectations, Empathy , Belief in Corporal Punishment, and Role Reversal . Scores are stated as Ste n scores, ranging from 1 to 10 . Compared to other non-abusive Caucasia n women, Anne got a standard score of 7 in having appropriate expectations o f children. She scored 8 on having appropriate empathy for children . Sh e scored 7 in valuing alternatives to corporal punishment and 8 in understandin g appropriate family roles. Anne scores, therefore, reflect attitudes in parenting 114 and child rearing that exceed what would be expected from the average parent , but fall below those attitudes that would be exceptionally appropriate an d nurturing. On the Corporal Punishment scale Anne endorsed statements tha t said 1) that parents should sometimes use physical punishment to teach thei r children right from wrong and 2) that children often deserve more punishmen t than they get . These reflect Anne slight confusion about how to discipline he r children. She scored highest on the Empathy scale, getting the highes t possible score. This test confirms that Anne child-rearing attitudes ar e generally healthy and appropriate . Mother-Father-Peer Scal e This inventory has scales for mother-acceptance/rejection ; father acceptance/rejection; mother encouraging independence vs . overprotection ; father encouraging independence vs . overprotection ; idealization of each parent; and acceptance/rejection by peers. The scores are given in percentil e rank with the more positive point at the high end . On the Mother Acceptanc e scale, Anne ranked at the 31 percentile point . On the Father Acceptance scale , she ranked at the 44 percentile . These scores are consistent with th e interviews. Anne felt rejected by both of her parents, but more by her mother . On the Mother Encouraging Independence vs . Overprotection, Anne ranked in the 46 percentile . On the Father Independence vs . overprotection score she ranked at the 57 percentile . Anne responses to the individua l questions on this scale show her perception that her parents generall y encouraged her independence, but not as strongly as she would have liked . She marked her mother down on some of the questions for preferring that Anne 115 not do things her own way or express her own opinion . Again, Anne felt mor e supported by her father than by her mother . On the Parent Idealization scales, Anne got the lowest scores possible , showing she does not tend to idealize her parents . This was also demonstrate d in the interviews. Since idealizing the parents often is associated with peopl e who were abused and don remember their abuse and who abuse their ow n children, Anne would be expected to score low on this scale . On the Peer Acceptance/Rejection Scale, Anne scored at the 10 percentil e mark. An examination of her answers shows that although Anne felt that othe r children were usually friendly with her and wanted to play with her, she also fel t that they were often unfair to her and tried to hurt her feelings . The interviews provided too little information to compare them to this scale . In general, these tests provide confirmation for the information in th e interviews as interpreted by the main researcher and the independent raters . Hypotheses Anne grew up with an alcoholic, inconsistent mother, and a distant, bu t non-abusive father. She experienced some loving attention, some hostil e emotional attacks, and some neglect . She is now raising her own children in a moderately nurturing way. The questions we have asked are, in what way s have her internal models changed and in what ways have they not changed ? How can we explain this ? Anne seems to have incorporated elements of all the ways her parent s behaved, both the positive and negative aspects . She feels she learned to b e a nurturing parent mainly from imitating her father occasional empathy and 116 her mother attentive caring when Anne was sick . She says she bases he r inner image of good parenting on those experiences and tries to reproduc e them with her children. Anne says that her parents sometimes gave her verba l "dollops of encouragement." Her parentsverbal, intellectual support seems t o be repeated in Anne relationships with her children in which verbal suppor t plays a large role . Anne also incorporated some of her parent insensitivities to distress an d discomfort with painful feelings. Although she wants to be empathetic with he r children, Anne sometimes is insensitive and demeaning when they are upset . She also is somewhat uncomfortable with her own strong feelings of distress . Anne behaves similarly to when she was a child in that she is still trying t o be liked.and accepted by those close to her. She still wants everyone to fee l happy; instead of glossing over things, she now uses empathetic statements a s a technique to achieve this . Anne life story as presented here demonstrates that an individual ca n show behavior consistent with various attachment styles . Anne has more tha n one conscious model of attachment (both the nurturing parent and the rejectin g parent, the nurtured child and the rejected child) . She acts out of both models . Intellectually she is secure and balanced in her view of attachment, bu t emotionally she has mixed models. Because she can identify with the sad chil d in herself, the natural assumption is that she could acknowledge her children s sadness. But when Joey is very distressed, she can intellectually acknowledg e his feelings, but cannot entirely accept them. The reason must be that she feel s this way about herself as well. It is as if she is in transition between two model s of caregiving, one on the intellectual level and the other on the emotional level . What happens when Anne is confronted with her sad child? The rejected 117 sad child model in her is activated at an unconscious level along with the ol d representational patterns which insist that sadness must be denied . At th e same time her newer models are activated which encourage recognition of th e sadness. The combination of these models gives Anne her peculiar pattern o f cognitively acknowledging her child feelings and then wanting the feelings t o go away quickly . Anne has changed in that she is more aware of her feelings now tha n when she was a child. The theory would predict that she would also be awar e of her children feelings . She generally shows some cognitive awareness an d very occasionally, real empathy, as when, after Joey birth she realized ho w hard the birth had been for him. Although Anne seems to be aware of he r children feelings, in the interviews she consistently talks as if she evaluate s situations according to her own needs . Her baby laughing makes him a nic e person to have in her family; her children auto accident gives her a chance t o be a Supermom; she stops spanking because it doesn make her feel good . She doesn say that she glad her child was so happy merely because sh e cared about him and his well-being or that she stopped spanking becaus e spanking was harmful to her children . Even her children fighting bothers he r because she doesn know how to stop it, but not because she wants them t o learn better conflict management skills out of concern for them . Perhaps Ann e has finally learned to take care of herself, but has not yet learned to do this wel l enough to be able to forget herself and see things from the other point of view . It is as if everything is about her. This is the position of the Preoccupied styl e mother who is so concerned about providing for her own emotional welfare tha t she is not always aware of what her child needs . Anne mother had some o f these tendencies, withdrawing and interacting according to her own needs and 1 1 not her children . Anne has again, intellectually accepted that she will neve r get what she needed from her parents, but on an emotional level, the transitio n is only half completed. She continues to compare herself with her mother an d need her children to give her support . Fortunately for Anne children, Anne s needs include feeling like a good mother and so she generally cares for the m well. 119 Carol Content: Family (Childhood) Intervie w Carol is 37 years old and works as a Certified Public Accountant . She i s married and has three children, Gabrielle who is 6 112 years old, Jessica who i s 2 112 years old, and David, who is 1 year old. Carol was born in the Midwes t and lived in several cities before her family settled in Arizona when she was si x years old. She is the eldest of three children with younger brothers who are fiv e and six years younger than she . Carol father was a travelling salesman an d her mother was a housewife. She is the only person in her family who live s outside of Arizona. Carol parents are still married . She recalls neither huge fights no r obvious signs of affection between them when she was young, just a "routine " level of conflict. Carol reports that both of her parents were and still are activ e alcoholics. In her childhood, they both drank mostly in the evenings and all da y on the weekends and holidays. Carol says she tried to be out of the house o r locked in her room in the evenings and did not invite friends to the house . Ove r the years, their drinking escalated and they started to drink earlier in the day . Carol thinks that her mother temper got worse when she drank . Carol says her mother was affectionate to her as a small child before he r brothers were born and that she is affectionate now, leaving a large time i n between when she was hostile . Carol chose the following adjectives to describe her father : shy ; intelligent; hardworking; withdrawn; and loyal . Carol remembers spending tim e with her father when she was very young, before her brothers were born an d she remembers him being affectionate then . She feels that later, they became 120 more distant because he worked very long hours, often was gone most of th e week and spent more time with her brothers . She says that he is "relativel y affectionate," but also very shy and withdrawn and doesn show feelings ver y much. She describes her mother as : temperamental; unstable; caring; funny; and angry. Carol remembers her mother as being angry frequently . Carol says, " I never felt like i could do anything right with her ." She recounts a number o f situations in which she felt her mother had unreasonable expectations of he r and got furious if Carol did not do what she wanted . Carol remembers that he r mother would get her down on the floor and kick her . Carol feels like she wa s blamed for everything that went wrong for her mother . She felt her mother s anger was extremely unpredictable and says, it was "pretty scary because yo u never knew what was going to trigger it ." Carol can remember some incident s when her mother took care of her in emergencies . She also remembers fun times with her mother, especially when her mother read to her as a small child , but Carol says the happy times "would never last very long ." Carol says when she got upset as a child she just got withdrawn an d sulked. She says her mother would also get upset then and it was like "duelin g upsets." Her father would generally stay disengaged unless Carol yelled bac k at her mother. Then her father might swat her . Carol says she cried a lot as a child, usually in hiding and that her parents either didn know or chose t o ignore it. She says that if she got hurt, her mother would imply that it was he r own fault and be annoyed with her. Her mother was not so angry if Carol wer e sick, but was not nurturing either. Carol was separated fromher mother soon after her birth because he r mother needed surgery for cancer. As a child, Carol was often separated from 121 her father, who traveled for work, but not from her mother. She says that he r parents almost never got babysitters and went out . Carol remembers gettin g angry at her mother and trying to run away from home when she was four or fiv e years old, but her father, laughing, ran after her and brought her back . Carol says that if she had done something wrong, usually her parent s would hit her, and when she was older, her mother would kick her on the floor . Her father belittled the children by calling them insulting nicknames, "so a lot o f times they would discipline just through (1 sec . pause) kind of cutting you down , I guess." Her mother would also tell her that she hated her and wished she d never been born . Carol says at the time she felt she was treated unfairly . Now , however she says, "...now you hear all the time about how there all these ad s on TV about how you, how that a form of abuse . So I guess I was pretty abused (laugh)." Carol says that she wasn really afraid of her mother unti l about seventh or eighth grade . She did feel rejected however and fantasize d that she was really adopted and her real parents would come and rescue her . Carol says she never felt like her parents understood her . She reports that sh e was in high school before she realized that her some of parentsabusiv e behavior might be caused by their drinking . Carol felt that her parents didn value her as much as her brothers . Sh e says she thinks her mother felt criticized whenever Carol made a life choice tha t was different from her mother choices . Carol is not sure whether or not sh e felt responsible for her family happiness ; she does know that she felt that sh e was to blame for whatever went wrong, that if she weren there, they all woul d have been happy. She remembers thinking about suicide a lot during hig h school, but was "too chicken" to do it. Carol says she has been able to understand her mother more and feels 1 2 less angry at her now. Carol did some counseling five years ago for a fe w months, but can remember what she talked about there . She felt her mai n insights into her mother came from reading a self-help book and doing th e exercises in it. Carol says she and her mother get along better now that Carol lives awa y from home, is married, and has children . A major turning point in thei r relationship occurred when Carol had her third child a year ago and told he r mother, "You know, I don really know how you did it with three kids and a husband who traveled all the time ..." Her mother apparently felt validated an d has been very friendly since then . Before Carol got involved with her husband, most of her friends an d romantic partners were alcoholics. She herself drank, sometimes heavily, fo r about ten years. Her husband was from a healthier family than hers and didn t drink. Carol stopped drinking after she got involved with him and says now tha t the feeling she gets if she drinks scares her . She thinks if she had not marrie d him she would probably be an alcoholic now . Carol says she would have liked her father to be more "participative" an d open with his feelings and she would have liked her mother to not be always o n edge and angry. She thinks they would have liked her to just go along wit h everything they wanted and not have fought with them . Carol admitted that sh e found the interview emotionally difficult . Even though she says the memorie s are always with her, she rarely speaks of them . She has considered doin g some therapy, but feels she couldn trust anyone not to "go out and tel l somebody" what she said. She is concerned now about her frequent anger a t her children and its effect on them . 123 Content: Parenting Intervie w This interview focuses mainly on Carol relationship with her middl e child, 2 112-year-old Jessica. Carol reports that she and her husband had ha d some difficulty conceiving and so they were very excited about this pregnancy . The pregnancy went well and Carol enjoyed being pregnant . Carol was hurt , however, that when she sent her mother word of the pregnancy, her mothe r didn respond for two or three months, and then, unenthusiastically . Carol wa s very happy that she had a second girl . She decided to nurse her because sh e felt it was best for both her and the baby emotionally and physically . The y nursed for six weeks ; Carol remembers that Jessica "wasn really interested" i n nursing and preferred to have a bottle . Carol returned to work when Jessic a was eight weeks old . Carol reports that, unlike her other two children, Jessica was "just never a cuddler" and her impression was that Jessica was not very interested i n interaction in general. Carol was concerned about this and wondered what sh e was doing wrong as a mother, but her pediatrician assured her that it was jus t Jessica personality . Carol uses the following adjectives to describe Jessica : energetic ; strong- willed; funny; nurturing; feisty. Carol finds living with a two year old trying, bu t says she knows the difficult behavior will eventually pass . Carol says Jessic a likes to have time alone with her since Carol usually must divide her attentio n between her three children . Carol and Jessica enjoy going to movies together , shopping or driving alone together, and cuddling together in bed and readin g books. Carol feels especially close to Jess when they are alone together , especially if they are somewhere they can sit face-to-face and talk, like if they g o to get ice cream together. 124 Carol says the most frustrating part of her relationship with Jessica is "just her wanting, her fighting me every step of the way on anything ... I don feel like I can motivate her, urn (2 sec. pause) to do the things that I need to have done ." Carol says when Jessica is so uncooperative, "I just get furious. I just (1 sec . pause) I just absolutely can deal with it ." At those times, Carol reports she yell s at Jessica, handles her roughly and puts her in her room . She says she neve r hits her or calls her names. After the incident is over, Carol says she regret s that it happened, but still has a hard time getting rid of her anger . She wil l apologize to the children if she feels she has been out of line . Carol feels tha t when she yells at Jess, Jess just gets angrier, but is not frightened . She doe s relate an incident in which she yelled at Jessie, and Jessie got upset and finall y ran to her for comfort, at which point Carol realized how she had been attackin g her child and comforted her. Often, however, Carol says she just gets angr y and doesn think to comfort Jessie . Jessica is afraid of loud noises, and Carol is very reassuring an d comforting about that. When Jessie is upset about fighting with her sister, Caro l sometimes comforts her with empathetic listening and spends time with her . Other times she feels irritated. Carol says that when her children fight, she feel s like there is something wrong with her. She is starting to realize that sh e doesn need to take their conflicts so personally . Sometimes when Carol is sad, Jessica tries to comfort her . If Carol i s angry at Jessica, Carol reports that Jessica is strong-willed and yells back a t her. However, if Carol is angry at someone else, she says that both of he r children stay out of it. Carol sets limits on dangerous activities, but Jessica sometimes insist s she can do things that might be dangerous . When Jessica wants help to do 125 things Carol knows she can do, Carol gets angry and they fight about it . Caro l says she just has so much to tend to with three children that she need s everybody to be more self-sufficient and she gets frustrated when Jessie ask s for help with things. Carol says that bedtime is generally peaceful with Jessica . Jes s occasionally wakes up at night, but Carol husband tends to her since Caro l sleeps very soundly. When Carol has had to travel out of town, she says tha t Jessica is generally happy with her father, but does miss her mother . Caro l reports that Jessica does well at day-care, although she occasionally asks t o stay home all day with her mother . Carol says that her husband plays more physical games with Jessic a while she prefers quieter activities like reading or coloring . She also says tha t Jessica is more openly affectionate with her than with her husband . Carol doesn feel that she and Jessica are similar at all although other s think that they are . Carol sees Jessica as a risk taker and needing les s emotional support than she, Carol, does . Seeing them as very different make s Carol feel less able to relate to Jessica . She imagines that Jessie will b e strong-willed as a teenager and that she, Carol will be protective, leading to lot s of battles between them . She thinks Jessica will be an busy, independent adul t with whom she will have a good, but not necessarily close, relationship . Carol feels similar to her own mother in that she gets frustrated and yell s at Jessica a lot. She thinks that she enjoys Jessica more, laughs more, and i s more affectionate with her than her mother was with her. She tries to avoid he r mother more destructive parenting behaviors . Carol thinks that her relationship with her parents has improved sinc e she had children, partly because seeing her parents with her children allows 126 her to remember some of the good things about her childhood she doesn t usually think of, and so she sees more good in her parents now . Carol mothe r has been more friendly since Carol had her third child and commented on ho w she didn understand how her mother managed with three children and a husband who travelled . For Carol, being a mother is hard work and she worries that her ange r harms her children. She feels like she is a good mother except for her intens e anger when her children say "no" to her . Having grown up with an angr y mother, she knows how harmful that can be for children . She says she woul d like to change, but doesn know how . She comforts herself by feeling that sh e is doing at least a little better than mother did . Interviewer Comment s Carol was very open in sharing her life story with the interviewer . Although, in the interview, she expressed distrust concerning telling peopl e about herself, during the interview she was very open . She made eye contac t with the interviewer most of the time and seemed present . Carol spok e relatively slowly and her voice had a sad quality to it in general . When talkin g about her mother, her voice sometimes got slightly plaintive . In both interviews, her voice occasionally expressed deep emotion, trembling or breaking . Sh e also laughed frequently, either when talking about painful memories o r occasionally at her own foibles . She seemed warm, but vulnerable an d slightly protected. She was not defensive to the purpose of the study in an y way. Her behavior throughout was entirely appropriate . As an interviewer, I fel t very comfortable with Carol and sympathetic toward her . 127 Child Abuse Literatur e Carol fits the profile of someone who was abused as a child and is a t some risk for abusing her own children . She has some risk factors and som e protective factors. Evaluating according to Spinetta Rlgier (1972) fou r criteria, Carol fulfills at least two of them. First, she was raised by abusin g parents and second, she herself has difficulty controlling her aggressiv e impulses. She says she has rarely hit her children, but she experience s extreme feelings of rage that she has difficulty controlling. On the third criteria o f having unreasonable expectations of young children, the evidence is unclear . In general, Carol does not seem to have unreasonable expectations, but Caro l does expect Jessica to be willing to regularly dress herself efficiently an d quickly to go out, an expectation that Jessica has clearly demonstrated is no t achievable for her at 2 1/2 years old . Carol continues to expect her to d o something she cannot do . Carol, however, does not believe in physica l punishment. The fourth risk factor, having socioeconomic difficulties, is no t present in Carol family . People who abuse their children often have low self-esteem and a n impaired capacity for empathy. Carol seems to have mixed feelings abou t herself and shows some low and some average level self esteem . Since self - esteem was not measured in this study, it is impossible to say for sure . Caro l respected herself enough to discontinue her destructive drinking an d relationships with dysfunctional men, but she says she still has difficult y imagining many people she respects would want to be friends with her . He r capacity for empathy seems high although she shows some incidents o f ignoring or discounting her children feelings . Carol also has high reactivity to 128 some kinds of childrearing stresses, a reaction typical of abusers . From the research about discontinuities, abused children who do no t abuse their own children, it could be predicted that Carol probably will no t abuse her children. Carol has many of the qualities of non-abusers in thes e studies, but not all of them. Most important, she remembers her childhoo d abuse and does not try to minimize its effects on her . She has not idealized he r parents; she is still somewhat angry at them and also has tried to understand them. She has resolved not to repeat the abuse . Additionally, she is married t o a man who is non-deviant ; he comes from a healthier family than her own and i s emotionally supportive of her. She was happy to be pregnant and has a healthy baby. On the negative side, although Carol was not as abused by he r father as by her mother, he was still not really supportive of her . She also ha s done very little therapy concerning her childhood and many of her memorie s seem unintegrated. In summary, according to this research, there is a small ris k that Carol will abuse her children . ACOA Analysis Both of Carol parents were alcoholics who drank every day . She says a t first they drank mostly in the evenings and all day on the weekends . Eventuall y they began to have a drink with lunch and then drink from about 3 :00 pm. on. They also drank all day on holidays . Carol provided no information about he r father family, but says that she learned only recently that her materna l grandfather had been an alcoholic who behaved violently in the home . Caro l says that her mother, as a result, suffered from eating disorders as a teenage r and is emotionally unstable, as well as alcoholic as an adult . Her mother claims 129 to have started drinking when she got married to Carol father . Carol says tha t her mother "was just not happy and didn know (1 sec . pause) couldn handle i f she wasn perfect and so she looked for other people to blame for her not bein g perfect. And whoever was closest was it ." When Carol father drank, he jus t became more withdrawn and fell asleep on the couch . Then they had to wak e him up to go to bed. Carol reports that she and her brothers didn mind he r father drunkenness as much as her mother . Carol thinks that her mothe r became more volatile when drunk . In Carol home, she said that no one discussed her parentsdrinking . She still does not discuss it with them . Carol says that she didn even realiz e that drinking was abnormal until early in high school . She just assumed tha t everyone parents drank . Carol says of her mother, "Um, (1 sec. pause) and she never said anything about drinking and it your faultbecause sh e never would acknowledge that there was a drinking problem ." Because thei r drinking was not acknowledged, Carol did not blame her parentsalcoholism fo r their unpredictability and abusive behavior . Since they, especially her mother , blamed her, Carol assumed responsibility for much of the family unhappiness . She says she figured there must be something really wrong with her to mak e them reject her. Because she was willing to shoulder the burden for the family s unhappiness, Carol did not have to break the family denial of the parenta l alcoholism. She also could have some kind of illusory control over her life i f she could imagine that she was responsible for events that were really beyon d her control. To have admitted being so out of control would have been ver y frightening. When Carol reached adolescence, she experienced th e developmental need to separate from her parents . As she took the risk o f separating and defying them and their need for her to be the family scapegoat, 130 she could see their alcoholism more clearly . She became angrier with the m and fought with them . She was willing to sacrifice the possibility of being love d by them to break denial about their abuse and alcoholism . As an adult, all of Carol friends and boyfriends were alcoholics and ha d other addictions (gambling, etc.). Carol herself drank for about 12 years , heavily for the last two to three of those years. She reports that she always too k two bottles of wine (for herself) with her whenever she went out socially an d sometimes drank to the point of passing out. However, she denies that she wa s an alcoholic because she "never did it alone and 1 only did it social drinking ." She does think she would be an alcoholic now if she hadn stopped drinkin g when she got involved with her husband, who does not drink . Carol still is i n some denial about her own alcoholism . Although Carol has escaped the trap of being an alcoholic herself and ca n acknowledge her parentsaddiction, she has some of the qualities predicted o f ACOA . She has difficulty trusting people, even her therapist, and has low sel f esteem, especially in forming new friendships . She is not in much denial in he r current problems; she is able to talk about her negative feelings and problem s with her children. However, she gets very angry when her daughter defies her . Like her mother, when she can control a situation easily, she feels threatene d and becomes very upset . Role Reversal As a Child Carol describes her mother as having a great need for order an d perfection and as being unable to cope with lack of perfection in herself . Carol 131 feels that as a result, she became a scapegoat for her mother own failings . Carol is uncertain whether or not she felt responsible for her family happiness . What she does know is that she felt responsible for their unhappiness . Sh e says "but if I, if anything went wrong in the family, it was my fault, so obviously I must be responsible for their happiness because if I weren screwinup they d be happy. (laugh)" Although intellectually Carol knew better, even as an adul t she felt this way. She said , I remember when I moved up to Oregon (1 sec . pause) I would call, urn, I was afraid to call up on Thanksgiving and Christmas because I was afrai d that, one, if she were drunk, maybe it was my fault, or two, if she werent drunk, that would mean that it had been my fault all of those other year s and now that I wasn there, she didn need to do it any more . This pattern of holding a child responsible for one own failings is a for m of role reversal because it implies that the child ought to be caring for the paren t instead of the parent caring for the child . The child must be vigilant to what th e parent needs at all times, and in Carol case, her mother needs and desire s were irrational at times and difficult to predict . Carol recalls visiting her parent s after she had left for college: I came home for a visit and my brother said, "Sis, Morn just went to get her hair done." It was like he knew her better than I did . And he said, "Ther e are certain things you probably oughta think of doing . You probably ought to think about clearing out the dishwasher and scrubbing the shower an d doing this and that . ause knowing Mom shel get all pissed off if thos e things aren done by the time she gets back ." And I would never hav e thought to do that myself.... So I went ahead and did all those things . An d sure enough, it was like, boy, this was nice .... If you didn do it you wer e screwed, but it was not, I would, she would never just say out loud, "I d really appreciate it if you could do this for me while I gone ." Carol brother apparently was willing to monitor his mother, but whe n Carol lived at home, she had refused to try to read her mother mind . She did just her chores and no more. Carol says that was one of the reasons she and 132 her parents fought so much. Besides wanting Carol to read her mind, clean the house and take th e blame for her unhappiness, Carol mother wanted her daughter to provid e validation for her competence as a mother . Although Carol relationship wit h her mother had improved somewhat when she left home, Carol says that th e real turning point came last year when her third child was born . Carol at tha t point reportedly told her mother on the phone, "You know, 1 don really kno w how you did it with three kids and a husband who traveled all the time, becaus e it just overwhelming to me and i have a husband who here all the time ." Carol was surprised at her mother reaction : And she just got all choked up and went in and my fam-, my brothers wer e there too, and said, urn, "You know, I think all these years she thought I just did nothing and now she realizes, what a, everything I did ."