Exploring trauma and attachment style over the lifespan using secondary data: A single case study of two sisters

Titolo Rivista MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA
Autori/Curatori Deborah Bailey-Rodriguez, Nollaig Frost
Anno di pubblicazione 2019 Fascicolo 2019/2
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 15 P. 45-59 Dimensione file 212 KB
DOI 10.3280/MAL2019-002004
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Lifespan interviews provide rich contextual information about childhood and adult trauma and risks for clinical disorder. Sisters’ interviews can give information on concordance of experience as well as individual differences in relating. Examining sister’s reports of their common in experience in childhood, and different experience in adulthood can be illuminating. A pair of sisters selected for a study of adverse childhood experience, attachment style and depression, are used to illustrate key experiences from this area of investigation. Taken from a London sample of women, the adult sisters report common emotional neglect, being brought up in a household of 13 children in Ireland. One of the sister’s reports role reversal, expected to parent her younger sisters; the other sister reports sibling physical abuse. Both emigrate to England for different adult life experience. Adult trauma events include a traumatic birth and a brief episode of domestic violence. Both sisters experience insecure attachment styles as adults, one with anxious fearful style, the other avoidant withdrawn style. Both experience clinical depression with GAD anxiety. The interpretations combine both socio-ecological (issues of childhood deprivation and immigration) and attachment style as sequelae of childhood adversity with implications for adult adaptation.

Le interviste sul ciclo di vita forniscono ricche informazioni contestuali sul trauma infantile e adulto e sui rischi di disturbi clinici. Le interviste a sorelle possono dare informazioni sulla concordanza e sulle differenze individuali in relazione a un’esperienza. Esaminare i report di sorelle riguardanti le loro esperienze infan-tili comuni e le differenti esperienze durante l’età adulta può essere illuminante. Due sorelle selezionate per uno studio su esperienze infantili avverse, stile di attaccamento e depressione, sono state utilizzate per illustrare le esperienze chiave dell’area di indagine in questione. Prese da un campione di donne londinesi, le sorelle adulte cresciute in una famiglia di 13 bambini in Irlanda, riportano una comune trascuratezza emotiva. Una delle due sorelle riporta di aver vis-suto inversione di ruolo, dato dall’aspettativa che lei educasse la sorella minore; l’altra sorella riporta abuso fisico da parte di un fratello. Entrambe le sorelle esperiscono in età adulta uno stile di attaccamento insicuro, una di loro declinato in uno stile ansioso-spaventante e l’altra declinato in uno stile evitante-ritirato. Entrambe presentano depressione clinica con Disturbo d’Ansia Generalizzato (GAD). Le interpretazioni combinano sia uno stile socio-ecologico (problemi relativi allo stato di deprivazione infantile e all’immigrazione) sia fattori relativi allo stile di attaccamento conseguente alle avversità infantili con implicazioni nell’adattamento in età adulta.

Keywords:Deprivazione, negligenza, attaccamento insicuro, narrative, depressione, migra-zione

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Deborah Bailey-Rodriguez, Nollaig Frost, Exploring trauma and attachment style over the lifespan using secondary data: A single case study of two sisters in "MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA" 2/2019, pp 45-59, DOI: 10.3280/MAL2019-002004