...l guess maybe she just needed to hear it from me that I thought she was doing a great job. But at the same time it doesn seem like she was, (laugh) so , you know, it kind of hard to give strokes when you don feel like they e warranted. Of course parents like to be appreciated by their children, but in this case , Carol says that her mother changed and became much friendlier to her after thi s exchange. Carol cites other instances in which she feels like her mother take s her children actions as validation or lack of validation . I would probably never tell them that I were taking this Child Psych cours e on Friday because that would get my mom stirred up--you must think tha t there was something wrong with your childhood . Um (2 sec . pause) I dont talk about (3 sec. pause) my brothers, uh, relationships with their girlfriends much like when are they going to get married because the fac t that they haven gotten married in so long makes my folks, makes my folk s feel like there something wrong with their marriage or else the boy s would have gotten married . There is a trend here of Carol parents being upset unless their childre n live lives that validate their parentschoices . Whether Carol parents actually 1 3 feel this way is less important than Carol perception that they do . It is thi s perception that led Carol as a child to feel like she had to either validate o r reject her parents rather than simply live according to her own needs . If she di d not validate her mother either through perfect behavior or by following in he r mother footsteps, her mother was angry at her . In response to the question, "Do you feel like (your parents) understan d you now?" Carol, like Anne in the previous case, answers not about her ow n feelings of being understood, but rather, about her parentsfeelings of bein g accepted by her. Carol answered , 1 think Mom feels validated because I have three kids now like she does . And I understand what she gone through more . She can identify with me more now because I have three kids . I may work, but I, I still basically a mom. I mean, when she writes letters to me, it not to Carol Smith, it t o Mrs. Ron Smith. (long laugh) . It not like, it not like she sees me as a separate person . It like I this spousal unit . Urn, but I think she understands me more now. My dad, I don know . You know, I just, I dont know if Ie ever really understood him because he so quiet . It not lik e he shares a lot of himself. I never know exactly what he feeling abou t something. (italics added ) As the italicized portions indicate clearly, Carol responds with how wel l she understands each of her parents, not whether they understand her . Sh e even says her mother doesn even see her as a separate person . Carol add s that she feels more understood now, but gives no evidence as to why . It is as i f Carol doesneven think in terms of being understood by her parents . An y emotional closeness to them occurs because she is willing to make the effort t o understand and accept them . The issue of Carol mother "identifying with" her and needing her to b e the same as her recurs several times in this interview . Carol herself discusses her children in terms of how much she identifies with each one . The importanc e of identification as a basis for acceptance in this family will be discussed more 134 in the section on Internal Representational Models . The role inversion in Carol family of origin was primarily in the area o f the children (at least Carol) being expected to please her mother through mind - reading and taking the blame for conflict in the family . Carol also felt pressur e to affirm her mother general acceptability as a person . All these things mainl y served to counteract her mother tremendous insecurity . As a Parent: In Carol present family, there is some evidence that Carol needs he r children to validate her, but it is not as pervasive as in Carol childhood family . For instance, Carol talks about feeling that there is something wrong with he r when her children fight . She also reacts so violently to Jessica defiance, i t seems that that she takes it as a personal affront . She gets upset when Jessic a shows the normal two-year-old swings between independence an d dependence . In the area of direct emotional support, Carol describes Jessica as bein g sensitive to her (Carol) sadness . As demonstrated by the following excerpts , Jessica sometimes attempts to monitor her mother feelings and comfort her . Although Jessica does this, Carol does not appear to strongly encourage thi s behavior or depend on it for support (in contrast to the pattern demonstrated b y Anne in the previous case .) In describing how Jessica is nurturing, Carol say s that Jessica is helpful to her little brother, that she will hug him, kiss him, an d give him his pacifier. Carol says Jessica is also nurturing with her : And if she sees I having a bad time, shel, a lot of times shel hold ou t her arms and go, h Mom, come here .And Il go over and shel put he r arms around me and kind of pat my back like I a little kid . And then kis s me and she just really nurturing that way . 135 Carol remembers a time when she was talking to her husband about he r feelings while her daughter was present and Jessica intervened , And she looks up at me and she goes, "Are you sad, Mommy?" And I said , "Yeah, I sad." "Oh, come here ." And, urn, I mean, 1 just couldn help but laugh when she starts doing that . She seems to, shel look at m e sometimes and ask if I sad and then seem really nurturing and like sh e wants to comfort me. Carol was talking to her husband, not to her daughter . She felt it wa s funny when Jessica sympathized with her, but she did not seem to need th e comfort or be glad for it. It sounds as if Jessica is uncomfortable or worrie d about her mother sadness and wants it to go away, but not that Caro l specifically wants her daughter comfort, at least overtly . Asked further abou t this, Carol replies, "I mean, I don think she, a lot of time, realizes what I sa d about. I think it just she sees me looking sad and she wants me to be better ." Clearly here, Carol sees Jessica interest in her feelings as having to do wit h Jessica and not as a support for her (Carol) . Jess seems particularly intereste d in Carol sadness . Carol says that if she is angry about something no t connected to them, generally her children are unconcerned . They only ar e interested if she is angry at them. She says of Jessica, "If I angry at someon e else, she pretty much stays out of it." There are some trends toward a limited amount of role reversal in Carol s current family, but in general, she takes responsibility for her own feelings an d the running of the household rather than blaming her children or making the m responsible for her needs . Attachment Theory Analysis This portion of the analysis will examine Carol transition to parenthood 136 from the point of view of attachment theory. It begins with a review of Carol s attachment relationship with her parents . It will then address the changes ove r time in her internal representational models of relationships . This will includ e analysis of Carol state of mind in regard to attachment as demonstrated by he r coherency in discussing attachment relationships during the interview, he r emotional processing in the interview, the feelings she reports, the attachmen t behavior she discusses, her ability to serve as a secure base for her children , and her sensitivity and insight as a mother . Carol and Her Parents Carol characterizes her childhood home as full of conflict . She says tha t the television was always turned up loud and people had to shout to be hear d above it. "The emotions were just always running through there ." Caro l received some affection and attention from her parents when she was young . She remembers her mother reading to her and her father being affectionate . But after her two brothers were born, Carol mostly remembers her mother bein g temperamental and angry and her father being gone . Carol felt she had a better relationship with her father than with her mother and that it is "easier" t o talk about him. She describes her father as distant, working long hours, an d generally drinking and withdrawn when he was home . Extremely shy, he neve r showed much feeling. Carol father reportedly did not join in the battles Caro l had with her mother. Carol says of her father, "He would just sit there and liste n to my mom just yell at me and yell at me and yell at me. And wait and not d o anything and hope it would work itself out ." Then if Carol yelled back at he r mother sometimes her father would get up and swat her . "And it wouldn even 137 hurt. It was just the sight of him physically standing up from the chair that woul d scare the crap out of me ." Carol remembers that her father tried to discipline he r and her brothers by calling them insulting nicknames . Once, because Caro l often locked herself in her room when she was upset, her father reversed th e lock on her door and locked her in her room . He appears to be almost unabl e to relate to his Carol at all and when he does, to be childish and vengeful . Stil l Carol concludes of her father, "But I always felt that, uh, (2 sec. pause) you know, I never felt that he didn like me at all ." She says later , And my dad was always never part of it anyway ; he was always kinda out there on the periphery like a safe harbor . Urn, it wasn like he be rea l supportive of you. If, if he had a choice between my mom and you, you , usually Morn won. Urn (2 sec . pause) so you just never really went to him, you never tried to pit the folks against each other . But he, he was alway s there for you, kind of, and he there now . Carol didn feel as threatened by her father as by her mother so he seem s like a relatively "safe harbor" to her . She feels like he there for her, "kind of, " but, again, only in comparison to her mother . Carol father parenting wa s almost nonexistent. Although he clearly disliked emotional displays an d physical contact, unlike the Avoidant style parent, he was not directive an d intrusive with high expectations for his children . He seems generall y disengaged, passive, and occasionally hostile . Carol relationship with her mother, on the other hand, was highl y involved and emotional, marked by fighting, blaming, and physical attacks . Carol remembers her mother breaking a brush over her nose when she wa s four or five years old because she wouldn sit still to have her hair brushed . I n general, Carol says, "I never could do anything right for her" and later, "So, i t was, you were kind of caught in a double bind . Urn (1 sec . pause) you never knew (laugh), you just could never win ." Carol felt blamed for everything that 138 went wrong for her mother. She remembers some good times, but felt it "alway s seems, urn (2 sec. pause) overshadowed by everything else ." Her mothe r seemed unpredictable to her. "You never knew what you were going to fin d when you (small laugh), when she woke up in the morning, what kind of moo d she was going to be in." Carol mother was rarely comforting . If Carol accidentally hurt herself , she recalls that her mother would be angry and act as if, "God, I have enough t o worry about and now you went and did this ." When Carol was sick, her mothe r would put her in her room with some books, close the door and ignore her , unless she threw up, in which case her mother would be annoyed . Caro l remembers only one incident in which her parents tried to comfort her when sh e was upset. She was sad about a favorite television show ending , And I was just so surprised ause it, they never acted like this before . An d I was also embarrassed because I didn want to tell them that, well, I jus t disappointed about this show ause I figured they belittle me o r something, so I just made up some story just so they could feel like they were helping me out . (laugh)." She concluded, "And it was just such a stupid thing to be crying over ." Caro l was so unaccustomed to their comfort and used to being belittled she could no t bring herself to trust her parents. Carol parents disciplined her by yelling, hitting her, and later, her mothe r would kick her on the floor. Carol says her mother frequently yelled at her tha t she hated her and wished she had never been born . Even after Carol was a n adult, her mother continued to reject her, saying, when she moved away fro m home and then to Oregon, "That not far enough ." Carol dealt with he r mother rejection by feeling responsible, "I always felt that it was my fault . That , if I hadn been there, um, (3 sec . pause) then she would have been OK...And I 139 don, I don even know why I felt that ." Carol says her parents never told he r they loved her except occasionally after a really bad fight. But she says, " 1 mean, I felt like they must like me. Otherwise they probably wouldn let me sta y there.. I figure if they really, really didn want me around, they probably woul d have found a way to get rid of me." Carol mother clearly fits into one of the insecure parenting patterns . Sh e is rejecting, punitive, and has unreasonably high expectations of Carol , qualities of the Dismissing (Avoidant) type . Her emotional volatility and th e unpredictable pattern of her temper are more consistent into the Preoccupie d (Ambivalent) category. She seems preoccupied with her own state of mind an d her drinking and not at all attuned to her children needs, seeing everything a s a reflection on herself . There is a strong possibility however, that Carol s mother would fit best into Bartholomew Fearful category . Carol mothe r seems to have a negative view of herself and also of others . She cannot dea l with her own failings and wishes she had not had children . She ha s unpredictable mood swings that frighten her children . In summary, Carol wa s raised in an atmosphere of insecure relationships, which can most likely b e classified as Preoccupied or Fearful . Attitude Toward Attachment Carol does not talk directly about how she feels about her own attachmen t needs and her children, but most of the indirect evidence supports th e assumption that she values closeness with others, especially physica l closeness. Many of her references to closeness to her children concer n hugging and cuddling. Carol says that one reason she chose to breastfeed was 140 to be closer to her baby emotionally . Jessica early seeming dislike of bein g held disturbed Carol; Carol wanted her to be more cuddly . When asked t o describe times she felt close to Jessica, Carol first response is, "She s become more cuddly in the past year." The most recent time she felt close t o Jessica was the day of the interview when Carol relates that Jess "laid her hea d on my lap and just cuddled me and told me she loved me, and then hugge d me." After a big fight with Jessica, Carol says sometimes she rocks with he r daughter and holds her until they both calm down . Carol says that she misses her children when she is gone from the m travelling. She also tells how her priorities have changed since she ha d children; now her family is much more important to her than her career . Carol does not talk specifically about how she feels about responding t o her children attachment needs, but the incidents she relates give a mixe d picture of an attitude ranging from very sensitive and responsive to casua l discounting of their needs. In some cases she feels guilty about her rejection o f Jessica and in other cases she does not see her behavior as rejecting . Carol is sad about her parent cruelty toward her, but she never eve n talks about her sadness about their lack of nurturing toward her . It is as if sh e can conceive of not having been abused, but can not go so far as to imagin e actually having been loved . Although Carol has mixed feelings about attachment, her consciou s attitude is positive. She volunteered for this study knowing what it concerne d and she conveyed her belief that this was an important area to study . Caro l wants to care for her children well and wants to be cared for herself, althoug h she does not seem sure that she deserves that care . 141 Coherency of Mind Structure of S peech Carol style of discourse differs when she talks about her mother fro m when she talks about her father . Carol chooses twice in the interview to discus s her father first because "it would probably be easier to start with my dad ." Whe n she first talks about him, the account is organized, telling about the relationshi p in a chronological sequence, generalizing about her father personality, an d ending with a summary of their relationship . Her initial account of he r relationship with her mother begins, "Urn, with my mom, oh, she always had a real hair-trigger temper and I remember her breaking a brush over my nose, um , and breaking my nose when I was about four or five ..." Immediately, Carol launches into a series of painful incidents with very little organization . It i s almost like a dam breaking; the incidents just come pouring out, intersperse d with generalizing phrases like, "You just felt like you could never do anythin g right." There is a sense of pressure, as if when Carol thinks about her mother , she can barely control the memories and the pain they bring up . Carol sentence structure becomes convoluted under the pressure of th e memories. For example, she says of her mother , When she gave me, urn, (4 sec. pause) you know, if she went to the store, I better, there were things that without her even telling me, I should b e omniscient enough to know, urn, like I should check the dishwasher an d be sure all the dishes were put away . Carol sometimes uses the pronoun "you" to refer to herself when talkin g about her mother, as for instance, "Uh, so you felt .like you were walking on eggshells because you never knew what, anything could happen at any tim e and it would be your fault." Her use of "you" alternates with using the first 142 person pronoun; she uses "you" much more in the first half of the interview tha n in the second half . Carol also sometimes laughs at painful memories , especially when talking about her mother irrationality . Carol never laughs i n this way when discussing her father . When Carol gives five adjectives that describe each of her parents, sh e pauses to think between each adjective. With her father, she pauses a total o f 24 seconds with about equal pauses between each word . In describing he r mother, Carol pauses a total of 46 seconds. She pauses for 15 seconds afte r labeling her mother "caring." The longer pauses may suggest that Carol need s more time to access and organize her memories of her mother . Content Coherency Carol can think of both specific and general memories about both of he r parents. Her specific memories are consistent with her generalizations . In th e parenting interview, she also supports her generalizations about Jessica wit h appropriate specific incidents. On several occasions in the interview, however , Carol seems to distort the meaning of what she has said . For instance, Caro l relates that when she moved into her own apartment, her mother said "That s not far enough." She continues , Then I moved to Flagstaff a few years later and she told my brothers, hat not far enough .And then I moved to Oregon and she told m y brother, thought her moving to Oregon would be far enough away, but i t will never be far enough away . When asked by the interviewer what her mother meant by that, Caro l replies, Um. I think, I think she feels it her responsibility to worry about people, t o worry, that she responsible for worrying about the whole family, and tha t somehow she thought, you know, if I moved to Oregon and kind of started 143 up my own life, she wouldn have that responsibility any more . And I thin k she realized that it didn really change . I was still her daughter and sh e still had to worry about me. The statement, "That not far enough," is clearly a rejection, and it i s repeated three different times. But Carol interprets it in a positive way, as a confirmation of the connection between her and her mother . She conclude s that her mother worries about her and feels responsible for her, things that a caring mother would feel, not a rejecting one . Carol cannot face that her mothe r is rejecting her so directly and must distort the meaning of her comment . In a similar way, Carol distorts her father actions later in the interview . Carol says that when the neighbors complained about her family fights , My dad would usually calm people down by belittling them . He, he s funny, and so he come up with little nicknames for them . Like my brothe r was a chronic bed wetter and he call him Chief Wetpants ...Ur, for me i t was Fats. She continues by talking about how distraught she felt when he ridicule d her supposed plumpness. At the same time that she calls her father funny an d says he calmed the children down, she says he belittled them . In her desire t o see her father as in a positive light, she distorts his cruelty into humor . Idealization Carol does not idealize her parents in these interviews, nor does sh e represent them as entirely bad . She uses both negative and positive adjective s to describe each one of them . She is especially forgiving toward her father , however, accepting his passivity and insensitivity with surprisingly little anger . She seems to feel guilty about being disappointed with him, saying (and onl y when specifically asked how she would have liked him to be different) , I would have liked my dad to be more participative, I guess. Um, (2 sec . 144 pause) I mean, you can ask for anybody to do any more than to spen d practically all their waking moments trying to provide for the family. But , urn, (2 sec. pause) I would rather have had him more, more there, participating more, and more open with his feelings . She pauses twice, as if reluctant to express her disappointment, and feels tha t she didn really have a right to ask more of him . Although Carol is very angry with her mother and hurt by her, she ha s some understanding of her. She speaks with some compassion about he r mother difficult childhood as an immigrant with an alcoholic father . She als o is sympathetic to how difficult her own birth must have been to her mother sinc e her mother had cancer at the time. Carol shows some confusion about relating to her mother now becaus e her mother seems so different than in Carol childhood . She says of her tha t it "almost like she a different person or it a totally different relationship . It s like wee just different individuals in this relationship now ." Carol treats he r mother in a friendly way now despite all of her unresolved hurt . Openness and Flexibilit y In the interviews, Carol shows openness on some points and is les s flexible on others. In the course of the interview, Carol several times seemed t o understand something differently than she had before or have a new insight . For example, at one point she realized that Jessica was like her in a way sh e had not thought of before. "She gets, um, sometimes if she gets physically hurt , shel get violently angry, I guess a lot like me . Actually I never thought abou t that." Another time, Carol first says that Jessica didn miss her when she wa s out of town. She then remembers that her husband did say that Jess seeme d sad last time Carol travelled . 145 Carol originally seems open to Jessica changing . Before her birth Caro l says she didn have any strong ideas about what Jessica would be like, onl y that she would be active judging from her activity in utero . Asked whether sh e could picture Jessica as a toddler when she was an infant, Carol says , it was hard to picture what she was going to be like. And then as she got a little bit older, I kind of saw her as being somebody who probably b e pretty self-sufficient. Urn (2 sec . pause) you know, maybe she actuall y turned out more cuddly that I expected now, but that wasn actually unti l her brother came along. And so she must have sensed some kind o f competition. Carol sounds like she is still open to Jessica changing, realizing in th e moment that she has become more cuddly. But Carol picture of Jessica as a teenager and an adult sounds fairly firm . She imagines Jessica in the future a s being exactly as she sees her now, strong-willed, fighting with Carol, and to o busy to call very often. The sureness of Carol description seems to leave littl e room for Jessica to change. Attachment Behavio r A child attachment behavior is behavior designed to elicit protection an d comfort from the child caretaker . In the childhood interview, Carol describe s very little attachment behavior spontaneously. Most of her stories are abou t what her mother did, rather than how she responded . She only mention s various attachment behaviors when she is specifically asked about them . Fo r instance, when asked what she did when she was upset, Carol said she jus t didn talk, just withdrew and maybe sulked . Then, when she was asked if sh e ever cried, Carol replied that she cried a lot as a child . But she hadn t mentioned that in her previous answer . Carol implies that she inhibited he r attachment behavior as a child . 146 Urn (3 sec. pause) I would say typically (3 sec. pause) I would just not talk. (2 sec. pause). I learned early that if !, until 1 got to be a teenager I started yelling back at her . Urn, but if she got upset the easiest thing to d o is to clamp down and be quiet. It just, you know, it was OK to sulk maybe , but urn, (1 sec. pause) not to get loud at all. So if I were upset, I woul d usually just get withdrawn and get, urn, surly probably . (italics added) The italicized phrase above is never completed . Carol doesn say what i t was that she "learned early" not to do and why or what she "clamped down ." One can assume that her early attachment behaviors were punished in som e way. When asked about crying, Carol replies that she cried quite a bit in hiding , again, making sure her parents didn see evidence of her distress . When he r parents actually see her crying about a TV show and are solicitous, Carol i s embarrassed to tell them the truth and makes up a story for them. Some of Carol attachment behaviors as a child are : 1. Crying in hiding 2. Withdrawing, sulking. 3. Lying about her distress. 4. Fighting back when she was a teenager. It is clear that none of these behaviors would have been successful i n eliciting comfort. And indeed, Carol describes receiving very little comfort as a child. Attachment Figure Behavio r Carol several times says that her mother worries a lot and i s "overprotective." For example, when asked how her mother responded if Caro l fell down or got hurt, Carol replied , Urn, I think my mom was always kind of overprotective of me. Urn, (2 sec . pause) so, you know, she take all the necessary steps, but you could tell 1 4 she was really put out that, you know, it was like, I told you not to do that, I told you you get hurt ...l always felt like it was my fault. (laugh) Yeah, an d it always felt like, um, like, you know, God, I have enough to do, to worry about and now you went and did this . It all your fault . You did this just t o get to me. In this case, performing the actions that would prevent injury was not enough to make Carol feel secure and protected . While being rescued fro m injury she was also attacked by her caretaker. Although she felt grateful an d cared for by being rescued, she also felt guilty and angry, a high price to pay fo r care. Carol mother "overprotection" can be seen as a response, not to he r child needs, but to her own anxiety . When Carol is hurt, her mother is angr y about having her own anxiety heightened . 1. Mother is affectionate early. Example : Read books with Carol. 2. Mother takes steps to help Carol when she hurts herself . 3. Mother takes care of Carol in emergency 4. Mother is annoyed when Carol hurts hersel f 5. Mother ignores Carol when she is sick . 6. Mother gets upset when Carol is upset . 7. Parents ignore Carol crying . 8. Parents try to comfort her when she cries about TV show. 9. Mother is affectionate now. Example : Styles her hair, hugs, says nice things (I love you), writes nice letters . 10. Father is affectionate early. No examples . 11. Father belittles her when she is upset . 12. Father locks her in her room when she is upset . 13. Father withdraws when Carol is upset . Carol parentscaretaking behaviors range from helpful to withdrawn t o malicious. They are inconsistent and generally unsupportive . 148 Carol Parental Caretaking Behavior s Carol caretaking behavior is inconsistent, sometimes warm an d responsive and other times withdrawn and even cruel . It is possible that Caro l is more responsive with Gabrielle and Dave than with Jessica since she feel s the least close to Jessica . The interviews don contain enough informatio n about her behavior with her other two children to make an informed evaluatio n about that. Carol seems on the whole more positively responsive than he r parents, but still rejecting, particularly to Jessica when her daughter acts angr y or needy. Nuturing behavior : 1. Breastfeeds Jessica. (for 6 weeks) 2. Spends time alone with each child . 3. Cuddles in bed, reads to children . 4. Rocks in chair with Jessica, comforts her after they fight. 5. Listens to and sympathizes with Jess when sister bosses her . 6. Protects Jesssica from scary loud noises. 7. Monitors children closely in dangerous play situations . 8. Cuddles Jessica and carries her home after a bad fall . 9. Keeps baby out of dangerous situations . Less nurturing behavior : 1. Ignores Gabrielle often when she cries . 2. Ignores Jessica when she cries in bed at night . 3. Yells at Jessica when child is upset . 4. Speaks vengefully to Jessica when child is upset 149 5. Ignores, withdraws from Jessica when child is upset 6. Refuses to help Jessica when she requests help with dressing . 7. Calls for help when Jessica is injured as a baby . 8. Gets hysterical when Jessica is injured as a baby . Emotional Processin g An infant experiences relationships with others mainly through the bod y and emotions. Emotional responses to tender care or lack of it are encoded at a very primal level in the body and psyche (Pipp Harmon, 1987) . As peopl e develop they create cognitive structures and gain some control over emotiona l expression. However, it is likely that the physiological and emotiona l components of internal representational models of relationships are the leas t available to the conscious mind and the most resistant to change . Throug h observation of people emotional reactions within the interviews and carefu l examination of the emotional content, we can understand their internal model s more deeply. Carol characterizes her childhood home as emotionally turbulent . The T V was always blaring and everyone had to shout to be heard above it . "Th e emotions are always just running through there ." Only her father did not join i n the general uproar. She says, "he would just sit there and listen to my mom jus t yell at me and yell at me and yell at me . And wait and not do anything and hop e it would work itself out." Carol says her mother was emotionally unstable an d temperamental while her father was shy and emotionally withdrawn . Thes e were the two main models of emotional functioning Carol saw as a child . Ho w did Carol react emotionally to her family? She says that when she was upset as 150 a child, she just clamped down and withdrew . When she became a teenager , she often locked herself in her room and listened to music loudly to drown ou t the shouting, read books, or climbed the mountain they lived on . She attempte d to redirect her attention away from emotional stimuli . Carol says (in response t o a specific question) that she cried a lot as a child, "Yeah. 1 think I was probably a real crybaby." She says she cried alone in her room or hiding in the bac k yard. "I used to hide and cry ." Carol remembers feeling rejected by her parents and afraid of them . Sh e remembers crying, but never in the interview uses the word "sad" to describ e herself or anyone else. When she talks about her crying she calls herself a crybaby, implying that her crying was unwarranted. Asked whether or not he r parents knew she was crying she replied , I don think so . I don think, I don feel like they were really aware of it . 1 don know whether they chose not to be aware of it . There are times no w when my oldest, who a real crybaby, will cry and (1 sec . pause) and I don do anything about it because I almost feel like youe almos t encouraging her to cry more if every time she cries over some little boo - boo or something or some imagined slight, if you keep going up there an d comforting her, then she just going to keep magnifying all those . So I don know if they chose to uh, ignore some of that, or if I was really a s good at hiding it as I thought I was. The same way that Carol discounts her own childhood crying, sh e discounts her daughter . Carol ignores her daughter sadness as her parent s ignored hers and rationalizes that ignoring distress will encourage it to go awa y and paying attention will encourage more distress . This is an example of Caro l identifying with her internal model of her childhood parent instead of the mode l of the sad child . The sad child feelings seem almost inaccessible to Carol an d so she cannot see them in her daughter . Carol idea that ignoring distress wil l make it go away is based on a childhood strategy of dealing with sadness when 15 1 there is no possibility of comfort. Sadness is seen as something bad that ma y even be imagined or exaggerated, that needs to be hidden and ignored so i t will go away. One time when Carol inadvertently cried in front of her parent s and they comforted her, Carol says , And I was just so surprised ause it, they never acted like this before . An d I was also embarrassed because I didn want to tell them that, well, I jus t disappointed about this show ause I figured they belittle me o r something, so I just made up some story just so they could feel like the y were helping me out . (laugh). And then, "And it was just such a stupid thing to be crying over ." Bein g comforted was so unfamiliar that Carol didn trust it and protected herself b y making up a story and then by, as before, discounting her feelings as bein g "stupid." In the parenting interview, Carol says that her older daughter is much lik e she was as a child. She calls her "clingy" and "overaffectionate ." Caro l acknowledges Gabrielle attachment behavior, but uses slightly demeanin g words for it . Sometimes, Carol can be sensitive and acknowledge he r children emotional vulnerability. When asked about how she responds whe n Jessica is upset or sad about something apart from her mother, Carol say s sometimes after her children fight, Jessica comes to her for comfort. And Il say, "It kind of hard when people are always telling you what t o do, isn it?" And shel say, "Yeah ." And so then wel just kind of spen d some time together doing something. Carol response in this case is a fairly sensitive, recognizing Jessie feelings and then spending time wit h her. But Carol does add, "She starting to play her sister against me," subtl y implying that Jessica may be manipulative rather than genuinely upset . I n another exchange, Carol denies that Jessica misses her when she is travelling . She then remembers that Jessica did miss her recently. Here, she shows her 152 difficulty acknowledging her child sadness by maintaining the generality tha t Jess does not miss her and acknowledging her sadness as a specific event tha t may not affect her general belief, depending on her emotional openness to he r own sadness. Carol is not entirely insensitive to her children distress . She is open t o perceiving Jessica fears of loud noises and deals with her sensitively, warnin g her if there will be a loud noise, and holding and reassuring her if it i s unavoidable. Carol also briefly mentions her own fear of domed spaces . Fear s do not appear to arouse mixed feelings in Carol . Carol finds anger extremely problematic in herself, in her mother, and i n her child. The models of handling anger that Carol saw in her parents wer e both dysfunctional. Her father ignored anger all around him and the n occasionally struck out unpredictably before withdrawing again . Carol mothe r controlled her anger barely, if at all. As a child, Carol was frightened of he r mother anger and inhibited her own responses to it . As a teenager, sh e began to express anger toward her mother more openly . Although Carol say s she began to fight back against her mother, she also says that if she ever yelle d back, her father would swat her. She also says , Urn, when she got me down on the floor and started kickinme, I jus t kicked her back one time. Urn . (2 sec . pause.) We just became very goo d at yelling at each other. And there were periods where, once I moved ou t of the house. I just wouldn talk to her for months at a time . Urn, because it was just too frustrating when I did. Carol yelled at her mother, but only kicked her back once and apparently trie d to inhibit her anger by not talking to her mother . As an adult Carol herself gets uncontrollably angry . She describes wha t happens when she gets angry at Jessica . 153 I mean, I just, I feel like my whole back and, and everything is lit up i n electric lights. I mean, I feel like Ie got electric current . And my jaw get s tight and I just, I can barely get the words out because my jaw is so tight . And its almost like a growl when I talk to her . And my hands get like thi s and I mean, I just get totally out of control. I remember looking at my mo m when she would get mad and thinking, she looks like, like, a rabid do g almost. And when I imagine what I look like, I just picture flashing teet h and almost fangs. (small laugh). This description of her anger is detailed and intense . It is also almos t totally physical rather than emotional. Carol does not even say what she feel s emotionally when she is so angry. This makes it more likely that it springs fro m very early experience. The closest she comes to understanding her anger is , Urn, I guess I feel like I wish there was something I could do to control the anger that I feel so that I wouldn feel so threatened every time one o f them said "no"....And that feeling of powerlessness and not knowing ho w to handle a situation like that and just getting so angry . Carol thinks that she feels threatened and powerless and get s uncontrollably angry when a child says "no" to her . The function of Carol s anger must be to maintain control over something or someone that is perceive d as threatening if uncontrolled. Carol gets angry not at her older daughter who i s clingy, but at her younger daughter who is assertive and stubborn . Carol s anger does not seem to stem from a belief that children should do as they ar e told. At no point does she invoke authoritarian precepts . Her anger seems t o be almost conceptless. She just cannot deal with another person who does no t listen to her and respond to her wishes . It takes only a small leap to imagin e Carol as a helpless, threatened baby with a caretaker who ignores her an d does not respond to her needs . The anger that Carol had to suppress as a n infant and small child is still present in her body . Bowlby (1988) suggests tha t violent behavior may be merely an exaggeration of evolutionarily functiona l anger. 154 Thus, in the right place at the right time, and in right degree, anger is not only appropriate, but may be indispensable. It serves to deter fro m dangerous behavior, to drive off a rival, or to coerce a partner . In eac h case the aim of the angry behaviour is the same--to protect a relationshi p which is of very special value to the angry person . (pp. 79-80.) Bowlby proceeds to describe the situation of children who have bee n rejected and/or threatened with abandonment . He continues , Small wonder, therefore, if when a woman with this background become s a mother, that there are times when, instead of being ready to mother he r child, she looks to her child to mother her . Small wonder, too, if when th e child fails to oblige and starts crying, demanding care and attention, tha t she gets impatient and angry with it. (p. 86.) When Jessica refuses to cooperate with Carol, Carol early experience s of frustration and inability to affect her caretaker instantly emerge an d overwhelm her . Carol copes with her anger in various ways . When Jessica is demandin g and Carol gets angry, she yells at Jessica or "Other times if I just extremel y upset with the situations, Il either just leave the room urn, or just tune her out ." Sometimes Carol says, Urn, I pick her up if she really, if it something where she screamin g and whining and I think she needs to get away from me for a while ...so Ill carry her up in her room and put her in her bed and close her door . An d shel stay up there until she calms down . Um, there are times when I e squeezed her like this, urn, on her arms, and then noticed like a coupl e days later if Ie done that a couple times during the day that shel actuall y have bruises and it makes me realize what I would be capable of if I actually hit her. So, Carol isolates her child, tunes her out, or handles her roughly . Th e one thing Carol rarely does is objectively listen to her and try to take her point o f view. Astonishingly for someone who grew up with an angry mother, Caro l believes that Jessica is largely unaffected by her rage . When asked ho w Jessica feels when Carol is angry, Carol answers, 1 55 Well, I think she more used to it than Gabi was ause I tried with Gab i really hard the first year. I never yelled at her . And then when she wa s about 18 months old, I remember really yelling at her for the first time an d she just backed into a corner and was just terrified and I realized the effec t it was having on her. And with Jess, she just seems to let things, mos t things bounce off of her. She just so strong-willed . She just bears dow n and it like, "I gonna do this ." Asked later what Jess does if Carol is angry at her, Carol replied, "Oh, sh e just gives it right back.... And so she just kind of flings it back at you." Carol ha s a very hard time perceiving Jessica distress when she is angry . Her genera l belief is that Jessica is unaffected. Pressed by the interviewer asking for a specific instance of how Jess responds, Carol told this story . Uh, she started crying and said, "I can get my shoes on ." Sometime s shel get (1 sec . pause) which just breaks your, my heart, sometimes she l get so upset and shel, it like she wants to run to somebody to comfort it , but I the one that, that she would normally run to for comfort, and I m the one that being the shit to her . And shel just kind of stand there an d bounce around like she waiting for somebody and then shel go , "Mommy, I need you." And shel run up to me and hug me and that s when I kind of realize that I need to be there for her instead of being th e one that attacking her . Carol can only see her daughter pain when Jessica directly asks fo r comfort. But even after telling this poignant story, later in the interview, Caro l again asserts her belief that Jessica is unaffected by her anger . She seems t o need to maintain this belief despite evidence to the contrary . As wit h acknowledgment of Jessica sadness, Carol continues to maintain her genera l belief even when it is contrary to certain specific experiences . Carol seems to need to continue to redirect her anger at her mothe r toward her children . She claims to have a friendly relationship with her mother . Asked how she manages to do that, she says that she had read a book calle d Women and Self Esteem and did some exercises in it. She tried to see thing s from her mother point of view and felt a lot of empathy and understanding for 156 her. She says, And I think just reading that book and doing some of those exercise s helped me understand so much about her, that before, I just thought, God, what is with this woman? It helped me understand so much, that, um, ( 2 sec pause) I think a lot of the anger that I was feeling kind of went away. And (1 sec. pause) I guess the hardest thing now is to concentrate on my relationship with my own kids because when all you hear is the yelling an d the "Youe stupid" and the, you know, all that, those tapes tha t automatically come pouring out of you when your kid does something . Carol gained an understanding of her mother through empathy, bu t immediately follows that story by talking about her anger at her children . Th e two angers are related in her mind . However, an empathetic understanding o f her children would necessitate acknowledging her own deep childhood pai n and possibly reactivating her anger toward her mother . Carol says she ha s considered attending an anger management class, but said the activities ther e sounded ridiculous and she could never trust a group of people, so she remain s unable to process her anger . Carol insists that her two daughters are as different as night and day . Sh e says that her older daughter, Gabrielle, is just like her and is clingy and needy . She says that her younger daughter, Jessica is completely different than her , independent, a risk taker, and not needing "strokes" very much . Carol s parents, however, say that Jessica reminds them very much of Carol when sh e was young. Why does Carol identify with one child and feel very different fro m the other? While the two children certainly have different personalities, we hav e seen that Carol almost systematically ignores much of Jessica neediness . When Jessica asks to stay home from day care, Carol says she just learned i t from her sister. When Jessica cries at night in bed, Carol discounts it, sayin g again that she just picked it up from her sister. We don know if in a lik e manner, she also ignores Gabrielle anger and independent qualities . In 1 5 herself, Carol identifies with her own neediness expressed as fear an d dependency and refuses to identify with her anger and assertiveness . Sh e needs to keep the two kinds of feelings separate inside of herself . If she sa w both her children as having both kinds of feelings, she would have to reconcil e her own sadness with her anger, a task she is not ready to do . Process Carol laughs many times in the interview, generally when she talks abou t her mother hurting her and being unpredictable . She also pauses frequentl y when talking about emotionally laden topics . After Carol chooses adjectives t o describe Jessica, she laughs loudly and for a prolonged time . This outburst is a way to release her nervousness about her feelings about Jessica . When sh e lists the adjectives about Jessica, Carol pauses only about three seconds eac h before saying "energetic", "strong-willed" and "feisty ." She pauses much longer , nine to thirteen seconds, before saying "funny" and "nurturing ." These last tw o adjectives are more emotionally difficult for her to process. It is worth noting tha t she also labeled her mother as "funny" and "caring ." Carol also laughs heartil y when she talks about her own parenting, saying , In that way, I feel like Ie made a li- (1 sec . pause) a minuscule amount of progress from my mother (loud laugh). It not much, but (lot of laughing) , you know, who knows, by the time she grows up and has kids, maybe it l be a little bit better too . (still laughing). This laughter, clearly not at a joke, conveys Carol anxiety . Asked, "How has it been to do this interview? How have you felt durin g the interview?" Carol answers , (4 sec. pause) Oh, like I about to cry . (loud laugh) Urn . (Quavery voice) . It been hard . I mean, Ie spent a lot of time thinking about all thes e things for years anyway. Urn, it hard talking about it to somebody who 155 a total stranger. But I don think I talk about it to someone I knew rea l well either. Probably my husband the only one I would talk to about it . Urn. (3 sec . pause) So I think it just hard . Carol goes on to say she relives all of her memories constantly anyway . "So it not like I dredging up a lot of memories that I don--l feel like I live i n the past a lot. And I deal with it all the time. Urn. (2 sec. pause) But I guess it s still hard." She continues, "Yeah, you feel like youe dealt with this and tha t youe thought about it so much that, urn, youe kind of exhausted it, but it stil l stays there." Carol, despite her desire to process her feelings, ignore them, an d get beyond them, is still emotionally affected by her past and it keeps her fro m dealing effectively with the present. She is afraid that her children will onl y remember her anger when they are adults and will forget her loving care . Sh e feels guilty about her inadequacies . As she says sadly of being a mother, "It s hard work. I mean, there are so many times where I sit there and wish (2 sec . pause) and, and wish I had Mom there taking care of me . Secure Base and Separation s To act as a secure base for her child, a mother must be willing to b e available to her child for nurturance when needed . She must also be willing t o be quietly available, but uninterfering, so the child can explore with confidence . If the child has confidence in the mother (or caretaker), the child can endur e temporary separations from the mother, secure in the knowledge that she wil l return. If the child has doubts about the mother availability, the child will adap t a coping strategy based on fear of external danger and anxiety about th e mother as a protector. The child may, for instance, become fearful of explorin g or may explore without regard to safety and become accident prone in a n attempt to obtain care. The child may also possibly become excessively self- 159 reliant. Carol characterizes Jessica of being very comfortable with separatio n from her. Most of the evidence Carol provides supports this view . Carol does , however, tend to see Jessica as "self-sufficient" and to discount evidence tha t she is not. Carol reports that when she was gone for a week this spring (wit h Gabrielle), Jessica did fine because she got more time with her father . Whe n she returned, however, Jessica day-care providers told her how much th e children missed her. Carol discounts this information because Ron said h e didn see any evidence of that at home . Then a moment later Carol remember s that Ron did mention that it, it, she really did seem to miss me, that she seemed kind of (1 sec. pause) you know, sad that I wasn there, that he thought it wa s really hard. And he, he really in tune with the kids, so when I com e home, hel tell me which one he thinks I need to focus more attention o n that maybe theye having a harder time with me being gone this wee k than the other ones . So Il try to make sure that I spend a little more tim e with them. He did say that she missed me . Here, Carol first denies the Jessica missed her, then remembers that sh e did. This is the identical reaction to Anne in the previous case . Carol does no t want Jessica to miss her and so maintains that she doesn . She doe s acknowledge the specific instance of Jessica missing her this time, but as w e shall see, she still maintains that Jessica is basically self-sufficient . Carol says, in an answer to a question, that Jessica is not upset abou t going to day care and then adds , No. Um, she picked up from her sister . Her sister will say, "Oh, I don t want to go to day care today . I want to spend the whole day with you ." And I think she picks up a lot of those things just thinking it what you e supposed to say . She goes on to talk about how well Jessica does at day care and the n says, 160 Doesn seem to have any problems leaving me . Does-, isn clingy . 1 mean she just goes in and just gets right into the playing and, and Il jus t say, "I leaving, Jess." "OK, bye bye ." and shel maybe give me a kiss , but really doesn seem to matter to her whether she gives me a kiss or not . Although there is evidence that Jessica enjoys day care and is secur e being away from her mother, she may still wish she could stay hom e sometimes. These feelings need not be exclusive . In discounting Jessica s feelings about staying home sometimes, Carol can maintain her notion tha t Jessica doesn really need her much . When Carol returned from her trip this summer, she said Jessica was "just really happy. Urn, you know, lots of hugs and kisses and just kind of, kind o f clingy." This kind of reunion behavior is characteristic of a secure relationship . It sounds neither avoidant nor resistant and angry . Carol did not discuss ho w Jessica behaves on being picked up from day care . Although she says Jessica doesn really miss her, Carol reports that sh e misses the children a lot when she travels. She says, "It always really hard fo r me whenever I leave the kids ....Emotionally 1 really miss the kids. It like I fee l like every day I, that I away from them, I missing a really important part o f something." Carol sees herself as being very protective of Jessica and worrying abou t keeping her safe. She says she plays this role more than her husband . Caro l tells of two incidents in which Jessica engaged in unsafe behavior . In one sh e fell from a jungle gym and in another, she jumped into a swimming pool hersel f after being told to wait for her parents to help her . In both cases, Carol rescue d her immediately. It is difficult to tell just from those two incidents whether or no t Jessica has a pattern of dangerous behavior that would indicate an insecur e secure base relationship with her mother . Often the teen years parallel the 16 1 toddler secure base period . In her projection of what Jessica will be like as a teen, Carol says, Oh, she gonna be a real handful (giggle) . ause she gonna want t o go out and just do it. And urn, I gonna be over there going, "Oh, you e gonna get hurt." And (giggle) "No, I told you you can do that ." And I thin k the battles that wee seeing right now are probably only, only a hint o f what theye going to be like when she gets to be a teenager . Carol sees herself her much like she described her own mother , "overprotective," worrying over, and fighting with a teenage daughter . It sounds like Carol would like Jessica to be more needy, but at the same time, exclude s evidence that she is . Optimal secure base behavior is grounded in cooperatio n between parent and child, with both being able to negotiate needs fo r closeness and distance. When Jessica is difficult, instead of being able t o negotiate mutually acceptable solutions to problems with her, Carol often get s angry and perhaps overprotective in an effort to control Jessica behavior . Jessica then takes one (or more) of a variety of paths including defensive anger , direct bids for comfort, and possibly a pattern of reckless behavior . Until Caro l can deal more clearly with her own issues about being rejected by her mothe r and about dependence and independence, she won be able to see clearl y when Jessica needs her and when she doesn . Sensitivity and Insigh t Sensitivity refers to how appropriately responsive the mother is to he r baby needs . Insight refers to how much the mother cognitively understand s the baby needs and behavior . Sensitivity and insight are often related to eac h other, but it is possible for a mother to be responsive to her baby without havin g insight into why she is responding as she is . A person can also be insightful, 162 but not be able to respond . Sensitivity and insight are limited by a person s need to distort signals from others in order not to feel certain feelings and thin k certain thoughts. A sensitive, insightful caretaker sees situations from the baby point o f view and wants to give the baby what it needs . Carol wants to be a sensitiv e caretaker and often is. When Jessica was a baby, Carol chose to breastfee d her because she thought it was best for both of them . She stopped becaus e she says Jessica preferred having a bottle. Whether or not Carol was righ t about what Jessica needed, she framed her decision in terms of what Jessic a appeared to want . Similarly, Carol was disturbed when Jessica seemed not t o enjoy being held very much. Carol tried to be sensitive to Jessica needs t o control the amount of closeness or cuddling, even though Carol wanted more . Although I am skeptical that a baby wouldn want to cuddle, Carol supports he r observation with several examples of how Jessica showed she didn want t o cuddle. She says that "It was like, she would cuddle, but it was strictly on he r own terms." Carol tried to accommodate her child . Carol notes that Jessic a seems to want to cuddle more now, perhaps feeling some competition with he r baby brother. Carol show some insight here . In another instance of sensitivity to Jessie, Carol discusses the enjoyabl e things they do together and mentions Jessie feelings and needs as often a s her own. Examples include, "She doesn even care where . It just some plac e where she gets to be alone, uh, with me" and "I took her to see and Befor e Timeand she liked being able to just go with me and having popcorn and a Coke." Carol is also sensitive and responsive to Jessie fear of loud noise s and volunteers her insight into why Jessie developed this fear . Carol tries to b e sensitive when she drops Jess off at day care. Carol says that she likes to kiss 163 Jessie when she leaves her, but if Jess is occupied, in order not to upset her , Carol will just say goodbye and leave . Carol shows some insight into hersel f when she briefly discusses having unreasonably high expectations of her olde r daughter. Another time she seems accurately insightful is in evaluating he r feelings about her children fighting . It bothers, it bothers me when they fight. Um, and I guess this is a lot lik e my mom. Urn, always feeling like it a reflection like I need to have happ y kids. And if my kids aren constantly happy, there something wrong wit h me....And now that I starting to realize that just their nature it doesn t bother me as much. Uh, but if I tired and theye right underfoot an d theye doing it, then I get irritated . It is this kind of insight that helps Carol respond appropriately to her childre n rather than to the pressures of her past. In some instances Carol shows a total lack of sensitivity and in others, a mixture of sensitive and insensitive behavior . Carol feels she behaved cruell y in an incident in which Jessica dallied and was late and missed something . Carol says she purposely spoke to her daughter hurtfully . "And so it was almost like I was kind of rubbed it in." When Carol gets angry at Jessica, she can onl y see her own feelings and not Jessica . As has been discussed elsewhere in this analysis, Carol often overlook s Jessie needy feelings . She claims Jess cries occasionally in bed at nigh t because she learned it from her sister. She says that Jess only asks to sta y home from day care because she learned it from her sister . Carol als o compares how Gabrielle as a baby reacted with terror to Carol yelling wit h Jessica reaction of anger and tantrums . She concludes that her yelling upse t Gabi, but that "with Jess, she just seems to let things, most things bounce off of her....It just makes her get angry too." Carol inaccurately does not see that 164 Jess angry reaction is evidence of distress . Carol does not want to have tw o vulnerable daughters. When Jess doesn behave as Carol expects, Carol jus t decides her daughter feelings are not real and meaningful . Carol cannot b e sensitive to Jessie distress in this case . Sometimes Carol shows mixed sensitivity and lack of it . Carol relates a n incident in which Jess stayed up very late and played in her room when he r parents thought she was asleep . Carol tells the incident in a humorous wa y and makes it clear that she was more amused than upset about the incident . She explains, from Jessica point of view, "She just wasn ready for bed . When the interviewer asks specifically how she thought Jessica felt, however , Carol frames it as a power struggle. "I think she felt pretty good because she d still been able to buy all that time....) think she felt like she really had won out of the situation ." This power struggle explanation contradicts Carol origina l statement that Jessica just wasn tired . Here, her insight is marred by her ow n need for Jessica to go to sleep at a certain hour . Carol anger at Jessica two-year-old-swings between independenc e and neediness may be based on some mistaken insights . Carol first show s some insight into Jessica, saying, "she torn between wanting to do it all hersel f or saying can do it at all . This is probably true . Carol continues If it s something she doesn want to do, then she says, can do it at all,If it s something she wants to do, l do it . And then she just flies into a rage ." Whe n the interviewer asks, "How do you think she feels at those times?" Caro l answers, Well, I think it a power play because I know she can do it . It just, she s just saying she can because she doesn want to and she know it buy s her more time. Urn, so i think she just feels like it one more way to get , maybe, I don know, maybe just to get more direct attention from me when 165 I running around the house trying to do 50 million things that, that slow s me down and gets me to focus on her more . Carol goes on to say that she is so harried with the baby and Gabi that, " I need everybody to be as self-sufficient as possible, and it, and it really frustrate s me when she not ." Carol says that sometimes she does help Jess when sh e wants help with something she could do herself, but she does it grudgingly an d "with a growl." Carol shows mixed reactions here . She sees with some insight tha t Jessica may want more attention from her harried mother . But she ignore s Jessica frustration and continues to represent Jessica actions as bein g willful and a power play. Carol need for Jess to be self-sufficient is i n contradiction with Jessica need for focussed attention, so Carol just discount s Jessie need as willfulness in order not to have to attend to it . It is clear her e that Carol is insensitive to Jessica needs when she has a strong, contradictor y need herself. The final evidence of Carol struggle between sensitivity to her children s needs and dealing with her own emotions is the situation already discussed i n which Carol yells at Jessica and Jessica is caught between her need for comfor t and her fear of her mother. When Jessica attachment needs win out and sh e asks her mother for protection, Carol suddenly sees her as if waking from a dream and holds her. Before that, Carol sensitivity is inactivated by he r overwhelming inner need to control her daughter . In summary, Carol is frequently insightful and sensitive with her children . But when her needs contradict her children needs, she is likely to see onl y herself and to distort her children needs, compromising her ability to respon d appropriately to them . 166 Self and Others Childhoo d Carol attachment figures as a child were her mother and father . Sh e had no relatives or older siblings or extrafamilial relationships that fulfilled tha t function for her. Carol says that both her parents were affectionate before he r brothers were born, but she mentions only one incident for her mother and non e for her father when this was so . She never mentions being held or touched i n her childhood except when her mother rushed her to a hospital when she hur t herself. In general, Carol says she felt like her parents valued her brother s more than her and like there must be something very wrong with her to mak e them not want her. With father: Carol father her preferred parent because he is less cruel than he r mother. She doesn feel as if he doesn like her . He is belittling, withdrawn , "not part of it." Carol has no memories of him being supportive to her, but feel s he is "there, kind of." Carol has no expectations of care or interaction from he r father. Her internal model of him and her self with him appears to have been : Other: My father is neither available not responsive, but he is safe and will not hurt me. Self : I am not lovable. I do not deserve attention . I am allowed to exist. I have no power to change my father. 167 With mother: Carol sees her mother as angry, unstable, unpredictable, and ver y infrequently, caring. She also sees her as overprotective and worrying abou t her. This latter view is the one that her mother wants her to have, and that Caro l has partially adopted both as a child and now . It competes with Carol s experiential view of her mother as hostile and frightening . Carol felt that ther e was something wrong with her and that if she were not there, her mother woul d have been fine. If Carol protested about her abuse, her mother became mor e angry. If she did not protest, the abuse continued unpredictably . Her two competing models of her mother were : Other 1: My mother hurts me. My mother is unavailable, unresponsive . and out of my control . Other 2: My mother loves me. worries about me, and is protective of me. Self : I am unlovable and bad. I am to blame for my own unhappiness and , my mother unhappiness . In general: Carol resulting models of herself and others were : Others: Other people are unavailable and unresponsive with me . Othe r people are not sources of comfort or help . Self: I do not deserve comfort, help . or love. I am to blame for bein q unloved. There is nothing I can do to obtain care . As an Adult with Childre n Carol has mixed models of children and herself, depending upon whethe r she is seeing them from a caretaker position in which she is the attachment 168 figure for them, or from the position in which they are attachment figures for her . When she sees herself as their caretaker, she has insight into their needs an d responds to them. She spends time cuddling, reading, and talking with Jess . She protects her children from danger. When she has needs that are not filled , she sees her children as attachment figures for herself. Then she sees them a s powerful, threatening, angry, and self-sufficient . Carol is especially confuse d with Jessica; she insists that Jessica is self-sufficient. She wants Jessica to b e more self-sufficient. She also says she doesn feel close to Jessica becaus e Jessica is so self-sufficient. Her internal models of her children when she is i n the caretaking role seems to be : Others: Children need and deserve of love, care . and protection. Jessic a needs some love, etc.. but less than other children, When she is concerned about her own needs, her model seems to be : Others: Children (Jessica especially) can hurt me. She doesn need me . She is unresponsive to my needs and I am powerless to affect her . Because Carol shifts in her relationship to her children, she become s unpredictable to them and to herself. Her model of her self with them is : Self: I am competent, available, and responsive . I am also unpredictabl e and angry. I have little control over my behavior and theirs , As an Adult with Friends and Husband : Carol had a series of relationships with alcoholics and other addicts . Sh e eventually left her alcoholic/gambler boyfriend because she got "angry" and go t "fed up with being just this little crumb ." She has difficulty trusting people, citin g dishonest people at work and friends who didn support her going back to 169 school. When she meets people she likes and respects, she assumes the y could not possibly want to be friends with her . She says she could not do a therapy group because she could never trust people in it not to tell he r confidences to others. Carol is able to talk about her past with her husband an d trusts him, but sometimes gets afraid he will leave her. She says, "1 think Im really afraid of being left ." Others: Other people are not sources of comfort . They will dislike me, leav e me. or betray me. My husband is an exception (so far .) Self: I am unlovable in general . but lovable to my husband . Continuity and Change in Internal Model s Sroufe and Fleeson (1986) predict that children internalize both the child s and the parent model of caretaking and act out which-ever side is appropriat e in a given relationship. If Carol had done that, she would be, as a parent , unavailable, unresponsive, withdrawn, hostile, and unpredictable . She i s unpredictable and sometimes unresponsive and hostile . Other times she i s very available and responsive . She is rarely withdrawn . She is much mor e physically affectionate to her children than her parents were to her . She ha s modified, but not entirely changed the internal parent models from he r childhood. When she truly sees herself as a caretaker, she is responsive . Fo r instance, when Jessica finally says "I need you," or asks to rock in the chair wit h her after a fight, Carol suddenly sees that she is supposed to be the protector , not the attacker, and she can respond with care . Carol is not entirel y responsive, however, denying that her children need comfort when they cr y sometimes. 1 7 Carol internal model of her self as being unlovable and unable to obtai n a response from those she needs has remained basically unchanged . Sh e sees her husband as an exception . If her children are happy, they also mak e her feel more acceptable. She is trying to accept that if her children ar e unhappy, it does not mean that she is bad . Carol fragile self esteem is tied t o approval from others whom she sees as difficult to affect. The issue of identification is a key to approval and acceptance in thi s family. Carol mother feels that if her children do not act like her and make th e choices she made, that they are criticizing her and maybe she is not all right . She rewards Carol with warmth and friendliness when Carol affirms her wit h her choices. The message is, If you are like me, then you will accept me and I must be OK." Of course, when her mother accepts her for these reasons, she is not really accepting Carol, only the parts of Carol that are like her . Similarly , Carol feels closer to and more able to love Gabrielle, the child who she thinks i s more like her. By being like Carol (if indeed she is) Gabrielle makes Carol fee l more acceptable and accepted. Carol has assigned Jessica the role of no t being like her. Because Jessica was (?) an unusual baby, Carol could projec t on her that she was self-sufficient . Carol continues to believe this despit e evidence that Jessica is not self-sufficient. What causes Carol to see Jessic a this way? Perhaps it helps assuage Carol guilt about not giving Jessic a enough attention. She gives more time to the baby and to Gabrielle . If she ca n see Jessie as not really needing her, she doesn have to feel guilty about this . Another possibility is that Carol mother insisted that Carol be relatively self - sufficient after her brothers were born and that Carol is replaying her mother s actions. Carol has few memories of this period of her childhood . In either case , Carol as a child and as an adult has undoubtedly felt both needy and angry . So 17 1 have both of her daughters . If Carol could admit to being both needy and angry , she could allow her children to be both and accept each of them as individual s rather than see them as copies or non-copies of herself . As long as acceptanc e is based on validation through identification, neither child can be herself withou t rejecting her mother . In Carol childhood, neediness and anger were kept separate . Carol wa s needy and her mother was angry . The self-other roles were well defined b y power. Her mother had power and Carol didn . Carol only power was to figh t back against her mother abuse, but fighting just increased the abuse . Compliance, however, didn stop the abuse, so Carol felt powerless . Whe n Carol gets uncontrollably angry with Jessica, Carol says she gets angr y because she feels threatened and powerless . We can see that Carol respond s to Jessica as if Jessica were her mother rejecting and abusing her . Caro l describes Jessica response to her (Carol) anger as "she just kind of shoots i t back at yaand says, ey, this is life (giggle) . You know, get used to it . Thi s recalls Carol comment that she and her mother had "dueling upsets" . In truth , Carol neediness and anger are intertwined . She would not get so angry a t being told "no" if she were not so needy of validation from her children an d everyone around her. Carol says she gets upset with Jessica because sh e cannot "motivate her, urn, (2 sec. pause) to do the things that I need to have done." The power struggles and anger emerge in Carol relationship wit h Jessica when Carol and Jess have different needs and Carol cannot get wha t she needs. In summary, Carol internal model of herself as a needy child without th e power to get her needs met is almost unchanged from her childhood . Carol s newly formed internal model of sensitive parenting only can emerge when 172 Carol is not feeling too needy. This model of the good parent is still somewha t fragile in the face of the needy child . When she is under stress, Carol reverts t o her child representation, expressing long denied anger that is very similar to he r mother anger . She then reacts to Jessica as if she is Carol ow n unresponsive mother. Carol style of parenting at some times seems secur e and balanced. However, her uncontrollable anger alternating wit h responsiveness best fits the picture of the preoccupied mother who often react s to her own inner demons rather than to her children . A case could be made fo r Carol fitting the fourth pattern of parenting, the A/C, fearful, pattern. Carol doe s not show much avoidant (A) behavior except with Jessica in her continuin g pressure on the child to be more self-sufficient . The fact that Carol is frequently sensitive to her children and is not hittin g them or completely rejecting them shows that she has somehow create d internal models of children who deserve love and care and a parent who ca n care for them. She seems to have been able to do this from 1) beginning to se e her parent abusiveness more clearly at adolescence, and 2) marrying a ma n who treats her as if she is lovable and worthy of respect . She has done littl e therapy and says she can remember what she discussed in the little she did . This short therapy experience was not enough to allow Carol to do the comple x reorganizational work on her internal representational models she would hav e to do to change the way she sees herself and others . Independent Analysi s Two independent raters analyzed the Family (Childhood) Interview . Th e main researcher did not read their analyses until the entire previous analysis 173 was completed. Their analysis largely supports the previous analysis in thi s study. Highlights of their analysis follow . All of their individual ratings ar e expressed on a scale of one to nine . When a rating is hyphenated, the trues t score lies between the two numbers . The ratings for Carol relationship with her parents correlates highly wit h the main researcher findings . They rated Carol Acceptance by her mothe r very low (2) and Rejection as high (8) . Carol mother Consistency was quit e low (1-2). They rated her mother as (7) on Role reversal tendencies . They noted that Carol rarely sought Proximity to her mother for comfort (2) and that her mother Dominated the relationship (8) . They rated Carol s Idealization of her mother as moderate (4-5) . They rated Carol Acceptance by her father as low (2) and Rejection b y him not quite as high as her mother (6) . He was given a high score fo r Neglect (7) and moderate score for Consistency (5) . They rated his Rol e reversal tendencies as quite low (2) and his Dominance as (7) . They noted tha t Carol rarely sought Proximity to her father (2-3) . They felt Carol Idealized he r father less than her mother (3) . The independent raters note slightly higher idealization than the mai n researcher did. They give Carol an overall rating of (4-5) for Coherency , somewhat lower than the main researcher would have given . Their rating wa s partially based on their count in the Family Interview of four instances o f insistence on not remembering, no "l don know" and 31 instances o f inappropriate laughter . The raters thought that Carol showed high Separation Anxiety (8) an d fairly low Self Confidence (2-3) . They gave her a rating of (5-6) for Adolescen t Rebellion, showing some lack of clarity about that . The raters saw Carol as 174 being low on Trust (2) and Expressivity (3). They gave her high ratings o n Emotional Dependence (8), Jealousy (8), and Caregiving (8) . They rated her a s moderate on Warmth (5-6). All of these rating support the previous analysis . The raters felt Carol self model was Low, showing low self confidenc e and high emotional dependency. They felt her model of others was Moderate , citing both her distrustfulness and low proximity-seeking as a child and he r actively maintaining a "close" relationship with her parents through idealizatio n and enmeshment. They noted that she maintains contact with others throug h caregiving. The main researcher also saw Carol self image as Low, but sa w Carol as seeing others as unsupportive . The independent raters give mor e weight to Carol continued compliant relationship with her parents . The independent raters assigned Carol a score (scale, 1-9) on each of th e four attachment categories (or relationship styles). They rated her a (1) on th e Dismissing style. They rated her a (3) on the Secure style, citing he r relationship with her husband, her various insights, and her attempt to chang e old patterns. They rated her a (5) on the Preoccupied style, citing her ongoin g enmeshment with her family, idealization, role reversal, and guilt . They rate d her highest (6-7) on the Fearful style, citing as evidence her distrust, he r childhood and current compliance with her parents, and her alienation fro m peers. These ratings entirely support the previous analysis which, althoug h noting Carol Secure tendencies, assigned her a category of Preoccupied o r Fearful. 175 Questionnaires Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST ) On the CAST, Carol answered "yes" to all but six of the thirty questions that screen for alcoholic parents. This confirms that without a doubt, her parent s were alcoholics . Relationship Questionnair e On the forced choice part of this questionnaire, Carol chose th e description of the Preoccupied personality style as being the most like her . People with this style would like to be close to others, but fear that others will not value them as much as they would like . The second question asks th e respondent to rate herself on each of the four styles on a seven point scal e ranging from 1 (Not at all like me) to 7 (Very much like me). Carol rated hersel f as a seven on both the description of the Preoccupied style and the and th e description of the Fearful style. She rated herself as a 4 (Somewhat like me) o n the Dismissing style and rated herself as a 2 on the Secure style . Both Carol highly rated styles, the Fearful and the Preoccupied, reflect a negative image of the self. People who relate to others with these style s generally have low self-esteem and see themselves as unworthy of love fro m others. Carol sees herself in this way . She is not sure if she wants to be clos e to others or not since she expects them to not like her . Carol self image a s reflected by this questionnaire supports the previous analysis in which sh e showed elements of both the Preoccupied and Fearful style of relating to he r children. It also parallels the analysis of the independent raters who rated he r highest in the Preoccupied and Fearful styles . 176 Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventor y This inventory has four scales, Inappropriate Expectations, Empathy , Belief in Corporal Punishment, and Role Reversal. Scores are stated as Ste n scores, ranging from 1 to 10 . Compared to other Caucasian, non-abusiv e women, Carol got a standard score of 5 on the appropriate expectations scale . This is an average score for this population, showing neither a lack o f understanding of children developmental capabilities nor a very realistic, hig h understanding. Carol showed some confusion on this scale, marking th e "uncertain" answer on questions about whether children under three should b e expected to dress, feed and bathe themselves and also about how earl y children should be expected to talk . She was also not totally sure abou t whether children under three could be expected to take care of themselves . Her answers to these questions highlight the uncertainty demonstrated in th e interviews concerning how much 2 112 year old Jessica should be expected t o do for herself. Compared to other Caucasian, non-abusive women, Carol got a standar d score of 6 in the Empathy scale . People with this score are not highly sensitiv e to their children needs, but neither do they completely ignore them . On man y of the questions on this scale, Carol endorsed the Empathic response, but no t highly (choosing agree rather than strongly agree .) Carol got a standard scor e of.7 on the scale measuring belief in corporal punishment . This reflect s attitudes toward punishment that are non-abusive and suggests that she tries t o utilize alternatives to physical punishment . The only items Carol marked low o n this scale are those that insist that children respect parental authority and an 177 item saying that children should "pay the price" for misbehaving . Carol wa s uncertain about that. Carol got a score of 8 on the role reversal scale . Thi s would suggest that her understanding of the needs of children and adult s exceeds the average person . On this scale, Carol marked "uncertain" for th e item that said, "Children should not be the main source of comfort and care fo r their parents." This reflects that Carol sees her children as a source of comfor t for her. In general, this scale shows a person with parenting attitudes that ar e average or above average for non-abusive, Causasian women . If she ha d been compared to abusive women, her scores would have been slightly higher . This scale basically supports the information obtained from the interviews . Mother-Father-Peer Scale On the scale measuring Mother Acceptance, Carol ranked in the 8 percentile. This shows that she felt extremely rejected by her mother . O n Father Acceptance, she ranked in the 39 percentile. As expected from th e interviews, Carol felt more accepted by her mother than her father. On th e scales measuring Encouraging Independence (high) versus Overprotectio n (low), Carol scored in the 8% percentile again for her mother and in the 40 % percentile for her father. Carol sees her mother as extremely overprotective i n that she did not encourage Carol to do things her own way or make her ow n decisions. Carol showed some idealization of her father, endorsing a s "uncertain" the statements, "My father gave me the best upbringing anyone eve r could" and "My father never disappointed me ." She did not "strongly disagree " with any of the idealization statement about her father . She idealized he r mother less, but did not totally reject all the idealization statements about her 178 either. On the Peer Acceptance scale, Carol scored below the 1 percentile mark . The test is not as accurate for very low or high scores, but this score shows that Carol felt rejected by her peers as a child and has a long history of feeling lik e she cannot trust others. These results are in agreement with the previous detailed analysis an d the ratings by the independent raters . Hypotheses Carol says that she is chameleon-like, behaving differently with differen t people, but the evidence herein suggests that her internal models o f relationships are consistent across her relationships with her parents, he r children, and peers. She sees herself as not lovable and unable to affec t others. She sees others as unpredictable in their affections and difficult to trust . Others are either untrustworthy and so will hurt her or they are so much bette r than her that they would not like her . As long as her children behave well an d appear to need her, she can accept them. If they fight or get angry at her, sh e feels threatened and angry . Carol feels loved by her husband, but not entirel y secure in his love . Her relationship with him, while it has helped her feel mor e lovable, has not changed her feeling about herself very much . There is little evidence that Carol internal models are in transition at th e moment. She is at a painful, but apparently stable point . Her struggles wit h Jessica could be a catalyst for change if they get too painful and violent or i f Jessica can find some way of showing Carol who is really the mother in thei r relationship. So far, having children does not seemed to have altered Carol 179 internal models of relationships. She does not seem to have realized that al l children are born lovable, including her . Carol lacked substantial experience o f being nurtured as a child and never learned strategies to obtain nurturing . When people are kind and loving to her (as her husband may be) she does no t seem to fully integrate that fact into her internal models. Instead of thinking , "Some people are loving and other people are not" or "I can affect how muc h care I receive," Carol sees the fact that someone cares for her as an exception to the rule or a happy, but unexplainable event . in this way her internal workin g models seem closed to significant change. Until she can change, her parentin g will be inconsistent and based on her internal state rather than her children s needs. 180 Bobbi Content: Family (Childhood) Intervie w Bobbi is 24 years old and has one child, Samantha, who is 3 112 years old. Bobbi is divorced from Samantha father and now lives with her boyfrien d and Samantha. She attends the local community college . Bobbi was born i n Washington and her family moved to a rural area in Oregon when she was fou r years old. Bobbi mother had two children before she married Bobbi father, a girl five years older than Bobbi and a boy four years older than Bobbi . Bobb i also has a younger sister, five years her junior. Bobbi reports that her father, a truck driver, has many children, "It seems a new one pops up all the time ." Bobbi parents divorced when she was 12 years old . She does not know he r father whereabouts now . Her brother recently got out of jail and moved to th e small city where Bobbi, her mother and younger sister live . Bobbi reports that her father was a long haul truck driver and was onl y home two days a week. Her mother was a housewife and secretly worked as a waitress. When her father was home, her parents fought and her fathe r regularly beat her mother severely. Both of Bobbi parents were alcoholic . Bobbi earliest memory is of her third birthday party where she dran k wine with everyone else . She says that as a child she was completel y independent and that beginning at age four, she spent all of her time at the far m of an elderly couple down the street . She claims she was "close, but detached " to her mother. For most of her childhood, Bobbi mother ignored an d neglected her. Bobbi often comforted her mother after her father had beate n her. When Bobbi became an adolescent her mother became physicall y abusive toward her. Bobbi reports that her father physically and sexually 1a abused everyone in the family except her . She says she was "kinda lik e Daddy little girl ." After her parentsdivorced, he fled to avoid paying chil d support; Bobbi felt and still feels abandoned by him . Bobbi says everyone in her family and all of their friends drank, so "I ha d no concept that it wasn completely normal ." She thinks her father, who als o used speed, was probably more violent when he was drunk . According t o Bobbi, her mother drank beer all the time . Bobbi says she dealt with her mothe r being "that way again" by lust not being around or by tuning her mother out . She says that her mother was withdrawn when she was drunk, which was mos t of the time. Bobbi has a hard time describing her mother during her childhood, comin g up with only "meek", "courageous", and "confused." She says, here a hug e split in the way I see my mom," because her mother, in the past five years, has been "so strong and so motivated and so powerful," having graduated fro m college and earned an MSW degree . Bobbi describes her father with the following adjectives : evil ; overbearing; rude; defensive; and confused . She characterizes him as constantly causin g pain and controlling people through violence and bribes . Bobbi says she didn get upset much as a child because she didn thin k she had a right to . She says "You dealt, you, you learned to deal with what wa s given to you or, or what happened in your life and that was just it ." Bobbi fel t like she had to just completely ignore her emotions to survive . Bobbi report s that she was accident-prone and had urinary tract problems all through he r childhood that eventually needed surgery . She also says that she had tonsilliti s for about five years and missed a lot of school for it . She says no one reall y paid much attention to her when she was ill . In general, she says, her parents 182 treated her with "absolute indifference ." Bobbi says she was afraid of her parents, especially her father . She say s she felt rejected by her father, but not her mother, who she felt saw her as "just another problem." She felt like she didn live up to her parentsstandards, bu t that they were disappointed with everything in life, not her in particular . Sh e says she found her parents predictable . Bobbi says that her parents didn t discipline her. She didn do anything to attract discipline when her father wa s home. Her mother basically neglected her until about age 11 when Bobbi wen t through puberty. Then, Bobbi reports, her mother tried to control her behavio r and began to physically abuse her. Bobbi says she just defended herself, bu t never hit her mother back as her siblings had . Bobbi moved out of her mother s house when she was 14 years old . She lived with a friend and then with he r boyfriend whom she married at age 18 . Between the ages of 4 and 12, Bobbi spent a lot of time at the farm of an older couple who lived near her. The man, Shorty, was very important to her . She says she felt very close to him and that he made her feel like she wa s important and "worth teaching to and worth spending time with ." She says the y were affectionate with her and she could go to them if she were upset . Short y died when Bobbi was 12 years old . She says she felt angry and abandone d when he died . She still feels sad now . Bobbi was raped by a friend father when she was 12 years old . Sh e pressed charges against him and eventually her assailant was convicted . Bobbi says her mother was very supportive of her during the rape episode . That year, Bobbi also became a speed addict and tried to commit suicide wit h Valium. Bobbi did not see her father for about six years. He visited her once when 183 she was pregnant and once after she had her baby . She has not seen him no w for about three years . She feels abandoned by him and has been angry, bu t says now she is "reconciled to the fact that he an evil person (1 sec . pause) and I don need to be around him any more ." Bobbi says she is close to he r mother now. She says her mother is more nurturing to her if Bobbi talks to he r like a friend rather than a mother. Bobbi reports that she doesn drink alcohol because it makes her feel to o emotional. Speed, however, allows her to just speed up and not think abou t things. Bobbi has used speed off and on for years, but says she hasn used i t for the last eight months . Bobbi admits to being defensive about acknowledgin g her drug problem, even though from her involvement with drugs she lost he r boyfriend and friends and was homeless for three months last year . Bobbi reports that her first husband took advantage of her and used her . Now she says she doesn trust people and must be in control in he r relationships to avoid being hurt . She feels she is just not ready to dea l emotionally with her past . Content: Parenting Intervie w Bobbi has one child, Samantha, who is 3 1/2 years old . Bobbi was happ y to be pregnant even though she and her husband were under stress at the time , losing their jobs and moving to a new city to find work . Bobbi had previousl y had several miscarriages. She was very happy to have a girl child . Samanth a was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, pulmonary hemosiderosis, at si x weeks old. She was hospitalized and survived . Bobbi stayed at the hospita l with the baby the whole time and continued to breastfeed her . Bobbi says tha t her husband was not supportive during Samantha illness . 184 Bobbi reports that Samantha cried all the time during the first few months . She says she did everything she could to comfort her, but that Samantha onl y got happier after she was mobile. Bobbi found it hard to not be able to "fi x everything and control the situation ." Bobbi describes Samantha as very mature and intelligent for her age . She chooses the following adjectives to describe her : Independent ; well- adjusted; strong; energetic; and witty. Bobbi says Samantha is large for her ag e and extremely independent and self-assured . Bobbi enjoys doing natur e activities with Samantha and likes to read with her . She says she feels close t o her all the time. Bobbi main difficulties with Samantha center around powe r struggles. Bobbi feels that Samantha is very strong and powerful and has a lo t of control in their relationship. Bobbi doesn know how much to forc e Samantha to obey her. Samantha gets upset when she goes to visit her fathe r on weekends. Bobbi tries to reassure her, but feels guilty about the divorce . When Samantha is afraid of train noises at night, Bobbi is very comforting . Samantha will not let Bobbi near her when she is physically hurt, a pattern tha t concerns Bobbi . Bobbi and Samantha struggle whenever Bobbi takes her home from da y care. Samantha screams and cries and does not want to leave . Bobbi say s she often yells at Samantha when Samantha is yelling at her, but she rarely hit s or spanks her and feels guilty when she does . She says they usuall y communicate well. When Bobbi is sad, she says Samantha tries to comfort her . Samantha also defends Bobbi when Bobbi is angry at someone else . Bobb i says that if she gets angry at Samantha, Samantha yells back at her, insisting on what she wants. Bobbi believes that Samantha is aware of dangers and that she never 185 tries to do anything dangerous that Bobbi might have to protect her from . Bobb i says that Samantha often wants help with her shoes or other things and tha t she doesn want to help her because she thinks Samantha just does it to hav e power over her. Bedtime is usually a struggle with Samantha resisting going t o bed. She also wakes frequently at night . Bobbi says that Samantha has neve r had any trouble being separated from her . Bobbi reports that both her boyfriend and ex-husband are mor e authoritarian with Samantha than she is . She says, comparing herself with he r mother, that she spends much more time with Samantha and is closer to he r than her mother was with her. She says they are similar in that she trust s Samantha judgment and capabilities as her mother trusted her . Bobbi says that her mother dotes on Samantha, which made Bobbi upse t at first. Now, however she says she thinks part of the love her mother give s Samantha is because she cares about Bobbi . Having Samantha has mad e Bobbi and her mother closer . Bobbi imagines that Samantha will b e independent and have good judgment as a teenager and that they will be clos e when Samantha is an adult . Bobbi says she feels that using speed affected her performance as a mother. Although she tried to use drugs only when Samantha was with he r father, she says she often was very tired during the week . Others tell her sh e was attentive to Samantha, but Bobbi suspects she was obsessively attentive t o Samantha because of the drugs . She doesn have clear memories of that par t of her life. Bobbi feels that knowing Shorty and his wife affected her parenting, notin g that she treats Samantha with respect as they treated her . Bobbi traces some o f her difference from her parents to suddenly realizing a few years ago that she 186 needed to change her life in order for Samantha to grow up differently than she had. She describes having almost a mystical experience in which she made a conscious decision to change her patterns from her childhood, leave he r husband, and start taking care of the environment . She can explain it, but say s "Something happened to empower me that day ." Interviewer Comment s Bobbi appeared to be very open to talking about herself . She jumpe d right in to the interview, speaking very quickly and with few pauses . She had a brash quality, as if she would like to appear fearless . This bravado only thinl y covered her vulnerability, which emerged as we spoke . Although she spok e quickly throughout, Bobbi became more thoughtful and emotional as th e interview progressed, pausing more and letting her voice betray emotion. A s the interviewer, I was occasionally taken aback by Bobbi matter-of-fac t presentation of traumatic events in her life. Her manner seemed to convey tha t she felt perfectly fine talking about these painful experiences . But often sh e would breathe heavily or catch her breath suddenly or her voice would becom e very soft as the emotion broke through . I felt drawn to acknowledge her pain even though it was not appropriate in the interview . Bobbi clearly enjoyed the second interview more than the first. Her pride and joy in her daughter wa s obvious. Bobbi was moderately warm and made some eye contact . Child Abuse Literatur e Spinetta and Rigler (1972) list four factors that they found in parents wh o were more likely to abuse their children . Bobbi fulfills some of these criteria, but 187 her case is not clear. First, she was raised by an abusive father who, by he r own account, did not abuse her . She witnessed abuse, but was not personall y abused by him that she can recall . Her mother was neglectful and then turne d abusive at adolescence. So, Bobbi fits the profile of being abused, but she als o felt like a special child because her father favored her . Second, abusin g parents often have difficulty controlling their aggressive impulses, a proble m Bobbi does not seem to have . Neither does she believe in physica l punishment. The third criteria, having unreasonable expectations for youn g children, is unclear also. On the one hand, Bobbi believes that Samantha i s extremely capable and mature for her age and expects her to have judgmen t beyond what is reasonable to expect from a 3-year-old . On the other hand , Bobbi accepts defiant and willful behavior from Samantha that many parent s would find intolerable . Bobbi also has faced extreme socioeconomic difficulties . People who abuse their children often have low self-esteem and a n impaired capacity for empathy. Bobbi has moderate self-esteem . Despite he r drug addiction and dysfunctional relationships with men, she sees herself a s able to learn and change and as a good mother . She seems able to empathiz e with Samantha in most situations although she has difficulty seeing Samantha s sadness and neediness . Bobbi is not highly reactive to child-rearing stresses . From the research about abused children who break the cycle of abus e with their own children, it would be hard to predict Bobbi future behavior . Sh e has only a few of the protective factors and many of the risk factors. Among th e protective factors are the fact that she was very happy to be pregnant an d wanted the baby. As a child she had a supportive long-term relationship wit h Shorty and his wife. She remembers her abuse from her father, is very angry about it, and has consciously vowed not to repeat it. Risk factors include the fact 188 that Samantha had a serious disease early in her life and that Bobbi has ver y shaky social supports. Neither her ex-husband nor her current boyfriend ar e particularly emotionally supportive of Bobbi. Bobbi has had many stressful lif e events including rape, early marriage, divorce, and homelessness . Bobbi ha s not participated in long-term therapy, although the short-term therapy she di d made significant changes in her . Although Bobbi remembers her father s abuse, she has less clear memories about her mother neglect and she ha s clearly not integrated her feelings about her mother . This makes it more likel y that rather, than abusing her child, Bobbi is more at risk for neglecting her child . ACOA Analysis Both of Bobbi parents were alcoholics . Her father was home only tw o days a week, but drank when he was there . Her mother drank beer all the time , according to Bobbi . Bobbi earliest memories are about alcohol, being give n wine at her third birthday party, and everyone she knew drinking and fighting a t parties. Bobbi didn know or understand the effects of alcohol on her mother . She just felt, "when she didn seem to make sense any more I would just tur n her off. She that way again . That way because I didn know that it, drunk , was an abnormality. So it was just that way ." Bobbi also claims to hav e avoided crying for years because she thought it would make her throw up . Thi s belief came from hearing her mother crying and throwing up in the bathroo m every day. Bobbi didn know she was throwing up from drinking . The denial of her parentsdrinking was so complete that Bobbi did no t even know it was possible not to drink . Bobbi claims that she couldn say wha t effect alcohol had on her life because she didn even know what that drinking 189 was not normal . She says even now, "Well, it really, actually, it didn hav e much effect on us because we never considered that it was abnormal . W e never even considered it ." Bobbi shows all of the cognitive-emotional defense s that are predicted for ACOA . As a child she denied the effects of alcohol o n her parents and now she has a very hard time admitting that she is/was a dru g addict. She also felt she had to completely deny any feelings about herself as a child in order to survive . She shows the extreme emphasis on control typical o f ACOA, feeling that she if she is not in complete control of her relationships , she will be controlled . She often uses dichotomous, all or none thinking, fo r instance, saying her child is "always independent" or her mother was "alway s courageous. Every day ." (See Coherency of Mind section for further discussio n of this point.) Bobbi also took excessive responsibility in her home, bot h emotionally and in practical ways. Now she still casts herself in the caretake r role for her boyfriend and friends . Bobbi herself has never been alcoholic, but has used speed extensively . She says she has not used the drug for eight months (except once) . She still i s attracted to using drugs and must consciously choose not to use . Bobbi is not i n any recovery program and does not like what she sees as the cultlike aspects o f them. She says speed helps her not to think about her pain . Role Reversal As A Child There was a great deal of role reversal between Bobbi and her mothe r and little to none between Bobbi and her father . Bobbi mother apparentl y drank all through the day and was overwhelmed by her responsibilities of 190 raising four children, defending herself from a violent husband, and secretl y earning money with which to eventually leave her marriage . According t o Bobbi, her mother just allowed her to raise herself after about the age of four . Bobbi mother often did not feed the children . They did that themselves . Bobb i now denies that that was a problem, saying it was good because she learned t o eat when she was hungry . Bobbi perceived her mother as incompetent, especially with her bab y sister. Bobbi took on many tasks related to the baby, especially related t o feeding the child. "I felt (1 sec . pause) like I had to take care of my little sister, always, ause there was nobody to do it ." Bobbi reports that the only time sh e went to her mother with a problem was to complain about having to take care o f the baby so much. She says her mother reaction was to try make her fee l guilty. "She the master of guilt . It was like, you know, (exaggerated sigh) he r life would have been so much easier if she hadn had kids at all . They could a t least help with the ones that she had ." Bobbi also said she could not go to her mother with a problem becaus e her mother would just tell her to deal with it herself . Bobbi says this is because , "she had too much to deal with; she needed my help. And if 1 couldn do that fo r her, what was I worth?" Bobbi mother clearly communicated to Bobbi tha t children were a burden and that she deserved Bobbi help in dealing wit h them. Bobbi felt guilty refusing to help, and asking for any care for herself wa s not even to be considered . Bobbi also felt she had to take care of her mother emotionally . She say s that after her mother had been beaten, "I was the one that after anything would go down, I always go out and hug mama and kiss mama again ." Sh e explains later, 19 1 I think I had this image that unless I was there to, there to patch things up that Mom (1 sec. pause) would stay sad. Not that she couldn be happy , because I don remember her really being happy, but that she woul d stay real emotional and sad . Bobbi says she did this by "literally picking up the pieces of whatever wa s broken and by trying to fix things and, and (soft voice) telling her I loved her ( 3 sec. pause)." Bobbi says this didn happen very often , I mean wee talking about like 15-minute episodes once a week . Yo u know, it wasn something every day, but just usually be there to put u p this real big effort to show that we can, we can fix this, you know (smal l laugh). We can put all the dirt away and, and hug each other and it s gonna be OK. Bobbi comforted her mother and tried to make her feel better. Bobb i herself was undoubtedly very frightened and trying to comfort herself as well . She needed her mother comfort, and not getting it, took over that role herself . Apparently the little contact Bobbi had with her mother was through her ow n caretaking of her. As A Parent Bobbi shows a pervasive pattern of perceiving Samantha as precociousl y self-reliant and mature. Although in many ways, Bobbi fulfills her parenting rol e well, she also encourages some role reversed behavior . Bobbi is particularl y unconcerned about Samantha safety, trusting that she is aware of danger s and can protect herself. At the farm they visit, Bobbi allows Samantha t o wander around by herself, even near water . At home, Bobbi says she doesn t need to check on Samantha in the back yard or riding her bike down the block . This transfers the job of protection on to Samantha herself . Practically, Bobbi does not appear to ask Samantha to do jobs in the 192 house. She notes that Samantha enjoys making her own sandwiches an d washing dishes, jobs that alone, done because Samantha enjoys them, do no t suggest a role reversal situation. However, it must be noted that most 3-year- olds do not enjoy washing dishes . More serious is Bobbi allowing Samantha to comfort her emotionally . She says that when she is upset, Samantha comes up to her and rubs her hea d and tells her that everything will be OK . Often Samantha will apologize just i n case she was responsible for Bobbi upset . Bobbi also is amiss in no t protecting Samantha from competition with Bobbi boyfriend, Tom . Bobbi tell s about an incident in which Torn and Samantha played a game they play i n which they argue about whose mom Bobbi is. Bobbi reports that recently sh e got sick of it and said, "I don want to be anybody mom any more ." At that, Samantha got upset and said "OK, Il get a new one . Come on, Tom. We hav e to go to the store . I need a new mom ." Samantha was crying while she sai d this and Bobbi was upset that Samantha had taken her so seriously . The n Samantha came over to comfort Bobbi . And, a, she finally came over (italics added) and said (1 sec. pause) while rubbing my head, that, that, urn (1 sec. pause) she didn want a new mom and would I be her mom again, if, uh, she was good . And I tol d her that I be her mom forever whether she was good or not . And that I was, that I didn mean it . (italics added) Here, when both mother and daughter were upset and felt sad, Samanth a was the one who came over to comfort Bobbi and apologize as if she ha d rejected her mother, when of course, it was the other way around . Bobbi doe s reassure Samantha, but only after Samantha has reassured her . Samanth a uses caretaking as a way to maintain her tie to her mother just as Bobbi did wit h her mother. Bobbi allowing her boyfriend, Tom, to openly compete with 193 Samantha for her attention (both here and in other examples in the interviews) implies that Tom and Samantha are on the same level . Either Tom is also a child or Samantha must be an adult . Bobbi reports that if she is angry at someone, Samantha defends her t o that person. When Bobbi was arguing with her boyfriend, she says tha t Samantha stayed very close to her and eventually began to yell at Tom not t o treat her mommy like that. She says that Samantha also yells at other driver s out the car window if they do something discourteous to Bobbi, "You shouldn t do that to my mom ." Symbolically, in the game they played while swimming , Samantha played at saving Bobbi from sharks . Bobbi fulfills many of her parental functions well, especially compared t o her own mother. She is aware of trying to have appropriate expectations fo r Samantha. In fact, she says a main reason she divorced her husband wa s because he had unreasonably high expectations for Samantha . But Bobb i must subtly convey to Samantha that she needs protection and comfort . Children feel frightened when their parents are sad and if they have no one t o turn to for comfort, they will comfort their parents in an attempt to make the parents happy and responsive again . A further discussion of role reversa l between Bobbi and Samantha appears in the sections about "Secure Base " and "Self and Others ." The following sections analyze Bobbi relationship with her parents an d her daughter using Attachment theory concepts . Bobbi and her Parents Bobbi home life as a child seemed to be sharply divided into times when 194 her father was home and times when he was gone working as a long-distanc e trucker. When he was home, Bobbi says, "the first day we all got into the da d mode and nobody said anything or did anything and then usually by the secon d day everybody started to feel like themselves again." When her father wa s home, Bobbi learned not to do anything at all. Her father was so explosive tha t doing anything could be cause for violent punishment . Bobbi says that h e broke everything in the house and tried to control everyone . She says that al l their friends and family were violent too: "The highlight of every memory fo r every year is the fights....And we get together and everybody would drink an d it would turn into a fight." Bobbi reports that her father brutally beat her mother , often sending her mother to the hospital and also causing the premature birth o f Bobbi younger sister . Bobbi was terrified of her father, but also had an unusual relationship wit h him. She was his favorite, and Bobbi reports that she has no memory of hi m actually abusing her physically or sexually, although he reportedly abuse d everyone else in the family. Bobbi remembers sitting with him on the couch , sifting on his lap, and going for rides with him in his truck. She says of thos e times, "I went on rides in his truck with him a lot. (3 sec. pause) He wa s different. (2 sec. pause) When it was just me and him he was different, kind o f different." He was kind to her about her bedwetting problem, even when sh e lied to him about it . Still, she recalls that he insulted her, calling her "dumbe r than a hemlock stalk." Bobbi says she felt rejected by him, but perhap s because he was sometimes kind to her, Bobbi remembers that "I think I thought I was close to him." When he fled child support payments and didn get in touc h with her for six years, Bobbi felt angry and abandoned . She still feels that way . Despite his abuse and violence, Bobbi still hopes that her father will care for her 195 and still wants his love. Bobbi relationship with her mother is more problematic . Her mother wa s extremely withdrawn and, according to Bobbi, basically let her raise herself . Bobbi says, "Ie always been close, but detached to my mom ." Although the y didn have much contact, Bobbi says that her mother "saw me like herself o r something. So we could relate when we had to ." Bobbi is rather incoheren t talking about her relationship with her mother as a young child and can giv e little information about it. She remembers she felt displaced by her younge r sister birth and was upset about having to take care of her sister . Sh e remembers comforting her mother after her father beatings and rages . Bobb i says in general her mother made her feel guilty for being born . "I mean it wa s like, we were led to believe that we were the cause of all evil (laugh) you know , and uh, that just not true ." The most positive thing Bobbi can say about he r mother is, "I guess maybe my mother did understand me because she did le t me go. And let me be somewhere else ." Asked if she felt loved, Bobbi speak s almost too softly to be heard, saying, "I guess I knew my mom loved me. I kne w down deep that (too soft to be heard) but it wasn something eve r communicated." Bobbi says that when she was about 11 years old she went throug h puberty and it seemed to her that all of a sudden her mother tried to parent her . Bobbi was defiant toward her mother and her mother became abusive . "And at that point she would just lose it . She would just start swinging whateve r happened to be in her hand ." Although they had lots of physical conflicts, Bobb i says she never hit her mother back . She just tried to defend herself . She says that she would sometimes yell hurtful things at her mother lik e that her mother never loved her . Bobbi continued to be angry when her mother 196 stopped drinking when Bobbi was 12 years old . Bobbi says , I mean, all the old stuff was still there. She just stopped drinking . And fo r me that made it more inexcusable because at least she wasn drunk an y more. You know she was making these decisions sober . And I move d out when I was like 14. Bobbi recalls that her mother was very supportive of her after she was raped, but that their relationship did not improve . In general, Bobbi feels lik e she was treated with real indifference.... I think I was just really treated with absolute indifference. It was like, they would accept my behavior good o r bad. When I did actually do things wrong it was like, "Oh well, it neve r happens." (1 sec . pause). And if I did anything really well, it was kind o f like, "Well, that the way you are ." So they were just real accepting o f whatever I did. I think it was probably easier because of the emotiona l strain on everybody from everything and my other siblings all acted out . I think it was just really easier just to act like I wasn there . It is difficult to categorize Bobbi parents into attachment styles because o f the extreme nature of their behavior toward her . Bobbi father certainly wa s rarely responsive or available . He could possibly have been Dismissing wit h his need to control others . He more likely would fit into the Disorganized/Disoriented category. He is frightening to his children and ha s little or no sense of social responsibility . Bobbi mother was also extremel y unavailable and unresponsive, capable of both neglect and abuse . She too i s most likely to fit into the Disorganized attachment category as well as showin g elements of the Preoccupied behaviors . Bobbi mother probably had a traumatic childhood, having an alcoholic, abusive father and extended family . Neither of Bobbi parents were capable of comforting her or protectin g her in any way. Bobbi was fortunate to be close to Shorty and Dotty, an olde r couple down the street who took care of her for most of her childhood . Bobb i says with them she felt important, worth teaching to, and worth spending time 197 with. She says they were affectionate and cared for her . Bobbi thinks that sh e would not have survived her childhood without them . It is likely that Bobbi had a Secure relationship with Shorty and his wife and that this relationship figure s significantly in her development . Attitude Toward Attachment Bobbi attitude toward attachment is somewhat disorganized . In som e cases she values closeness and comfort and in some cases she seems avers e to them. Bobbi demonstrates her valuing of attachment relationships in the wa y she talks about her father. Bobbi talks frequently about her anger at her fathe r for abandoning her. She is angry that he would avoid seeing her for years jus t to avoid paying child support, saying, "Like it was more important to save mone y than to see me....l was angry that money meant more." She was very happ y when he visited her when she was pregnant and even tried to call her sister , assuming her sister would want to talk to him too . Bobbi still would like to hav e a relationship with him, although she is beginning to think he is not capable o f sustaining such a relationship . Bobbi still wants his love and fears hi s abandonment . Bobbi talks about Shorty with emotion and gratitude for his companionshi p and care during her childhood . She says he was "very significant" to her . When he died, she felt angry and abandoned . She still misses him . Bobbi i s not ambivalent about her feelings for Shorty . She also talks about liking olde r people but being afraid to get close to them for fear they will die and leave he r as Shorty did. In the above instances, Bobbi shows her desire for closenes s and awareness of her attachment needs . 198 When Bobbi talks about her mother, however, she seems removed fro m her childhood needs. She cannot talk clearly about how she felt with he r mother as a child and the negative feelings she had . When asked to describ e herself as a child, she immediately says she was independent and makes i t sound like a positive attribute . She doesn call herself neglected or alone o r frightened, all of which she undoubtedly was . She says she had no proble m with separations from her parents and no need to be taken care of when sh e was sick. She says she felt she had no right to comfort . She says all of this wit h no emotion at all. The most she says about her mother neglect of her is tha t her mother was "not too wise." When Bobbi talks about her father lack of lov e for her, she speaks emotionally; when she talks of losing Shorty she i s emotional. When she talks about her mother neglect, she is intellectual an d disorganized . With Samantha, Bobbi sometimes has shown that she believes caring fo r children attachment needs is important and others times she ignore s attachment needs. On the positive side, Bobbi stayed with Samantha in th e hospital when she was ill. She likes cuddling with her in bed, holding her an d just being close . She comforts Samantha in the night when she is frightened . Bobbi is concerned that Samantha won let her near her when she is hurt . Bu t sometimes Bobbi ignores Samantha attachment needs, for instance, believin g that Samantha does not need to be supervised to prevent dangerous behavio r or insisting that Samantha has never had any problem with separations eve n after telling how she cries when she leaves for her father house and cries a t bedtime every night. Bobbi believes that Samantha is very independent, a parallel to the belief she has about herself as a child . Bobbi values attachmen t and wants closeness in her life. But she does not trust that she will ever really 199 be able to depend on anyone . Her attitude toward attachment become s confused when she thinks about her mother and the needs her mother did no t meet. At that point, Bobbi becomes confused about attachment needs an d clings to distorted beliefs in order to protect her painful memories . Coherency of Mind Structure of Speech Bobbi begins the interview speaking very quickly without taking time t o think. She speaks about her father brutality, the rampant alcoholism in he r family, and her own independence very matter-of-factly as if these were th e facts and there was no need to contemplate them at all . Her manner of speec h is slightly defensive and almost aggressive, as if challenging the interviewer t o ask a question that would trip her up . As the interview progresses Bobbi slow s down a bit and begins to discuss her feelings about things . Bobbi occasionall y laughs defensively, especially when she talks about everyone drinking . Whe n Bobbi talks about her father, her speech is pressured and somewhat angry . Bu t she can describe him and remember incidents about him . In fact, when aske d to describe her father, she says, "That easy ." Her manner changes when she talks about her mother . Instead of quick , pressured speech, she begins to talk in long, convoluted sentences that begi n and end without finishing. She pauses frequently and she insists that sh e cannot remember very much. For instance, here she is trying to give fiv e adjectives that describe her mother : My mom--I have, Ie got like a split relationship with my mom, so, so it s really hard. I don . I still today don view my mom as any one thing . (3 sec. pause). Then, she was meek (6 sec . pause) and (8 sec. pause) I 200 don think I can come up with any more . ause there a huge split i n the way I see my mom. I don, I, there no way I can say what she wa s like then. She always been courageous . Bobbi cannot really remember very much about her mother when she wa s a child because of the "split relationship" she has with her, and she canno t explain the split. Is the split between how she wanted her to be and how sh e was? Later in the interview Bobbi expresses just a moment of anger about he r mother and feels very guilty about even saying it. In any case, whateve r defensive processes are operating inhibit Bobbi memory of her mother . Sh e cannot afford to remember too much. Bobbi has few specific memories of he r mother. She remembers a conversation in which her mother was meek . He r descriptions of her mother courage are very idealized and non-specific . Another time the interviewer asks if her relationship with her mother wa s close and Bobbi answers "Yes. Yeah, when I was a teenager, I, we went, whe n she quit drinking when I was 12. And I couldn stand her after that because i t was, it, I don, looking back it was really unfair ." Bobbi contradicts hersel f concerning being close to her mother as well as speaking incoherently . The interviewer later asks Bobbi what kind of things she and her mom tal k about now. Bobbi answers again confusedly , We talk like friends. We talk like friends . I learned a long--after sh e started, urn, she wouldn, after, when she was working on her bachelo r of psychology degree, I realized that I no longer could, that I could, I realized that the quest for a mom was over, because I never had a mom, really had a mom, like June Cleaver mom . This is very hard for Bobbi to say and it comes out fragmented . Bobbi also lapses into incoherency once when she talks about her olde r brother and sister. She never really says at all what went on between them . However, from the incoherent way in which she talks about them, it is likely tha t the experience was traumatic and Bobbi hasn integrated it . She says, 201 I think I had a feeling that I ruined my brother and sister life . (catche s breath) That, that was real, they were, they made that, they could write a book about that, that I ruined their lives. But, but I in that way I guess I did. But I didn really do anything about it either . I was kind of, that wa s OK. There was a lot of anger there . (tiny laugh) So, it was OK if 1 could ruin their life. After Bobbi talks about the many traumas in her twelfth year, including he r rape and the subsequent trial, her drug addiction, and suicide attempt, th e interviewer, feeling a little overwhelmed, says sympathetically, "You wen t through a tremendous amount at that time ." Bobbi immediately launches into a rambling, barely coherent denial of her need for sympathy . The interviewer s inadvertent comment revealed how disorganizing it is for Bobbi to be comforted . She says, Yeah. Yeah . Yeah, it done a lot for my, I not a real, I don have a lo t of self-pity now because..didn have it then either. I was too . I didn t have any concept that it was applicable then. And then I went throug h this real long period, urn, around the time I was like 14 until I got divorce d when I was 21 or 22, that I went through, that was all, the whole time, what Ie been through, what I going through . I pretty much designed, I think, my marriage to be, to be a bomb, just so I could continue that. An d when I got out of that, it was just, I alive after all of this! There n o reason for pity, self-pity at all. I just happy to be here . (small laugh ) And at that point I had my daughter and realized that I wouldn get he r anywhere with pity either . The above examples are given in order to illustrate how incoherence i n speech is not random, but meaningful. In Bobbi case, she is most incoheren t talking about her relationship with mother and her feelings about not getting th e comfort she needed as a child . Content Coherency In general, Bobbi content has few contradictions . As noted before, sh e contradicts herself about whether she and her mother were close . Another time, 202 asked if she was afraid of her parents as a child, Bobbi answers, "Yeah ." Aske d whether she was afraid of her mother, she answers, "Not really" with a smal l laugh. Then she says, "Not very ." When she talks about Samantha and ho w she is not affected by separations from Bobbi, Bobbi tells about a day car e provider whom she did not like because when Samantha was upset, th e woman coddled her. Bobbi ends the story by saying that Samantha has neve r been upset about being in day care . She contradicts her story because it doe s not fit into her belief about Samantha . Bobbi can think of general descriptions of her father easily and she ca n think of supportive specific descriptions for some, but not all of her adjectives . For her mother, Bobbi can think of only three general adjectives and only tw o supportive specific incidents. For Samantha, Bobbi easily thinks of fiv e adjectives and many specific incidents for each . However, for "well-adjusted " she tells incidents in which Samantha acted independent or self-assured . Fo r "strong," she tells incidents in which Samantha is controlling . This is not s o much a distortion, but rather shows Bobbi own misunderstanding of th e concepts of strength and well-adjusted behavior . Idealization Bobbi shows some tendency to idealization. Some of this can attributed t o her youth and the common tendency among young adults to romanticize o r idealize. Some of the idealization can also be a conscious belief that serves t o mask an unconscious truth that is difficult to acknowledge. Bobbi idealizes he r mother when she tries to describe her courage . She goes on at length abou t the courage her mother showed by raising four children with an abusive 203 husband. She also idealizes her relationship with her mother now when sh e discusses how she and her mother think the same way , Pius, wee, we see thing (1 sec . pause) on a level that probably most people on earth don . Wee, wee out there for social change, fo r making this world a better place. And most people just can relate t o that. It not worth the effort, so we can talk about things like that . Bobbi idealizes her daughter somewhat also . She says of Samantha , "Ie always felt like she was my miracle baby ." She also idealizes Samantha s strength and self-assurance. Bobbi idealizes Shorty and his wife, saying wha t wonderful and special people they were . It is probable that they truly wer e special to her since they provided the main nurturance for her in her childhood , but she idealizes them nonetheless, saying such things as, "They cared abou t everything, all living creatures." Bobbi even idealizes nature as she talks abou t how a gully is not just a place for dead and dying things, but a place wher e decomposition and new growth is happening . Bobbi idealization ha s elements of romanticizing life in order to hide the bad parts . Like the gully , Bobbi wants to see herself not as a victim of pain and abuse, but as a growing , positive being . Openness and Flexibilit y Bobbi tends to uses dichotomous, all-or-nothing thinking . This kind o f thinking makes psychic organization easier because it reduces ambiguity an d doubt. Dichotomous thinking masks deficits in perception caused by perceptua l distortion. One way Bobbi shows this pattern is her tendency to speak i n absolutes. For instance, asked about the relationship between her parents , Bobbi says, "There was total conflict." Of herself as a child, Bobbi says she was , "Independent. Completely independent ....I was always gone. Always ." Bobbi 204 says about her mother, "She was always courageous . Always ." She tells ho w her mother took them camping. "She took us away, um, camping and stuff . Al l the time, all summer, every year, we were out." Bobbi continues in this manne r talking about Samantha as she says, "She is independent all the time" an d "She always strong ." These statements are clearly untrue . They give Bobbi a sureness that permits her to not see what she cannot allow herself to see, that is, that she was not completely independent as a child, that her mother was no t always courageous, and that Samantha is not always strong . As has bee n illustrated in other ways, Bobbi distorts reality when she speaks of experience s that she has not been able to resolve . In some matters, Bobbi shows openness in her internal models. Fo r instance, she remembers in the interview that she had some experiences wit h her father that were not terrible . She remembers sitting on his lap, for instance . She also realizes for the first time that Shorty and his wife have influenced he r parenting style. She had never thought of that before and discovers th e parallels as she speaks . However, there are no obvious instances of flexibilit y and discovery related to her mother or to Samantha in these interviews . Apparently Bobbi internal models that are more organized are also mor e flexible and open to change . Her models which are defended and disorganize d are less open to change . Attachment Behavior Attachment behavior is behavior which is motivated by the need to elici t protection and comfort from a caretaker . As Bobbi remembers her childhood , she showed almost no attachment behavior when she was with her parents . 205 Bobbi says that she doesn remember being upset very often as a child . I don think that, that we thought we had a right to be upset when I wa s real little. I don think we thought that was even (1 sec . pause) in the realm of possibility. I, we, (1 sec . pause). Most of my family still in th e survival mode. So, I can see it happening . That, you know, that we jus t really don rock the boat ever . You dealt, you, you learned to deal wit h what was given to you or, or, what happened in your life and that was jus t it. Bobbi says she could not go to her father with a problem and her mo m would "just lose it if we came to her." Her mother would tell her to deal with i t and make her fell guilty for needing anything . So Bobbi claims she mostly too k care of herself. She remembers having no reaction to separations from either o f her parents. She says she didn cry because she was afraid it would make he r throw up. Bobbi says she thought that the key to being good was not to d o anything. She says she was like her mother in that way . Bobbi mentions only a few actions that could be interpreted as attachmen t behaviors. She remembers being punished (abused) by an aunt and uncle fo r whining too much when she was four years old . She remembers telling he r mother when she didn want to take care of her baby sister so much . Bobb i was accident-prone and had recurrent urinary tract problems and chroni c tonsillitis. These could be interpreted as bids for comfort, although they wer e only marginally successful. She went to her mother when she was raped at 1 2 years old, a behavior that did get her some support . She tried to commit suicid e at 12 also, an action which could be interpreted as a call for help . At the sam e time, Bobbi rejected her mother attempt to parent her as an adolescent . The clearest and most effective attachment behavior Bobbi showed wa s choosing to spend her time with Shorty and his wife . She sought out and foun d people who would care for her . The interview does not provide enough 206 information on how she behaved with them to analyze her attachment behavio r there. Bobbi describes a close relationship which includes teaching, working , playing, eating, and physical affection . As an adult, Bobbi rejected her mother desire to help after Samantha s birth because she felt hurt that her mother had ignored her throughout th e pregnancy. She has decided to accept her mother doting on Samantha now , feeling like one of them might as well get her mother love . Bobbi wa s reluctant to ask her mother for help when she was homeless, but eventually di d live with her for a short time. Bobbi has tried to get "consoling" from her mothe r as adult and has found that she gets more of it if she goes to her mother like a friend rather than as a "needy child ." Some of Bobbi childhood and adult attachment behaviors are : 1. Complete compliance with her father . 2. Whining with her aunt and uncle . 3. Having illnesses and being accident-prone . 4. Complaining to her mother about caring for her sister . 5. Attempting suicide . 6. Telling her mother about being raped . 7. Resisting her mother control at adolescence . 8. Choosing to spend her time with Shorty and his wife . 9. Rejecting her mother at Samantha birth . 10. Talking to her mother as a friend . Attachment Figure Behavio r Bobbi feels like her parents treated her with indifference and were 207 generally not available for anything . In describing her parents, Bobbi uses n o adjectives that suggest caring or nurturing . The only physical contact sh e mentions is sitting stiffly on her father lap and hugging her mother to comfor t her. Since Bobbi has been an adult, her mother has helped with Samanth a and let Bobbi and Samantha live with her when they were homeless . Bobb i has tried to get emotional support from her mother as an adult and found tha t her mother, who was training to be a counselor, analyzed her instead . Bobb i says, I knew that I was not ever going to get the compassion from her that I wanted. That I was gonna get a counselor at this point . And so I stoppe d trying. And now I just talk to her like a friend . Instead of calling her like a needy child, I called her like a friend, and I got... And its amazing, I ge t more consoling that way than (tiny laugh) than I would have otherwise . Bobbi still cannot go to her mother as a child. She must approach he r mother as an equal to get comfort. Her mother still cannot deal with having a child who needs her . Some of Bobbi parentsattachment behaviors are : 1. Father is understanding concerning bed-wetting . 2. Father lets her sit in his lap. 3. Father gives her gifts for baby. 4. Mother does not feed the children . 5. Mother gets children drunk to try to relate to them better. 6. Mother refuses to help with problems . 7. Mother asks for help with child care. 8. Mother leaves house without telling children where she is . 9. Mother tries to parent Bobbi at 11 years old. 208 10. Mother refuses to let Bobbi into the house late at night. 11. Mother reminds Bobbi to take her pills for urinary problem . 12. Mother threatens to kill Bobbi assailant after rape . 13. Mother supports Bobbi decision to press charges . 14. Mother ignores suicide attempt. 15. Mother offers to help with baby. 16. Mother takes care of baby, gives presents, etc. 17. Mother plans to help Bobbi keep custody of baby . 18. Mother talks with Bobbi as a friend. Bobbi parentscaretaking behaviors when Bobbi was a child were s o sparse as to be almost nonexistent. Even now, Bobbi mother wants to trea t Bobbi like a friend instead of a child . Bobbi Parental Caretaking Behavior s Bobbi parental caretaking behaviors sound positive and responsive i n general with certain exceptions . Bobbi seems to enjoy closeness wit h Samantha and be available to help her when she is frightened or upset . However, Bobbi does dismiss the possibility of Samantha ever being in an y danger and emphasizes her ability to take care of herself, therefore supervisin g her very little in ambiguous situations . Some of Bobbi caretaking behaviors are : Nurturing behaviors : 1. Bobbi breastfeeds Samantha . 2. Bobbi stays with Samantha the whole time she is hospitalized . 3. Bobbi makes Samantha get out of the water when she is cold . 209 Bobbi likes to read books, hike, swim, etc . with Samantha. 5. Bobbi cuddles in bed with Samantha . 6. Bobbi shows concern about Samantha injury when she is hurt . 7. Bobbi hugs Samantha and reassures her when she is upse t about going to see her father . 8. Bobbi comforts Samantha when she is frightened of trains . 9. Bobbi eventually helps Samantha with her shoes . 10. Bobbi lets Samantha touch her when she wants to . 11. Bobbi holds Samantha when she is tired and lets her lay her hea d on her breast. 12. Bobbi defends Samantha to her neighbor . Less nurturing behaviors : 1. Bobbi dismisses the possibility of incest by her ex-husband . 2. Bobbi removes Samantha from a day care where the peopl e "coddle" her when she is upset . 3. Bobbi does not supervise Samantha when she plays outside th e house . 4. Bobbi does not supervise Samantha at a large outdoor gathering . 5. Bobbi resists helping Samantha with her shoes . 6. Bobbi uses drugs, compromising her effectiveness as a parent . 7. Bobbi lets Samantha cry herself to sleep at night . Emotional Processin g Emotional Content As a child, Bobbi motto was "Don feel ." Her life was so intolerable, she 210 just tried to avoid it. She left the house, she "turned off" her mother when sh e was drunk, she just didn have any feelings about most things . Bobbi says sh e never got upset as a child because she didn think it was in the realm o f possibility. She also didn cry for fear that she would throw up . (She heard her mother cry and throw up from drinking in the bathroom every night and though t if she cried, she would throw up.) Asked what she did when she was upset , Bobbi says, I don know . I think I just swallowed it . I pretty sure I just swallowed i t because I have a lot of stomach related problems now . Swallow it, I mean by, like I just stuffed it deeper. When I was like 15 I wrote a poe m once about myself being like a locker bay, that I just had learned to file i t away in a different locker and shut the door . Now it was breaking out th e sides (tiny laugh). You know, I don know what I did with it . I think I jus t (1 sec. pause) I know that, that the kind of horrors that we were dealing with, there was, to deal with it on any kind of emotional level would hav e been suicide, I know, for sure. To survive, Bobbi just had to be numb. But her feelings would not stay unfel t forever. Bobbi implies that she got involved with drugs to manage her emotiona l pain. She says she doesn like alcohol because it "makes me throw up and i t makes me, it makes me emotional, extremely emotional. For me it not a numbing agent. It really, it just really brings it out . So Ie never really been rea l involved with alcohol." Alcohol made her feel and she could not afford to feel . When she couldn keep herself numb enough she began to use speed . Sh e says, "And it been like I can, I can numb it out . I have to speed up beyond it , you know. (small laugh) . Right . If I stay busy enough I don have to deal wit h anything ." Bobbi says she began taking speed at 12 years old because, "it was a great way to get through the day . You don have to think about anythin g ause youe so good at doing, you don ever have to think about anything ." 211 As an adult, Bobbi continued in her pattern of denying upsetting feelings . When her daughter was critically ill and hospitalized at six weeks old, Bobb i stayed with her in the hospital. Questioned about how she felt during this tim e she says that she didn feel much of anything at the time . I just did what needed to b e done and stuff and then felt more when I took her home...The terror of it all. How scary, awful, and horrible it was ....1 was scared. But Bobbi could not afford to feel while the crisis was happening . Bobbi reports that she and her husband went to a marriage counselo r before they divorced and Bobbi also saw the counselor on an individual basis . Working with the counselor, Bobbi says she acknowledged her feelings for th e first time and that increased her pain. She says , I actually learned that my feelings counted and (small laugh) reall y strange things like that. So then to go on and be homeless, I was reall y attuned to what I was feeling. And was real pulled to being, going bac k into survival, to not feeling, and it was real hard (1 sec . pause) pull there between "My feelings count and need to be felt" and "This would be s o much easier if they weren here . You know, I could just do this ." Although Bobbi can acknowledge some feelings now, she still mus t suppress them to a large degree . When talking about her feelings about he r father in the interview she says, "So I mean, there, there a lot of pain from th e things that happened years and years ago, but for the most part it just a dream. (1 sec . pause) I just glad it not there any more ." She separate s herself from her feelings by seeing them as a dream . The easiest feeling for Bobbi to talk about is anger . She feels angry at a variety of people in her life, and often the anger is mixed with sadness or guilt . Bobbi says as a child, she was angry with her baby sister for displacing her . She also felt that it wasn fair for her to have to care for the baby so much . Bobbi recalls telling her mother how she felt and that her mother implied that 212 Bobbi owed it to her mother to help with her sister . Bobbi anger was short - circuited by guilt. Bobbi says she feels angry at her father for abandoning her . She also had felt angry with Shorty for years for dying and abandoning her . "I not so angry with him any more (small laugh) . I was angry for years, but it s more sad..." As an adult, anger has been easier for Bobbi as well . When her fathe r visits her and buys her baby gifts she feels angry at him for trying to buy her affections. Her husband lets her down by minimizing the severity of their baby s illness and Bobbi feels angry at him . She also feels angry when her roommate s use up her drugs and take advantage of her financially . In general, when sh e has been let down or disappointed, Bobbi feels angry . With Samantha, Bobb i sometimes gets angry, but does not talk much that part of their relationship . She gets angry when Samantha resists coming home from day care . Sh e eventually resorts to yelling at her and just picking her up and taking her home . She also gets angry when Samantha does not obey her when Bobbi tries to b e firm with her. Similarly, in the long incident concerning Bobbi trying t o discipline Samantha related in the interview, Bobbi says she got angr y because, "I felt really powerless over the situation because I thought I had don e everything I could do and it wasn working ." When asked about sadness, Bobbi claims that she rarely feels sad . Sh e says that her typical reaction to things is anger . Interestingly, she describes he r daughter the same way. Bobbi admits to feeling sad about Shorty death . " I miss them. It real sad . I was real upset when he died ." She also says tha t being homeless was "extremely traumatic." Bobbi only other reference t o being upset is her feeling toward the nurses at the hospital who gave Samanth a a pacifier and bottle, which led to Bobbi having to stop breastfeeding . The 213 only times Bobbi talks about fear is in reference to her fear of becoming close t o elderly people who may die and leave her and her fears when Samantha wa s hospitalized. Bobbi talks about feeling guilty several times. Usually she says someon e else is trying to make her feel guilty. For instance, she felt guilty as a child whe n she couldn fulfill her mother needs . She feels very guilty about divorcing he r husband and depriving Samantha of her father . When Samantha gets upse t about having to visit him on weekends, Bobbi says, "If I really think about it, I can deal with it . I feel too guilty, I guess, for making that part of her life." Bobb i also feels guilty when she spanks Samantha . Bobbi does not like to deal with strong feelings. As she says about he r fight with Samantha, "I just wanted it all to be over (tiny giggle) . My dominant response is just wanting it all to be over." Bobbi says that the childhoo d interview made her feel tense. At the second interview she relates, "1 was, I was pretty uptight the other night. I called my mom. (laugh) Wow! This is stuff that , this is a can of worms that I closed up a while ago, I guess." Reviewing all the times Bobbi talks about feelings in these interviews, i t becomes obvious that she rarely talks about feeling in relation to her mother . Bobbi talks about her feelings about her mother only once . In reply to th e interviewer question about how she would have liked her parents to b e different, Bobbi tells a story about her mother going to hear John Bradshaw tw o .years ago. Her mother comes home and tells Bobbi a beautiful story about ho w she has discovered her inner child. Bobbi says, "And I just got really quiet an d stuff and she asked what was wrong. And I, I just didn know . I just couldnt talk." Bobbi says a few days later she went to see her therapist and h e observed that she seemed angry . Bobbi continues, 214 ....when he finally needled it out of me, it was that my morn found her inner child, but she didn find it in time enough for me to be a child . And I still, you know, I feel really g-, it real split, real torn thing that, because I feel guilty saying it, because I glad she did everything she did . I shouldn be angry that she didn do it soon enough . But yet I am angr y that she didn do it soon enough . The interviewer comments and Bobbi answers, Well, I d-, I feel guilty being angry because I so glad that she (1 sec . pause) done them and I don want to, I don want to belittle at al l everything that she has done. But I just wish she done it sooner, yo u know (panting . Bobbi can barely deal with her feelings about her mother. Her hurt is s o deep that she can even speak when she first feels it . In this interview, sh e inhibits her anger and hurt with guilt. The guilt is so strong, she cannot voic e her anger without softening it and declaring simultaneously how wonderful he r mother is. The "split" she refers to about her mother in the beginning of th e interview makes more sense as does her inability to speak coherently about he r mother. Bobbi feels torn between her deep anger and her fear of voicing o r acknowledging it. She seems to fear betraying her mother . Bobbi acts as if sh e has no right to feel or need anything . It is likely that these feelings began s o early in Bobbi life that they are not even encoded verbally . With unintegrate d feelings such as these, it is not surprising that Bobbi is so incoherent wheneve r she talks about her mother. Bobbi is more open to processing feelings than she was as a child . Bu t she still is extremely controlled emotionally . She experiences herself as havin g achieved a delicate balance which she must carefully maintain . Once she los t that balance and allowed herself to feel some of her stored up emotion, wit h painful consequences. She relates that two years ago she was attendin g groups for ACOA . She says, 215 at a group one day, I like divulged something that, in it, something that I had talked about before, but never, I kinda always had told it in the thir d person kind of, you know, like it happening, but a narrative, like it wa s happening, but not to me. And that night I did it from a, in a first perso n kind of thing. And I stopped going to meetings after that . I had gone to o far. 1 was not comfortable with that. And then I just stopped . It was like I (2 sec. pause) reopening any of that any more, il I was ready . Then I had to go, I guess, and do a lot of drugs after that (laugh) because that was when 1 really started doing drugs, doing crank. Bobbi wants all of the pain she has experienced to just stay hidden . Sh e would like to never feel it again . She admits, " ...I don think Il ever be heale d of any of it. But (2 sec . pause) it, I think I just, (1 sec. pause) it feels raw, real tense in my stomach." Bobbi must be very careful with her emotions, feelin g enough to participate in relationships with her daughter, boyfriend, and family , but not so much as to cause her pain. Because of the great care she must tak e in controlling her feelings and avoiding certain emotional states, she mus t distort her relationships and experiences . Process in the Interview In the beginning of the interview, Bobbi speaks very matter-of-factly wit h little affect. She gives the facts about her father brutality and her own neglec t as if she were talking about someone else . She speaks more emotionally a s the interview progresses, her emotion sometimes corning out in an angry ton e of voice or in a soft voice. Other times only her breathing betrays the emotio n beneath her matter-of-fact manner. Bobbi becomes tearful only once in thes e two interviews and that is when she first talks about being homeless . She i s clearly overcome and gets tearful as she talks about being homeless and no t wanting to ask her mother for help . The two main times Bobbi voice becomes angry are when she talk s about her father violence in the middle of the interview and when she talks 216 about her mother sudden desire to parent her when she was 11 years old . She seems more comfortable expressing anger about her mother controllin g behavior and abuse than about her neglectful behavior . When Bobbi attempt s to talk about feeling unloved, she can barely talk . Three times in thes e interviews, Bobbi voice drops almost to a whisper . In the childhood interview , this happens when Bobbi is asked if she felt loved by her mother and sh e answers, "No. No . I guess I knew my mom loved me. I knew deep down tha t (too soft to be heard) but it wasn something ever communicated ." It happen s again in the Parenting Interview when Bobbi tells of comforting her mother afte r a beating and telling her she loves her. Again her voice gets very soft . Th e other time this happens is when Bobbi is asked to compare her relationship wit h Samantha to herswith her own mother . Bobbi says, "There lots o f differences. Like, for one, I close to her and (too soft to hear clearly) I wasn t close to my mom. (3 sec. pause.)" Although Bobbi cannot say in words how sh e feels about her mother, her voice clearly communicates how painful thos e feelings are. Bobbi breathing changes in odd ways in some parts of the interview . Several times she catches her breath as in a gasp, and several times she pant s heavily. She gasps at six different times. Once is when she talks about he r brother and sister being angry at her for ruining their lives . This passage , discussed in the Coherency section, is quite disorganized . Bobbi doesn t mention any emotion, but draws in her breath sharply while she talks . A secon d time Bobbi gasps in this way is when she tells how her mother put money dow n on a house when she left Bobbi father . Again, Bobbi does not say how sh e felt. Two other times Bobbi catches her breath this way happen when she talk s about Samantha. Once is when she describes Samantha as "big and smart ." 217 The other time is as she tells of her daughter being homeless and without a dad. The last two times Bobbi gasps as she talks are when she talks abou t Shorty. She catches her breath as she says . "I miss them. It real sad . I wa s real upset when he died, but . They were just fabulous people" and again a s she says, "And I really--I had this idea for a, a, not a real conscious idea, but this feeling for years, that Shorty just abandoned me, just (catches breath) just left ." Some these times are obviously emotionally upsetting to her and other time s the emotional significance is less clear. Many of these excerpts center aroun d the theme of loss and abandonment . Bobbi has episodes of panting about four times in these interviews . Onc e is when she talks about missing Shorty . The other three times are while talkin g about her mother. The first time she is talking about how her mother threatene d to shoot the man who raped Bobbi . Then her mother realizes that if she went t o jail, who would take care of her children? At this point Bobbi begins to breath e heavily. The second time is when Bobbi mentions that she does not talk to he r mother as frequently now as in the past because her mother is busy with a ne w job and a boyfriend . The fourth time Bobbi has a panting episode is in tellin g about her mother finding her "inner child," an important incident which wa s discussed above. All of the above segments are about someone abandonin g or being unavailable to Bobbi . Bobbi tries to be matter-of-fact when discussing her life, trying to not be upset and just deal with it, just as she tried to do in her childhood . But he r strong emotions cannot be completely suppressed and manifest in way s beyond her control . In these interviews, her feelings manifest in breathin g abnormalities. Bobbi has also several times referred to tension in her stomac h and digestive problems that she believes are emotionally based . She relates 218 crying to throwing up and says she swallows her feelings . In summary, Bobbi has attempted to numb her feelings all her life. From a very young age, her feelings must have been too disorganizing to experience . When they get too hard to suppress, Bobbi uses drugs to help keep her fro m thinking or feeling . Bobbi is more openly emotional discussing people wh o have hurt her the least, primarily Shorty and Samantha . She can talk about he r anger and feelings of abandonment by her father . Bobbi can barely talk at al l about her emotional relationship with her mother . When she tries, she loses he r voice, gasps, or immediately disowns any negative feelings . Bobbi therap y experience seems to have been significant in allowing her to feel even to th e minimal extent that she does. Bobbi now feels she must stay very tightl y controlled emotionally to protect the fragile balance she has found . Secure Base and Separation s The concept of a secure base rests on the observed behavior of youn g children who alternately explore their environment and return to their caretake r for reassuring contact before venturing out again . This reassurance can b e physical, verbal, or visual. The child can safely explore knowing that his/he r caretaker is available. If the caretaker appears unavailable to the child, th e child must find some way to reassure and protect him/herself, and secure bas e behavior will be distorted . The child develops adaptive (defensive) behaviors t o protect against both perceived danger and anxiety about the caretaker s unavailability . Some common patterns of distorted secure base behavior are describe d by Lieberman Pawl (1990) . The child may become reckless and accident 219 prone as a counterphobic defense against perceived danger . Bobbi describe s herself as a child as accident prone . The child may become inhibited and afrai d to explore at all . A third possibility is that the child may become excessivel y self-reliant. This child develops precocious competence in self-protection . Samantha shows some aspects of this pattern as did Bobbi as a child . In thi s pattern, the child appears exceptionally independent, showing little anxiet y related to needing the mother protection . Instead, the child shows a solicitou s concern for the mother, often shown by an awareness of her moods and eve n play centering around nurturing the mother . These children perceive thei r mothers as both loving and in need of protection. According to the cite d authors, the mothers in these situations are often caring and emotionall y invested in their children, but frequently too self-absorbed to be consistentl y emotionally available. They are sometimes sensitive and responsive and othe r times unavailable emotionally, according to their own inner needs . Althoug h the child adaptive behavior may not manifest specifically in secure bas e behavior, the child clearly assumes a large part of the mother role i n protection from danger. The child self-reliant behavior may appear to b e healthy, but the child real insecurity about the mother availability manifest s in a "whole repertoire of behaviors indicative of anxiety ...such as night wakings , eating disturbances, frequent and prolonged temper tantrums, and a pervasiv e soberness of affect." (Lieberman Pawl, 1990, p . 392). Bobbi fits the profile described above of a mother who is sincerely carin g and involved, but whose psychic pain limits her ability to consistently see he r daughter clearly and respond to her appropriately . She is inconsistentl y available to protect her daughter and sees Samantha self-reliance a s evidence of her well-adjustedness . Sometimes Bobbi appears to supervise 220 Samantha. For instance, swimming at the river, Bobbi stays near Samanth a and makes sure she comes out of the water when she is cold . She also report s that she has taught Samantha about the dangers of playing in the street an d electric outlets. On the other hand, Bobbi emphatically denies several time s that Samantha needs to be supervised when she plays outside in the yard o r when she rides her bike . She says that Samantha just doesn do anythin g dangerous. She seems to let Samantha go wherever she wants when they visi t a gathering at a farm. She says that Samantha checks back with her to mak e sure that what she was doing was "OK with everybody...But it was clear that, that she made her decision and that that was OK with her and probably wit h everybody else. And if they didn like it, well that was their problem ." Bobb i perceives Samantha not as coming back for reassuring contact, but to check fo r permission to do what she intended to do anyway . The issue is not whether o r not Samantha is indeed safe at the farm or in the yard, but that Bobbi does not perceive Samantha as needing protection from her . She assumes Samantha can take care of herself and will even ignore or fight her if she tries to se t protective limits. Bobbi therefore sets very few limits on Samantha behavior . Samantha must do that herself. Bobbi also appears totally unconcerned abou t her mother revelation that Bobbi ex-husband had sexually molested Bobbi s younger sister years before and that Samantha could be at risk for incestuou s behavior by her father. Bobbi takes no steps to protect Samantha and denie s the possibility that he would ever do anything like that . On the emotional level, Bobbi can sometimes protect Samantha fro m harm. For instance, she defends Samantha right to say "no" to her angr y neighbor. She comforts and reassures Samantha when she goes to visit he r father for a weekend . Bobbi also comforts Samantha when she is afraid of train 221 noises and holds her when she is tired . Despite these times when Samantha shows she needs her mother, Bobb i continues to see Samantha as independent . She contends that Samantha ha s never had any anxiety about separations . Asked how Samantha feels whe n she is separated from her, Bobbi answers, "I don, I don think she minds at all . I don think she ever has . Urn . Maybe it part of that well-adjustedness ." Asked about Samantha reactions to being left as a baby, Bobbi answers , "None. None . She had an excellent day care when she was little, so she neve r had any reaction at all." Bobbi then tells about one day care place in which th e care providers would play into it. I mean it was real clear that she get upset whe n Morn was leaving and they coddle her and say, "Oh Morn, stay anothe r couple minutes," you know. We got out of that day care because I could tell from just dropping her off that they, that she was going to have a lot of control over these people and was probably not going to be getting a whole lot of educational care if they were constantly babying her like that . And she never been a baby, you know, weak, helpless, but they wer e treating her that way. And I noticed that, you know, it wasn going t o work out, so we didn stick with that . She never had any problem wit h leaving. It is clear from Bobbi narrative that indeed Samantha did get upset whe n Bobbi left her. But Bobbi systematically ignores this fact . This is a case of th e generality not matching the specific incident and it points out a distorted area i n Bobbi internal models . Bobbi denies Samantha attachment behavior s o completely that she actually denies that Samantha was ever a baby . Sh e cannot admit that Samantha was weak and helpless and may even still hav e weak and helpless feelings . Bobbi says she did not want Samantha distres s noticed or responded to because that would give Samantha control over he r caregivers. Bobbi sees babies as exerting control through their attachmen t needs. If she can see Samantha as having no attachment needs, that would 222 lessen Samantha power over her . Bobbi wants Samantha to be powerfu l enough to take care of herself. Bobbi sees Samantha as having no reaction to being apart from her whe n they are separated. Bobbi says she thinks Samantha " ...feels just like she always does. I really do . ause I think she really confident that Il be back ." Bobbi imagines that when Samantha is a teenager, she will be out on her own , making her own decisions, just as she does now . She describes Samantha a s strong and gives as an example the way in which Samantha interacted with a policeman who came to their house to arrest a friend of Bobbi boyfriend . Mos t three-year-old children would be frightened if an armed policeman came int o their house to arrest someone . According to Bobbi, Samantha reacted in a different way. ...she there watching Bambi and the first thing she told him was that sh e couldn see the TV and he would have to move . To this cop, you know ... And she was just like, "Youe gonna have to move . I can see the TV ." So he said, "Excuse me" and moved back. And then she got up an d walked over to him and kind of checked him out and ...said "Youe going to have to get out of my house." And the cop said, "Well, why?" And sh e said, "Because you have a gun. You have to get out of my house ." An d he did....He went out and gave somebody his gun and got a teddy bea r and brought it back in to her ...And she had no problem telling this co p that he was just going to have to get out of the house because he had a gun. In this episode in which a child would be expected to show strong secur e base behavior, Samantha acted as if she were the adult in the household an d took steps to protect her family . Samantha defends her mother to her mother s boyfriend in arguments and yells at other drivers who are discourteous to Bobbi . Even in play, Samantha takes on the protective role, playing at saving he r mother from sharks while swimming and saying, "Youe safe now, Mom ." Generally a young child seeks comfort and assistance from an adult when 223 physically hurt. Samantha, however, has a long-standing pattern of runnin g away when she is injured and refusing to let Bobbi see her injury . When sh e has calmed down, then she wants kisses and bandaids . Bobbi is concerne d about this and thinks it is due to how Samantha father treats her when she i s hurt. However Samantha developed this pattern, it is another way in which sh e hides her neediness from her mother . Samantha acts overly self-reliant in many situations, but her anxiety ove r her mother inconsistency emerges in other ways . She resists going to bed , often insisting upon sleeping in the living room and getting out of be d repeatedly before crying herself to sleep when she is forced to remain in bed . She wakes several times each night terrified from train whistles . When sh e goes to visit her father, she cries and hangs on to her mother, saying she doe s not want to go. She also shows an extremely controlling, punitive form o f reunion behavior when her mother picks her up from her babysitter each day . Samantha refuses to leave and screams at her mother that she hates her . Bobbi sees Samantha as being very strong and independent an d systematically denies her neediness . Samantha shows clear over - independent, caretaking behavior. She also shows a good deal of anxiet y about being separated from her mother. It seems likely that Bobbi has not bee n able to serve as a secure base on a consistent enough basis for Samantha t o really have confidence in her availability. There may be several reasons fo r this. Bobbi was a drug addict for much of Samantha second year of life . Sh e admits that she could not have been a very good mother during that time . He r behavior toward Samantha was probably erratic and inconsistent . Following that, Bobbi and Samantha were homeless for three months and lived wit h various relatives as well as in a tent and in their car . Bobbi felt frightened and 224 helpless during this time and could not have been a reassuring, protectiv e figure for her daughter. Added to this is Bobbi traumatic childhood with he r own forced early independence . She could not express her own needs fo r protection or her distress at being separated from her mother and so has a difficult time acknowledging those feelings in her daughter . Sensitivity and Insight Bobbi is aware that she did not receive the kind of parenting she neede d as a child. She loves her daughter and wants her daughter to grow u p differently. To that end, Bobbi tries to treat her with the respect she hersel f lacked. Bobbi believes strongly that Samantha should be allowed to hav e feelings, express those feelings, and have other people attend to her feelings . Several times in the interview, Bobbi says things like, "She knows .she has a right to feel any way she wants to feel ." Bobbi tells a neighbor that Samanth a "could tell anybody othat she wants to ." Bobbi tries to listen to Samantha s feelings, saying , We communicate really well and she not afraid to communicate wha t she feels about things...le encouraged that, that if she feels a certai n way, it OK to tell me about it because it easier for me to understand if I , I know. Bobbi tries to respect and respond to Samantha needs in various ways . She feels very strongly that Samantha should be allowed to eat when she i s hungry rather than when Bobbi prepares dinner, despite criticism by her friend s that she spoils Samantha by feeding her on demand . Bobbi also has tried to be sensitive to Samantha difficulty at bedtime . For a long time she let Samantha sleep in the living room where she felt mos t secure. When she forces Samantha to make the transition to a bedroom, she 225 does it gradually in small steps over a period of time, so that Samantha ca n adjust gradually to a more structured bedtime routine . When Samantha wake s at night Bobbi comforts her and feels sympathetic, saying, "She just, she jus t scared. But in the morning she just lonely I think ." Bobbi can accept thes e feelings with empathy and respond to Samantha sensitively . Bobbi is very war y of authoritarian attitudes and tries to protect Samantha from people who wil l treat her in an authoritarian manner. She says a main reason she divorced he r husband was because of his authoritarianism and unreasonable expectation s of Samantha as a baby. She feels her boyfriend is also arbitrary an d authoritarian and so she tries to protect Samantha from him . Bobbi tries to be sensitive to Samantha needs even if she doesn t understand them. For instance, when Samantha runs away to hide her injury , Bobbi respects Samantha needs . She says , I guess I feel like just grabbing her and looking . But I don really want t o invade her space. There, something must have happened to make he r so afraid of being touched and if she hurt, that, that I don want to ( 1 sec. pause) make her relate that to me...at first...l thought it was like a stage or that something had happened and it would pass when sh e realized I wasn, I wasn, urn (1 sec .) the enemy when she was hurt. Bu t it, it been a couple years now and it hasn gone away . I have a feelin g that her dad probably told her she not hurt . Bobbi respects her daughter and has some insight into her feelings . Sh e responds by staying close by, but giving Samantha time to eventually come t o her with the injury. Bobbi respects Samantha desire to master bikeriding o n her own even though she would like to help her . She puts plates down low i n the kitchen so Samantha can get her own food if she wants to . Bobbi is als o responsive to Samantha desire for physical affection . She lets Samanth a "trace from freckle to freckle" or lay her head on Bobbi breast when she i s tired. She welcomes her into bed to snuggle in the morning . In all of these 226 ways, Bobbi is able to respond sensitively to Samantha needs . But Bobbi is not entirely responsive to Samantha and her understandin g of Samantha needs is sometimes confused . In the emotional realm, Bobb i professes to accept all of Samantha feelings, but she cannot always do this . There is sometimes a contradiction between what Bobbi says and what sh e actually does. For instance, Bobbi reports that Samantha often cries herself t o sleep because she doesn want to go to bed . Bobbi says she feels awfu l hearing Samantha cry, but she doesn respond to her sadness with any attemp t at comfort. In another incident, Bobbi punishes Samantha for a transgressio n by making her stay in her room . When Samantha comes out and pleads tha t she has learned her lesson and won do it again, Bobbi says she can see tha t Samantha has learned and that the punishment is no longer necessary . Bobb i also says she realizes that Samantha has only gotten into trouble because sh e (Bobbi) was in her room studying and ignoring Samantha . Still, even thoug h she has insight into what is happening, Bobbi decides that she should stan d firm and insists that Samantha stay in her room for the rest of the evening . Samantha cries, Bobbi yells at her and spanks her, and everyone feels awful b y the end of it . If Bobbi had chosen to respond sensitively to Samantha, th e episode would have ended differently . Bobbi also does not always trust that Samantha feelings are genuine . Bobbi accepts Samantha feelings of anger easily, but is somewhat suspiciou s about her neediness . For instance, Bobbi insists that Samantha does not min d being separated from her. Yet, Bobbi tells a detailed story about ho w Samantha cries as she leaves for her father house . She comforts Samanth a but says also that she "doesn want to make a big scene out of it ." Asked ho w she thinks Samantha feels, Bobbi answers, "She apparently either doesn want 227 to (go) or wants me to think she doesn want to or something like that ." Similarly, Bobbi responds sympathetically to Samantha fear of train whistle s in the night, but in discussing the fears, Bobbi says, " ...it happens even when she asleep, so this is a serious fear . I mean, it not like something that she s even playing up to get more attention out of this ." Bobbi is suspicious o f Samantha attachment needs because she sees them as possibl e manipulative bids for attention. When Samantha asks for help with her shoes , Bobbi gets angry because, "I feel like she doing it just to make me do i t sometimes. Or just because she doesn want to try to do it ." Bobbi boyfrien d encourages this point of view and Bobbi says, "It become an even better issu e for her since my boyfriend moved in with us ." Bobbi seems completely unawar e of her boyfriend competition with Samantha for Bobbi attention . He r boyfriend tells Bobbi that she helps other people too much and should think o f herself more; he includes Samantha as one of the people Bobbi should sto p catering to. Bobbi seems to have no insight into her boyfriend competitio n with Samantha . Asked how she thinks Samantha feels at these times, Bobbi says , I imaging that she probably feels really powerful (short laugh) I mean , I, there a lot of times when I think . m house, mom house, but she runs it . And those are some times when I really feel that really strongly, that she feels like she really run s everything. Bobbi is suspicious of Samantha attachment behavior because she i s afraid of being controlled by her. Bobbi often sees her relationships with other s as power struggles. One person or the other must be "running" things . Wit h Samantha, sometimes Bobbi tries to take control, but more often she accedes t o Samantha wishes in an attempt to be respectful of her . In her desire to be 228 responsive, Bobbi sometimes fails to set limits and provide a structure tha t would help Samantha feel more secure . One example of this is Bobbi s permitting Samantha to expose her (Bobbi) breasts in public . Anothe r example of lack of limits masquerading as sensitivity is Bobbi allowin g Samantha to eat junky food even though Bobbi doesn want her to . Bobb i mistakes surrender to Samantha demands for sensitivity to her real needs . A complete discussion of Bobbi tendency to see relationships as powe r struggles appears in the "Self and Others" section of this analysis . For now, it i s sufficient to observe that Bobbi fears of being controlled by othersneeds or o f abusively controlling others sometimes prevents her from respondin g sensitively to Samantha . In summary, Bobbi is not consistently insightful and sensitive towar d Samantha. Sometimes she responds appropriately and nurturingly . Othe r times, she sees what should be done and doesn do it . Still other times, Bobb i is suspicious of Samantha expressed feelings and afraid of being controlle d by them. In an attempt to avoid power struggles, she frequently fails to respon d with sensitive structuring . Self and Others Childhood Bobbi attachment figures in her childhood were her mother, her father , and Shorty and his wife . They were all quite different . She behaved differentl y with each of them. 229 With father: Bobbi saw her father as a violent, domineering man who hurt others . Bobbi saw him abuse everyone. He abused her as part of the group, bu t singled her out to treat somewhat more kindly . Bobbi does not remember bein g personally abused by her father (although this doesn necessarily mean i t didn happen .) He verbally mistreated Bobbi and abandoned her after bein g divorced by her mother. Bobbi felt like she had to be completely passive whe n her father was around to protect herself from his violence . She felt rejected b y him and not good enough to please him . She sometimes felt close to him . Sh e wanted his love. Bobbi internal models of her father and her self with hi m appear to have been : Other: My father frightens me and hurts me. He is arbitrarily kind to me . H e is completely out my control, Self : I am completely overpowered and helpless. I am frightened . I am no t as bad as my brothers and sisters. With mother: Bobbi saw her mother as detached from her . She was not a dependabl e source of care. She also saw her as overwhelmed and needy of care an d assistance for herself. Bobbi has few memories of her mother from he r childhood. Bobbi says she thinks her parents were indifferent to her . She go t no attention for being bad or good . She feels like she was just another proble m to her mother. Bobbi felt that she was similar to her mother and took care of her . Bobbi internal models of her mother and her self with her appears to hav e been: 230 Other: My mother is not here. She is not available to me for anything . My mother is powerless and needs protection, comfort, and help . Self: I am alone and unimportant. I do not deserve care . I cannot elicit care . I can make contact with my mother through taking care of her . With Shorty (and his wife) : Bobbi saw Shorty as kind, attentive, and dependable . She chose t o spend as much time with him as possible. Bobbi says that Shorty treated her a s a person, worthy of respect and worth spending time with . She says he treate d her as a little adult. She felt better with him than at home . Bobbi interna l models of Shortyand her self appear to have been : Other: Shorty is available and responsive. He will take care of me . Self: I deserve to exist. I am good and deserve care . I am competent . 1 can elicit care from Shorty. In general: Bobbi resulting models of herself and others were : Others: Others are powerful . frightening, unavailable and unresponsive . Others are completely preoccupied with themselves . Shorty is a n unexplainable exception _ Self: I don exist to others . I am powerless and cannot control the actions o f others toward me. I have no needs of my own, but I can take care of others . I am abandoned . 231 As an Adult with Mother Bobbi sees her mother now as competent, hard-working, and courageous , and is proud of her. Her mother dotes on Samantha, but is available to Bobb i only on her own terms. Bobbi says that she and her mother are very close now . Bobbi feels that she is acceptable to her mother in some ways and not in others . She cannot elicit care from her mother when she acts like a needy child, onl y when she acts like an equal . Bobbi internal models of her mother and her sel f with her now appears to be : Qther: My mother cares about me but is only sometimes available o r responsive. My mother is like me. Self: I am acceptable because I am like my mother. I can manipulat e mother into giving me care . As an Adult with Childre n Bobbi sees Samantha in entirely powerful terms . She says that Samanth a was never a weak, helpless baby and describes her with words such as mature , capable, strong, powerful, adept, angry, manipulative, and independent . Although Bobbi relates many incidents in which Samantha is insecure, scared , or upset, Bobbi does not incorporate these qualities into her internal model o f Samantha. Bobbi sees herself in relation to Samantha as alternatel y surrendering to Samantha powerful demands and resisting those demands . She sees herself and Samantha as equals . Bobbi internal model o f Samantha and her self with Samantha appears to be : Other: Samantha is a powerful person . She deserves respect and love . She can manipulate me and others to get what she wants . 232 Self: I am competent to take care of Samantha. I cannot control her, but sh e can control me. As an Adult with Peers Bobbi feels that she is at the power of other people in relationships . In th e past she feels that her husband "walked on" her and that others have used her . She says she always gets involved with the underdog, people she can hel p who then "can later go away and not say thank you ." Bobbi says that now sh e wants to be totally in control in her relationships so that she will not be hurt . Bobbi internal models of her self and others as peers seems to be : Others: Others want my help. but are unresponsive to my needs. Other s usually hurt me or leave me. Self: I am not in control. I can take care of others, but I cannot elicit car e from them. I need to protect myself .. Continuity and Change in Internal Model s Bobbi childhood relationships were so frightening to her that she cope d with them by disconnecting herself from them as much as possible . She say s that as a child she was "completely independent ." If she could feel like she wa s not really in relationship with her mother and her father, she would feel safer . Bobbi removed herself from her family physically by spending as much tim e away as possible. She removed herself emotionally and mentally by refusing t o completely integrate her experiences psychically. Bobbi fear of her father i s somewhat conscious and integrated as has been demonstrated by the previou s analysis. She was terrified of him and dealt with her fear by becoming 233 completely passive around him as she saw her mother do . She formed a n internal model of her father as powerful, dangerous, arbitrary, an d uncontrollable. Her complementary internal model of herself was as someon e powerless, controlled, and in danger . Bobbi relationship with her mothe r seems to have been more frightening to her as demonstrated by he r incoherence in discussing it and her lack of memory concerning it as well as he r disorganized emotional responses. Bobbi mother passivity and refusal t o care for her must have been more terrifying even than her father violence . A t least when he was angry, there was proof that she existed . When her mothe r refused to care for her and treated her with indifference, Bobbi must have fel t completely at sea, unable to get a response that validated her being . With bot h parents, Bobbi formed internal representational models of others a s unresponsive and unavailable and herself as having no power to influenc e others to obtain care . Bobbi could only feel connected to her mother in tw o ways, through identification and caretaking . Bobbi several times refers to a global feeling that her mother "saw me like herself or something ." Another tim e Bobbi refers to her own passivity saying, "...it just (1 sec. pause) fit in well with my mom ause you could see that related to herself, just like she was ." Bobb i still identifies with her mother as an adult. By being the same, even in a vagu e way, Bobbi could feel connected to her mother . The only real communicatio n Bobbi mentions having with her mother as a child involves caretaking . Bobb i took care of her mother, hugging, supporting, and reassuring her on a regula r basis. She also took care of her sister for her mother . If Bobbi did not take car e of her mother, her mother implied that she had no right to be alive. It comes a s no surprise that caretaking becomes a major way Bobbi relates to others as a n adult. 234 Bobbi claims that she takes care of friends who are later ungrateful an d leave her. Her boyfriend is much younger than she and appears to compet e with Samantha for Bobbi attention . She seems to play a caretaking role wit h him, insisting upon taking care of all financial matters and living arrangement s in order to remain in control of the relationship. When she was homeless he left her and then came back when she was financially stable again . Bobbi conceptualizes relationships in terms of who is in control . As a child, power and powerlessness were major components of her relationships . Her father was powerful; she was helpless. Her mother was nearly absent ; Bobbi was powerless to get nurturing from her. Bobbi says in the interview tha t she grew up feeling "that people made me feel a certain way ....l really thought that...external experiences, and I still do to a degree, feel that external experiences have a lot of control over what I feel ." Bobbi sees Samantha a s she saw her parents as a child, as a very powerful person . To Bobbi, Samanth a is strong, overbearing, yells loud, and (Bobbi imagines) as a teenager will b e able to physically overpower Bobbi . Bobbi says, of Samantha , And power is her demon. She has a lot of power over both her dad an d my boyfriend who lives with us. A lot of power, a lot of manipulativ e power, a lot of, I mean, just getting into fights with them is a way that she just achieves this immense power. It so funny that they can grasp that . But uh, she, she does it to me too. For the power . She does it to me. Bu t anyway, um, (1 sec. pause) there are times when I just not into it , usually I will just, disengage and say, "Well, you can feel that way if yo u want to" or "You can say that if you want to, but I don want to be a part of it." But a lot of, there are times when I can do that . As this excerpt shows, Bobbi seems to see Samantha as she saw her father, a s possessing almost demonic power over people by fighting with them . Bobbi also sees Samantha as controlling people through her needines s as illustrated in the story about Bobbi removing Samantha from a particular day 235 care situation. Bobbi removed her because she could see that Samantha wa s going to have "a lot of control over these people" who responded to her upse t with indulgence. Bobbi resists helping Samantha with things because she feel s controlled by her. She says when Samantha wants her help, she think s Samantha "probably feels really powerful ." When Bobbi is forced into th e caregiving role against her will, she feels manipulated and powerless . Sh e sees the person with the needs as very powerful . Possibly Bobbi felt this wa y when her mother forced her into the caregiving role with her or her sister . So, to Bobbi, Samantha is powerful no matter what she does . If she i s strong and independent, Bobbi sees her as controlling ; if she is weak an d needy, Bobbi sees her as controlling . Samantha can be powerful an d punishing like Bobbi father or powerful and needy like Bobbi mother . I n either case, Bobbi does not feel like she herself is in control. She seems to feel more comfortable having Samantha control through strength than throug h weakness. At least then, less is demanded of Bobbi . Bobbi does not want to control her daughter (even if she thought sh e could) because to her, that would be a sign of disrespect . Bobbi wants t o respect her daughter feelings . She talks about this in an odd way, however . She says, concerning something Samantha wanted to do, "She made he r decision and...if they didn like it that was their problem ." Another time sh e says, concerning Samantha feelings, that Samantha knew what she wante d and, "If you don like it, you can lump it ." Bobbi sees having a feeling an d stating it as almost an aggressive act . Perhaps for Bobbi as a child, havin g feelings would have been an act of self-assertion or aggression . If Samanth a has a feeling, Bobbi thinks she must like it or lump it. There is no sense tha t Bobbi sees the two of them as working together cooperatively to find the best 236 solution for both of them. Bobbi only childhood model of a non-power based relationship was wit h Shorty and Dotty. As Bobbi talked about them, she realized that she tries t o treat Samantha the way they treated her . I know that they treated me as a child like a person. And I sure tha t has something to do with the fact that I think that Samantha is a respectable person and it OK to (1 sec . pause) you know, for her to speak her mind. ause they treated me like a little adult . (laugh)...I try to treat her like a little adult. (2 sec . pause) They didn completely treat m e like a little adult, but a whole lot more than most parents would ....) drank coffee and tea with them...and uh,I started smoking at a real young age, and Shorty was just like, well, if that what youe gonna do, you e gonna do it. Just be very careful . (3 sec . pause) They treated me wit h respect to let me make my own decisions. (3 sec . pause) And that s what I try to do with Samantha. It is natural that Bobbi, in trying to avoid abusing or neglecting Samantha , would choose to reenact the most nurturing relationship she had eve r experienced. This model is more nurturing than those Bobbi has from he r parents because it is a model of equal power and mutual affection . In treatin g Samantha as a little adult, however, she neglects to set limits and guid e Samantha as she makes decisions, giving Samantha more control over her lif e than she is able to handle . Bobbi ideally tries to treat Samantha as an equal . However, th e relationship between parent and young child is not a relationship of equals . The child must be permitted to be helpless and needy and be taken care o f while the adult takes on the complementary role of nurturer and protector . I n trying to maintain a relationship of equals and avoid power struggles, Bobbi e inadvertently creates a power vacuum . Samantha insecurity at not bein g protected well enough causes her to be precociously self-reliant, caretakin g toward Bobbi, and anxious about separations from her . Samantha ends up 237 acting controlling toward her mother to compensate for her mother lack o f control in the relationship. Her self reliance and her anxiety both make he r seem powerful to Bobbi, confirming Bobbi fears that other people will alway s control her. At this point, Bobbi seems to usually play the non-powerful role in powe r struggles with Samantha. Bobbi fears being authoritative and in contro l because she thinks that position is necessarily abusive and nonrespectful . Bu t there will be times, as in the "discipline" incident in the interview, when Bobb i will decide to take the powerful role and could abuse Samantha . Bobbi doe s not have an internal model of a parent who is both authoritative and respectful . The closest she comes to this position is being able to disengage from a struggle, a skill which is useful, but results in more of a "draw" than a mutuall y negotiated solution . Sroufe and Fleeson (1986) suggest that children learn both sides of th e parent-child internal model, and then they act out the caregiver side when the y are parents. Bobbi parenting style seems to combine elements of he r mother style and Shorty style . Like her mother, she expects her daughter t o be independent and not be weak or helpless . Like Shorty, she respect s Samantha feelings and is affectionate and involved . In both models, Bobb i abdicates responsibility for providing structure and setting protective limits . Bobbi seems to not act out her father parenting style . Instead, she clings t o her own role in that relationship and casts Samantha in the power role . Bobb i seems to combine all of her internal models from her childhood and end up in a continual potential power struggle with a child whom she sees simultaneousl y as an equal, a power-hungry controller, and a needy, controlling child . 238 Independent Analysi s Two independent raters analyzed the Family (Childhood) Interview . Thei r ratings were reviewed after the entire previous analysis was completed . All o f the scores are evaluated on a scale of 1-9 in which 1 indicates a low amount o f that quality and 9 a high amount of that quality . Ratings which are hyphenate d signify that the most accurate rating would fall between those two scores . The raters assigned Bobbi a score of (3) for Acceptance by her mother an d a score of (6-7) for Rejection by her mother. They rated her mother a (6) on th e Neglect scale. They gave her a score of (6-7) on Emotional Expressivenes s and (5) for Consistency. These scores are consistent with the previou s analysis, although they are somewhat less extreme than the main researche r would have rated. The main researcher would have rated Bobbi mothe r higher on the Neglect score and lower on Emotional Expresiveness . The raters gave Bobbi a fairly high score of (7) on Role Reversal with her mother. They gave Bobbi a score of (6) for Expressed Anger at her mother no w and a (4) on the Idealization scale . The main researcher in this study woul d have given a slightly higher score for Role Reversal and a lower score fo r Expressed Anger now. The raters gave Bobbi a score of (3-2) for Proximity - Seeking with her mother as a child, implying that she rarely used her mother a s a secure base. They gave her a high score of (7) for current closeness . They assigned a Dominance rating of (4-3) on a scale in which 1 implies high chil d dominance and 9, high parental dominance in the relationship . The raters assigned Bobbi father an Acceptance score of (3-2) and a high Rejection score of (8). They rated him as (7) on the Neglect scale and (8 ) on the Emotional Expressivity scale. They gave him a score of (4) on th e Consistency scale. The raters assigned Bobbi father the lowest score of (1) 239 for Role Reversal tendencies. They gave Bobbi a (7) for Expressed Anger no w toward her father and (2-3) for Idealization of him . Bobbi was given a (2) for Proximity-Seeking with her father as a child and a (2) for current closeness wit h him . Bobbi father was given the highest score of (9) for Dominance in th e relationship . All of these father scores are consistent with the opinion of th e main researcher . The independent raters assigned Bobbi a score of (4-3) on the Coherenc e scale, citing her unintegrated image of her mother and her lack of insight int o her current situation with her boyfriend and mother . This low Coherence ratin g is consistent with the previous main analysis. They noted that Bobbi had 1 5 instances of inappropriate laughter, insisted on not remembering once, an d answered questions with "I don know" five times . The independent raters scored Bobbi as quite high (8) on the Separatio n Anxiety scale. They noted some Adolescent Rebellion with a score of (5) . Bobbi was given a low score (3) for Self-Confidence . Bobbi was assigned th e highest possible score (9) on tendency to be a Caregiver to others . She als o was rated high on Emotional Dependence (8) and Jealousy (7) . She was give n the lowest possible score for Trust (1) and low average ratings for Expressivit y (4) and Warmth (4). These ratings are quite consistent with the main analysis . The raters felt that Bobbi self image was Low . They cited her low self - confidence and high separation anxiety and noted that she still feel s abandoned by her father and rejected by others . They felt she showed hig h dependence, allowing others to take advantage of her and feeling like she i s not in control of her life. They also rated Bobbi as having a Low image of other s and being avoidant of closeness as demonstrated by her lack of trust in others . They cited as well her low proximity seeking as a child, her disengagement from 240 her family, her coping style of rigidly controlling her feelings, and her use o f drugs as an escape . The main researcher is in agreement on these points . However, the researcher sees Bobbi flight from her family and toward a supportive relationship with a neighbor as indicating some trust in others and a tendency to seek proximity to an attachment figure who would be responsive . The independent raters assigned Bobbi a score on each of the fou r attachment categories (or relationship styles.) They rated her very low (2-1) o n the Secure style. They noted that she has at least thought about her past an d its effects, but there is no indication that she has come to terms with her past experience emotionally or intellectually. Nor is she able to develop new Secur e style relationships. They do note some improvement in her relationship with he r mother. They assigned Bobbi a (2-3) on the Dismissing style because she i s trying hard to be, but with little success . Elements of her Dismissing tendencie s are her childhood disengagement from her family and her controllin g relationship with her current boyfriend. They assigned Bobbi a rating of (3) on the Preoccupied scale, citing her continuing efforts to reach out to her father . They also noted her enmeshment with her mother, including her continue d identification with her, conflict as a teenager, and the idealization in their curren t relationship. The raters scored Bobbi highest on the Fearful Style with a scor e of (7). They cited her extreme self-protectiveness and lack of trust . She wa s compulsively compliant as a child. They noted that she is afraid of getting clos e to people and that although her coping style is avoidant, she is still vulnerable . These rating are consistent with the evaluation of the main researcher . 24 1 Questionnaires Children of Alcoholics Screening Tes t On the CAST, Bobbi answered "yes" to 21 of the questions and "no" to 9 of the questions. This clearly indicates that Bobbi parents had a drinkin g problem. Relationship Questionnair e On the forced choice question, Bobbi chose the description of the Preoccupied relationship style as the style that best described her feeling i n relationships. The person with this style wants to be completely emotionall y intimate with others, but finds that others may not want to be as close and may not value the relationship as much as she does. The second question asks th e respondent to rate herself on each of the relationship styles on a scale from 1 (Not at all like me) to 7 (Very much like me.) Bobbi rated herself as a 6 on th e Preoccupied style. She rated herself next highest with a score of 4 on th e Dismissing style which describes a person who feels independent an d comfortable without close relationships. She gave herself a 3 on the Secur e style which describes a person who is comfortable in close relationships, bu t does not worry about being alone . Bobbi rated herself lowest with a score of 2 on the Fearful style. This style describes someone who wants clos e relationships, but is afraid to trust others for fear of being hurt. Bobbi scored herself differently than the independent raters who rated he r interviews. They rated her highest on the Fearful style which reflects a low sel f image and a fear of trusting others . She rated herself lowest on that style . She rated herself highest on the Preoccupied style which also has a low self-image, 242 but expects relationships with others to be gratifying. The rater scored her a s second highest on this scale, but with a fairly low score . The description of th e Fearful style describes precisely the way Bobbi presented herself in th e interviews. She apparently feels more positive about relationships with other s than she expressed in the interviews . Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventor y This inventory has four scales, Inappropriate Expectations, Empathy , Belief in Corporal Punishment, and Role Reversal. Scores are stated as Ste n (Standard) scores ranging from 1-10 . Compared to other Caucasian non - abusive women, Bobbi got a standard score of 2 on the Inappropriat e Expectations scale. This is an extremely low score and indicates a general lac k of understanding of children developmental capabilities . Bobbi seems to b e confused about what young children should be capable of . She endorsed th e "Uncertain" answer on four out of the six statements on this scale. She wa s unsure whether or not children should be expected to talk before the age of on e year, whether or not children under three years of age should be expected t o take care of themselves, whether or not children under the age of one yea r should be expected to feed themselves, and whether or not children unde r three should be expected to feed, bathe, and clothe themselves . Sh e understood that children should not be expected to physically grow at the sam e rate. However, she strongly disagreed with the statement that "Children fiv e months of age are seldom capable of sensing what their parents expect ." Bobbi uncertainty about the items on this scale confirms what the interview s showed, that she expects her daughter to behave with more maturity than is 2 43 normal for her age. Bobbi got a standard score of 7 on the Empathy scale as compared wit h Caucasian, non-abusive women. This score exceeds that of the average paren t and shows that Bobbi places the needs of her child in high regard . Bobb i endorsed all of the items demonstrating empathy that were abou t communication, physical affection, and sensitivity to children moods . However, she marked "Agree" for the statement that read, "Children will qui t crying faster if they are ignored." Bobbi seems to feel that crying is not in th e same category as other feelings or communications and that it should b e stopped rather than attended to. Bobbi got a standard score of 8 on the scale about Physical Punishment , indicating that she utilizes alternatives to abusive punishment and discipline . Bobbi endorsed some items on this scale at the highest level and others at th e next highest level. She was reluctant to strongly endorse items that said tha t parents should "never" use physical punishment . Bobbi score on this scale i s consistent with her strong desire not to abuse her daughter . Bobbi got a standard score of 8 on the scale measuring Role Reversal i n families. This indicates that she has an understanding of appropriate roles an d doesn expect her daughter to meet her needs for self esteem and affection . I n general, Bobbi scores on this inventory are consistent with the informatio n obtained from the interviews . Mother-Father-Peer Scal e On the scale measuring Acceptance and Rejection by her mother, Bobb i scored at the 1 percentile rank . This confirms the information gathered from the 244 interviews indicating that Bobbi mother was exceptionally rejecting . Bobb i also scored below the 1 percentile point for Acceptance from her father . Again , this is not a surprise. These scores are far lower than the scores of the othe r subjects. On the scale measuring her mother support for Independenc e versus Overprotection, Bobbi scored at the 73 percentile point, indicating he r mother stressed independence more than protection. This is consistent with th e previous analysis. On the same scale, Bobbi scored at the 3 percentile point fo r her father, indicating that he did not encourage independence . However, h e was not overprotective, but controlling in his discouraging independence . Bobbi got the lowest possible score for idealization of her mother . Although sh e idealizes her mother now, she did not idealize her as a child . Bobbi also got a low score for idealization of her father . She endorsed one idealization item, "M y father and I never disagreed ." However, her endorsement of this item meant no t that they always agreed, but that she was terrified to disagree with him . On th e Peer Interaction Scale, Bobbi scored below the 1 percentile mark, indicatin g that she felt very rejected by peers as a child. The results of the M-F-P scale ar e consistent with the information provided by the interviews, especially confirmin g the extreme degree of rejection Bobbi experienced . Hypotheses Bobbi was neglected and abused as a child and developed copin g mechanisms that helped her survive . She also developed insecure models o f relationships in which she saw as others as unavailable for comfort and her sel f as unable to elicit care. She took care of herself most of the time and als o played a protective role toward her mother . As an adult she knows that her 245 childhood was difficult, but tries to not think about it . In the third meeting with th e interviewer, Bobbi examined her interview transcripts and commented that sh e was surprised at how much she is able to block out most of the time . As an adult, Bobbi still has mostly insecure style relationships . She play s a caretaking role with her boyfriend and her friends . She feels controlled by others and so tries to be in control of relationships to protect herself . Bobb i seems to trust Samantha more than anyone else in her life . But Bobb i frequently sees her relationship with Samantha in terms of control and powe r also, feeling that her daughter is really trying to control her . Bobbi must try har d to disengage or stand firm in order not to be controlled by Samantha . Bobbi shows behavior indicative of several attachment styles as she trie s different strategies to deal with relationships . With Samantha, she is sometime s available and responsive, infrequently controlling, often helpless, and probabl y sometimes frightening, especially when she is using drugs . The small amoun t of therapy Bobbi did was significant in changing her attitude toward her ow n feelings. She showed that she was able to modify her internal model of hersel f and see her feelings and needs as important . The unexamined an d unintegrated portions of her internal models have shown litttle change , however. Her frequent suspiciousness toward Samantha attachment need s shows that Bobbi has not entirely accepted that these needs are important . Bobbi currently feels more accepted by her mother than she used to ; she protects that current relationship by not integrating the truth about her feeling s about her mother in childhood . Bobbi current models of relationships kee p her from being able to form secure relationships which could help change he r beliefs about others. Her fear of being controlled or controlling seems to kee p her from forming mutually trusting relationships, but she feels like she is now 2 45 being attracted to friendships with more healthy people . Bobbi love fo r Samantha and desire for her daughter to have a better life than she did coul d be powerful motivations for change . 2 47 CHAPTERV CONCLUSIONS Review of Hypotheses The researcher is aware of the phenomenon of illusory correlation i n which one tends to see what one is looking for and not see what one is no t looking for. Several safeguards against this possibility were employed in thi s study, including using several self-report measures about remembere d childhood experience, parenting attitudes, and relationship style . As well, th e Family Interview was analyzed by two independent raters whose ratings wer e not revealed to the main researcher until after the main analysis was completed . The subjective nature of the analyses and the small sample can be see n as a limitation of the present study. This study, however, was not meant t o produce reproducible statistical results, but rather to be exploratory and t o generate hypotheses about parenting tendencies among women who ha d alcoholic mothers. The limited sample used allowed the researcher to conduc t a more detailed analysis than is usually possible, but the generalizability of th e results may be limited. In this section each of the hypotheses proposed for thi s study are reviewed in light of the evidence supplied by the three cases . 248 Hypotheses Concerning Conten t Hypothesis 1. Daughters of alcoholic mothers will have insecure model s of relationships and will fit into Bartholomew Preoccupied or Fearfu l categories. This hypothesis was confirmed. Attachment category was assigned i n three ways in this study : by each subject herself, by the present researcher, and by two independent raters who rated the Family Interview. A summary of th e ratings follows: Anne: Self rating of Secure with some Dismissing and Preoccupie d tendencies. Researcher: Rated as marginally Secure with significant Dismissing an d Preoccupied tendencies . Raters: Rated as Preoccupied with some Dismissing, Secure, and Fearfu l tendencies . Carol: Self rating of Preoccupied with equally high Fearful tendencies . Researcher: Rated as high on Preoccupied and Fearful styles . Raters: Rated as highest on the Fearful style and moderately high on the Preoccupied style . Bobbi : Self rating as Preoccupied with some Dismissing tendencies . Researcher: Rated as Fearful style . Raters: Rated as Fearful style. It is clear that the Preoccupied and Fearful attachment styles predominate . Both of these attachment styles describe a pattern in which the person has lo w self-esteem and difficulty forming close relationships . In the Preoccupied 2 49 pattern, the person still continues to try toreach out to others; in the Fearful pattern, the person avoids others from lack of trust. Hypothesis 2. These subjects will report incidents of role reversal wit h both their parent and their children . Their levels of denial will vary dependin g upon their attachment behavior. Subjects with a balanced view of attachmen t relationships will show less denial . Denial is demonstrated by memory loss , perceptual distortion, emotional rigidity, and behavioral incongruity . This first part of this hypothesis was confirmed. All subjects reporte d incidents from their childhood in which the child took on the parent role . In al l three cases, there was little role reversal with the father and moderate to hig h role reversal with the mother. All three subjects also reported incident s demonstrating role reversal with their children . Role reversal tendencies wer e similar in the two generations. For instance, Bobbi role reversal as a child an d as a parent revolve around self-protection whereas Anne role reversal in bot h generations concerns emotional support . This second part of this hypothesis is poorly worded . Denial is a n unscientific term used by the ACOA community to refer to the inability to remember or acknowledge unpleasant facts . The attachment literature use s more precise terms for this concepts, such as memory loss or perceptua l distortion. All three subjects admit to having been mistreated as children . O f the three subjects, Bobbi shows the most memory loss concerning he r childhood. She also shows the most incoherence in her presentation o f attachment relationships and had the lowest Secure rating of the three subject s (from the Raters) . Since none of the subjects in this small sample were highl y Secure, it is difficult to conclusively relate denial to attachment style . 250 Hypotheses Concerning Internal Representational Model s Hypothesis 1. A subject internal representational models will b e consistent across relationships--the models will differ only slightly according t o with whom the person is in relationship (parent, child, peer) . The consistency found in these subjects is consistency of degree o f integration and habits of handling the flow of information about attachment . Anne, for instance, can talk about her difficult childhood, but tends to us e defenses such as laughter and joking to distance herself from it . She deals wit h her children similarly, discussing their upsets, and then making fun of them . I n both relationships she can integrate a certain amount of negative emotion, the n must stop. In both relationships she is oriented toward obtaining emotiona l support that is in short supply. Bobbi integrates just certain information abou t her daughter, that which emphasizes competence . She excludes informatio n that would indicate helplessness. In the same way, Bobbi excludes a great dea l of information about her childhood relationship with her mother who was als o helpless. Carol processes information about relationships emotionally and wit h both her parents and her children, tends to feel inadequate . She emphasize s identification as a basis for acceptance with both . Hypothesis 2. Subjects may have experienced changes in thei r attachment behavior and internal representational models over time . Th e direction of these changes may be either from insecure to secure or from secur e to insecure attachment. All three women had insecure relationships with their parents as children . 25 1 They have all become somewhat more secure, but not made large changes . Anne has changed a moderate amount in the direction of becoming mor e secure, a change she attributes to doing counseling . She says she can no w admit that her childhood was painful . She no longer dismisses her pani c attacks and emotional pain as trivial, but sees the reasons for them and accept s them. She acknowledges that this process of change is not complete, however . Carol has more self-confidence than she did as a child and admits that he r childhood was difficult. She has some insight into her past and feelings . Sh e has changed only a small amount in the direction of being more secure tha n she was as a child. Bobbi has changed somewhat in the direction of bein g more secure. She has higher self-esteem than she did as a child . She ca n sometimes respond to Samantha feelings even if she cannot alway s cognitively acknowledge them. She can go to her mother for help sometimes . Anne has changed more than the other two subjects, but none have mad e sweeping changes in their ability to deal with attachment-related information . Hypothesis 3. Subjects may display behavior indicative of all the fou r attachment styles either because they have more than one internal model or ar e in transition from one style to another. All subjects display behavior indicative of the different attachment styles . It is not clear why, but all have several different strategies for dealing wit h attachment related information. Anne displays more different strategies in equa l strengths. Bobbi and Carol seem more limited, having one predominant styl e and smaller amounts of the behavior indicative of other styles . All have move d in the direction of more security since childhood (even if only a small amount) , so perhaps they are in transition, slowly integrating more secure type behavior 252 into their insecure structures. It is more likely that these women have more tha n one set of internal models. This may be due to having had someone wh o treated them with kindness as a child (such as Shorty for Bobbi) or a husban d who is emotionally supportive (such as Anne and Carol .) Under stress, th e subjects tend to revert to a style of processing in which information is mor e distorted. Hypothesis 4. A change in one relationship will affect other relationship s in which the subject is involved . Not all relationships will change at the sam e speed. All internal models may be in the process of changing . There is not enough information in this study to confirm or disconfirm thi s hypothesis. If it were true, the function would be as follows . A major change i n one relationship would affect the person internal models of relationships . Fo r instance, a person structure could change from, "Intimacy will result i n rejection" to "Intimacy can result in acceptance" as a result of having a positiv e experience of intimacy. If the person can integrate this new possibility, s/h e might be willing to take a chance on allowing intimacy in another relationship . In this way, many of a person relationships could conceivably change in th e same direction. This process sometimes happens in a therapy relationship i n which the person experiences feeling accepted and understood and enters int o a mutually trusting relationship. As a result, the person is willing to experimen t with trusting others besides the therapist . in this study, however, there was not enough information about significan t change to illustrate this process . The evidence presented is inconclusive . Fo r instance, Bobbi is closer to her mother now than she used to be . But there is n o evidence that feeling accepted by her mother has affected Bobbi other 253 relationships. Similarly, having a stable, accepting relationship with he r husband does not seem to have made Carol feel that other people will accep t her. Possibly Bobbi and Carol have encoded these improved or differen t relationships as exceptions or as events over which they had no control, so the y cannot extend the qualities of these relationships into other relationships . Hypothesis 5. As internal representational models of relationship s change, emotional sensitivity and emotional openness both to the self an d others will change . The subjects in this study do not seem to have experienced significan t enough change to definitely confirm or disconfirm this hypothesis . To test thi s hypothesis, it would be necessary to study people who felt they had change d significantly in their attachment behavior. Both Anne and Bobbi, however , report that they are more aware of their own feelings than they used to be . Anne says that she has changed in her attitude toward herself . In the short thir d meeting with the researcher, Anne claimed that had the interviews taken plac e a year ago she would have spoken very differently . She says that she takes he r emotional problems more seriously now and is able to have some sympathy fo r her inner child who was hurt . Bobbi credited therapy with teaching that he r feelings mattered and should be felt . Both of these women seemed to becom e more aware of their own feelings, but there is not very much information abou t whether they changed in their sensitivity to othersfeelings . Since emotiona l flexibility is one way internal models are measured, however, this hypothesis i s teleological . Hypothesis 6. As her internal representational models change, the 254 subject ability to perceive her child attachment needs accurately an d respond to them appropriately will change . None of the subjects told of going through a major change in the way the y perceived or responded to their children . Anne and Carol both talked abou t learning to separate their self-esteem from how their children behave, i n particular, their tendency to feel like a bad mother when their children fight wit h each other. Bobbi said she is learning to disengage from power struggles wit h her daughter. None of the women indicated that they had learned t o understand or respond to their children more sensitively however . Hypothesis 7. Transition and change in internal representational model s will have come about through the subjectsengaging in substantially differen t kinds of relationships than they had experienced in the past . Both Anne and Carol claim to have married emotionally healthy , supportive men. There is insufficient information, however, to evaluate th e marital relationships of these women and how that relationship has affecte d them. Carol does attribute her stopping drinking to her relationship with he r husband. Besides that significant change, neither woman spontaneousl y mentions that her relationship with her husband changed her . Bobbi s relationship with Shorty and his wife affected her representational models , especially in her parenting style . Hypothesis 8. Having and caring for a child will be a catalyst for change i n internal representational models . Neither Anne nor Carol said or implied that having children changed thei r relationship styles significantly. Both mentioned being able to understand their 255 mothers better as a result of having children, so they may have shifted to a more forgiving attitude toward their mothers . Bobbi reports having a series o f realizations when her daughter was about nine months old . These realization s began suddenly one day as Bobbi sat by the ocean and thought about how he r daughter would be as an adult if her life continued as it was . Bobbi felt that sh e suddenly woke up and saw her past and made a decision that she would n o longer be a victim of her past. She vowed to change her life and he r daughter . Bobbi felt that these realizations were of major significance in he r life and that she has not been the same since . In this way, having a chil d indirectly caused Bobbi to confront issues in her past and her love for her chil d motivated her to make changes . Hypothesis 9. Attachment theory will offer a more complete explanatio n for the relationship between being cared for and caring for others than th e current theories about ACOA and intergenerational child abuse . The literature on intergenerational child abuse offers a set of research - based findings that can help one analyze how many buffering and how man y risk factors a person has and hazard a guess about the probability of abuse i n the next generation . It offers no coherent explanation that integrates th e research findings. For the cases presented here, the predictive ability of th e research was questionable and so general as to not offer any real insights int o the process of intergenerational abuse . The ACOA literature is again, phenomenological and descriptive rathe r than theoretically useful. Brown theories (1988) about ACOA are base d upon attachment theory and family systems theories . Attachment theory, on the other hand, offers not only phenomenological 256 descriptions, but a coherent theory of change that is consistent with thos e descriptions. It is developmentally based and process-oriented rather tha n static. It emphasizes the ongoing psychic processes by which change an d continuity happen. The concept of internal working models, which dynamicall y control access to attachment information, simply and accurately describes th e behavior of the subjects in this study. Their behavior is best described not wit h static models, but with this theory that explains the continuing process o f information processing, including the processes of attention, perception , memory, conscious thought, emotion, and directed action. Distortion in any o f these processes comes from a person need to preserve a particula r organization or state of mind in relation to attachment . The different kinds o f internal working models do not differ just in content, but also in process . A person with a balanced view of attachment can permit a free flow of thought s and ideas and feelings, both positive and negative . This person can perceiv e more of the environment without distortion and respond to others with a fulle r range of responses . A person who has an insecure attachment organizatio n must restrict the flow of information in order to avoid disorganizing stimuli . Thi s person cannot perceive all of what is in the environment or respond to other s appropriately. The process of distorted perception acts to perpetuate th e organization of the internal model as information that might dispute the persons beliefs simply is not perceived or acknowledged . Review of Additional Finding s Since this was an exploratory study using three subjects, the sample siz e does not permit us to draw any conclusions about a larger population . The 257 following are simply observations about similarities and differences betwee n the subjects along with some possible explanation of these observations . These observations can serve as stimulus for further research about thi s population. 1. The three women in this study are all trying to be less abusive to their children than their parents were to them . They have all been able to eliminat e the most abusive behaviors that their parents inflicted upon them . They feel tha t they are better parents than their parents were . But they have been les s successful in developing positive behavior to replace the abusive behavior . Focussing on eliminating abuse does not necessarily help a person develo p nurturing behavior. In most of the child abuse literature, only the presence o r absence of abuse is studied . Presence of nurturing behavior seems to b e assumed when abuse is absent. This study shows that that is clearly not th e case. Insecure attachment patterns continue even in the absence of obviou s abuse . 2. All three mothers showed lack of sympathy toward their children s distress. Sometimes they did not perceive their children signals at all . Whe n they did, they often chose to ignore the signals of distress, rationalizing thei r behavior by saying that the crying was about trivial matters, that the child was a crybaby, that responding to the child would just encourage the crying, or tha t responding would be rescuing the child from their feelings . Bobbi, on the othe r hand, could sometimes respond to her child distress, but could not cognitivel y acknowledge that her child was sad . All three mothers in this study denied that their children got upset about 258 being separated from them. Anne and Carol both subsequently remembere d that their husbands had commented that the child in question did indeed fee l sad when separated from mother. But the all three women first impulse was t o say that their children had no reaction to separations . Both Bobbi and Carol wanted their young children to be more self - sufficient and resented their children asking for help with getting dressed , especially help with putting on shoes. They saw these tasks as purely abou t competency and resented helping when the child didn "need" it . 3. None of the three subjects focussed on their mother drinking as th e major problem in their childhood families. They were hurt by their mothers withdrawal, rejection, and abuse. They all seemed to feel that these behavior s were affected by their mothersdrinking . Carol mother temper was wors e when she drank ; Anne mothers was more withdrawn when she drank, excep t for a short period when they the alcohol made her more communicative . Bobbi mother was drunk and withdrawn all the time . But the subjects felt tha t even without the drinking, their mothers would not have been nurturing . Thi s researcher believes that the mothers were overwhelmed and unhappy to begi n with and that their drinking was an expression of their unhappiness . The y would probably have still been rejecting and withdrawn without thei r alcoholism. But the drinking made their behavior more unpredictable and mor e extreme, and made them less able to cope effectively with their problems . 4. All three subjects in this study have seriously abused alcohol or drug s at some point in their lives. Two stopped before they had children . The thir d has used drugs since becoming a parent, but says she is not using drugs now . 259 Even though they are not alcoholics like their mothers, the subjects continue t o parent in dysfunctional ways . That their parenting behavior is less extremel y abusive than their mothersmay be due to their not using alcohol or drugs . However, the basic pattern of insecure relationships remains . 5. All three mothers emphasized identification as a basis for acceptance or as a way to feel close to a parent or a child. This may be due to the pattern o f childhood compliance they all had in which they tried to be loved by being jus t what their parents wanted rather than by being themselves . As adults, they ar e still doubtful that they are acceptable and use identification with their children a s a way to validate who they are now as parents . All three subjects very strongl y wanted girl children rather than boy children . This is another indication o f identification. One subject said she wanted to "do it again," but better this time . She wanted to essentially reparent herself through having a child . 6. All three subjects mentioned spontaneously that in childhood they fel t that their mother wished she hadn had children . 7. Two of the subjects mentioned spontaneously their belief that thei r physical illnesses as children and adults were related to neglected attachmen t needs . 8. All three subjects had difficulty with peer relationships in childhood . O n the Mother-Father-Peer test, Anne scored at the 10 percentile mark and Caro l and Bobbi both scored below the 1 percentile mark on the Peer Acceptance - Rejection scale, showing that they often felt rejected by other children . The 260 insecure patterns of relationship in the family apparently affected thes e women childhood peer relationships . 9. Adolescence was a stormy time for all three subjects. All of them ha d been compulsively compliant as children and became rebellious a s adolescents. They all became more aware of their parentsalcoholism an d abuse and became angry instead of compliant at this time . This may b e because of how developmental changes affect the attachment system a t adolescence. Adolescents no longer need their parents to perform al l attachment functions. They become more interested in peers as attachmen t partners and also become more able to protect themselves in the world . Som e of the compliance that bound them to their parents is no longer needed . As th e compliance falls away, the child original early rage is revealed an d compounds their present anger at being abused or neglected . 10. Remembering childhood abuse and being angry about it and/o r forgiving one parents has been found to be a characteristic of abused childre n who do not abuse their own children . The subjects in this study remember thei r abuse for the most part and know that their abuse was harmful to them . Thi s fact keeps them from treating their children as abusively as they were treated . However, simply remembering abuse and being angry about it does not see m to have been enough to change their long-standing internal models o f relationships. Not remembering the abuse does makes it less likely that th e person can move past the effects of it . Bobbi, for instance, cannot remembe r her childhood mother very well . She is also unwilling to deal with the effects o f her childhood. She is quite clear that she is not ready to do that . When she 26 1 tried to, she became so frightened and disorganized she began to use drug s heavily again. She is also the least insightful of these women concerning he r own childrearing patterns. Carol remembers her past, but is repeating it to a greater extent than she would like. She, too, resists doing any therapeutic wor k out of inability to trust anyone with her vulnerability . Although she remember s and is angry, she has not been able to significantly change her patterns . Ann e remembers, is angry, and has partially accepted her parents . She is mor e sensitive to her children than the other two women . She, however, stil l frequently acts out insecure patterns of relating . Anne has done therap y (perhaps six months) and credits that therapy with changing her view of her sel f and her past. It is clear that remembering helps . Therapy also seems to hav e helped Anne to reorganize her thinking about her own feelings and cognitivel y believe in empathizing with her children feelings . She still has not achieve d an emotional ability to be open to their distress . It is apparent that significan t reorganization of internal representational models does not happen easily . It i s a difficult process and demands a commitment from the person . People do no t change merely because they want to . 11. The evidence from these cases suggests that cognitive aspects o f internal representational models change at a different rate than emotional an d behavioral aspects. Cognitive level changes can (but do not always) com e about through cognitive stimuli such as reading or taking a class . Emotiona l level change must come about through emotional level intervention . For peopl e to change on the emotional level in their internal models of relationships, the y must have an opportunity to actually feel trust in an attachment figure . The y must be able to reexperience the denied emotions and be able to accept them 262 and have them accepted by an attachment figure (therapist, spouse, friend, etc . The emotional level intervention must be accompanied by cognitive an d behavioral level integration in order for the internal models to change as a whole. Change of internal models is therefore, not a simple process o f cognitive realization or emotional catharsis . Change in internal working model s demands an entire reorganization of mental, emotional, and behaviora l processing. Some authors have suggested that the physiological, sensorimoto r components of internal models may be the most resistant to change since the y are the least conscious (Pipp Harmon, 1987) . Anne panic attacks, Carol s uncontrollable anger, and Bobbi "swallowing feelings" are examples o f physiological behavior that is intimately connected to emotional and menta l structures about relationships . Implications for Future Research This study provided detailed information about how women who have ha d inadequate mothering take care of their own children . It has indicated that it i s possible for women to eliminate extreme abusive behavior if they are consciou s and committed, but that changing more subtle aspects of insecure patterns i s very difficult. The three subjects studied want to be good parents ; indeed they were recruited from a class about parent-child relationships . But at times the y actively avoid experiences that could cause them to change . Internal workin g models of relationships formed as children guide their parental behavior in th e present. Future research in this area should focus on exploring mor e completely the relationship between parental alcoholism and patterns o f relationships in the offspring . Clinically-oriented research should focus on 263 finding ways to help parents change their parenting patterns by processing thei r own personal histories . In this study information was obtained about the subjectsinternal workin g models. The subjectsactual behavior with their children was not studied . A n obvious extension of this study would be to include an assessment of th e subjectschildren and an assessment of the dyadic behavior between th e mother and child. This would serve to establish the relationship between th e parenting interview and actual behavior, that is, between how parents talk abou t their children attachment behavior and how they actually deal with it . Th e children attachment behavior could be examined to see whether or not th e patterns were again being repeated . This study could be repeated with more subjects to investigate whether th e patterns seen in these subjects are widespread . A quantitative approach coul d be used as well, to compare ACOA mothers with non-ACOA mothers in area s which have been highlighted in this study, such as role reversal, sensitivity t o children feelings and attachment needs, emotional dependency, an d identification with family members. Similar small scale and large scale studie s could be done with fathers as subjects to see how boys are affecte d differentially by alcoholic mothers and fathers and how those childhoo d experiences influence their parenting patterns . This study could also b e repeated on a small or large scale studying women who had alcoholic father s rather than alcoholic mothers . Future parenting behavior may not be a s affected when the mother is not alcoholic . The Relationship Questionnaire could be validated against interviews wit h a larger group of subjects . This study presents mixed evidence as to it s reliability in assessing attachment except insofar as it assesses how people see 264 themselves. This study offers possibilities for clinical research as well . As an initia l interview, the Parent Attachment Interview could help a clinician focus on area s of distortion and difficulty in parenting. It could also be a valuable tool fo r assessing the effectiveness of programs designed to help parents at risk fo r abuse. Certainly, programs which would help parents focus on reorganizin g internal working models of caregiving are needed . Detailed information abou t continuity and change such as has been examined in this study can provide th e basis for creating such a program . Epilogue Before I began this research, the committee suggested that I clarify my own assumptions and biases before I began . To that end, I wrote down a list o f my assumptions. I examine them now to see if they have changed and ho w they affected how I did this research . 1. Daughters of alcoholic mothers are a group at risk for insecur e attachment with their parents and with their children . I believe that this study has shown that maternal alcoholism has effects o n children and that as adults, those children have some difficulty being nurturin g parents themselves. The fact that all three of these subjects felt they ha d unsatisfactory relationships with their mothers and that they have difficult y parenting does not mean that all such daughters would . This assumptio n affected me to the extent that I would not have done the study with thi s population if I had not suspected that they were at risk. I think that I kept an 265 open mind and did not see relationship problems where none existed . Th e analysis by the independent raters supports my findings of relationshi p dysfunction. I would very much have liked to have independent analyses of th e parenting interviews as well to obtain a validity check . 2. Attachment behavior is mediated by internal representational models , presumed internal constructs which have cognitive, affective, physiological, an d behavioral aspects, with which we can describe the consistency and change i n attachment behavior. This is a theoretical basis for the analysis I did. I found the concept o f internal representational models to be useful and to adequately (and eve n elegantly) describe my findings. None of my findings indicated that this theor y should be discarded. The only finding that was not explained by this theor y was Bobbi mystical experience . She believes that she had a genuin e mystical experience. Her experience affected her sense of will and he r perception of life meaning and caused her to see her relationship with he r husband differently. Bobbi does not say if or how her experience affected he r relationship with her daughter . 3. A person internal representational models of relationships ar e affected by early childhood relationships . These internal models affect how a person forms subsequent relationships . This assumption still seems true to me. All three subjects also felt that thei r present relationships had been affected by their earlier ones with their parents . The very direct parallels between the subjectschildhood relationships an d current relationships suggests that this is true . I think I was open to information 266 that would have disproved a link between childhood and adult relationships . But the evidence I found suggests otherwise . 4 . These models tend to remain stable, but can change . Before I started this research 1 believed more strongly in the possibility of significant change in internal models . The information I gathered, however , leads me to be more pessimistic about the possibility of significant change . 5. Changes in internal representational models will be reflected i n changes in memory loss about the past, perceptual distortion in the present , cognitive coherency in discussing relationships, and sensitivity to emotions i n self and others. This assumption is statement of a theoretical definition of interna l representational models. It also states how internal models can be observe d and evaluated. I was not able to directly observe the process of change in m y subjects because the interviews were conducted at only one point in time . However, if internal models of relationships are measured in the stated ways , then changes in them would have to be measured through changes in thos e indicators. I found no evidence to disprove this assumption . 6. A mother ability to respond sensitively to her child is related to he r internal representational models of relationships . In some cases, the mothers in my study talked about their children on e way and reported behaving differently . For instance, Anne talked about bein g empathetic with her children, but analysis of the specific incidents sh e described showed that her empathy had definite limits . Her internal model of 267 herself was that she was very sensitive, but her behavior says otherwise . But internal models are not evaluated just by what the person says abou t themselves. This assumption, again, is a definitional statement about interna l models. I found nothing that disproved its validity . If I were to do this study again, I would make only a few changes. 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