RESEARCH INTERESTS

The conceptual relations between psychoanalytic theory and attachment theory; social and emotional development of high and low-risk infants and children; mother-infant and mother-child interactional processes and clinical and developmental outcomes; etiology, development, transmission, and prevention of psychopathology associated with the mother-child attachment relationship and implications for clinical intervention and public policy; program and policy evaluation based on clinical and developmental perspectives; psychological risks associated with foster care and poverty; development of gender and cultural differences; psychotherapy process; theoretical, philosophical, political, moral, and religious issues in clinical and developmental psychology.

GRANTS AWARDED

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: “Patterns of Attachment Across the Lifespan”. Data collected for the Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1951-57) longitudinal study and for subsequent follow-up studies, archived at the Henry A. Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College, provide a unique opportunity to study a longitudinal sample using psychological constructs conceptualized since the time of the original study. The wide variety of assessment instruments administered to the participants over many years allows investigators to answer questions of both practical and theoretical significance. The proposed study addresses both levels of inquiry by exploring two issues: (1) relations between mothers' internal working models of their children derived from attachment theory, and a theoretically similar construct (maternal object representations) derived from object relations theory, and (2) relations between these maternal internal working models and object representations and their children's internal working models and object representations assessed in middle adulthood. Funding for this study is supported by two extramural grants from the Radcliffe Research Support Program, Harvard University (1993-94, 1994-95).

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: “Attachment Disorganization and Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Prepubertal Psychiatric Inpatients and Nonpatients”. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 45 prepubertal psychiatric inpatients ages 5 to 12 and 56 comparison children from a nearby public elementary school. The children were administered the Attachment Story-Completion Task to determine the quality of internal working models of attachment in a seriously emotionally disturbed population. The mothers were also administered the Adult Attachment Interview to determine the quality of their internal working models, as well as other instruments that assessed internalizing and externalizing behaviors in their children. This study addresses three clinically and developmentally relevant issues: (1) patterns of attachment in prepubertal psychiatric inpatients who manifest severe internalizing and externalizing behaviors (two common precipitants of hospital admission), (2) relations between maternal and child internal working models of attachment, and (3) relations between child internal working models and severe internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Attachment research has the potential to increase our understanding of the etiology, treatment, and ultimate prevention of violence directed against the self and violence directed against others in this young, largely overlooked population through the identification of predominant attachment patterns associated with these two types of violence. Funding for this study is supported by five extramural grants from the International Psychoanalytical Association (1999-04), an extramural grant from the Psychoanalytic Training Institute of the New York Freudian Society (1999-00), and four intramural grants from Long Island University (1999-03).

STUDENTS ARE NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT: Students are needed to transcribe Adult Attachment Interviews. The data can be used for dissertations.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: “The Socioemotional Impact of Maternal Migration on the Attachment Patterns of Jamaican Children as Adults”. In this retrospective case-control study, 60 Jamaican students enrolled at the University of the West Indies (UWI) will be recruited and interviewed regarding their experiences of early maternal separations between the ages of 6 and 48 months. Students will be assigned to two groups: students who experienced a minimum six-month maternal migration (e.g., to the United States or England) during early childhood and students who experienced no such maternal migrations. Students will then be administered the Adult Attachment Projective to assess the quality of their attachment patterns. This study is designed to test two hypotheses: 1) that after controlling for stressful life events and other group differences, Jamaican students who experienced a maternal migration during early childhood will be more likely to have an unresolved attachment pattern than the students who experienced no such maternal migrations, and 2) that unresolved attachment will moderate the association between maternal migration and depressive symptoms as measured by the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Conclusions drawn from this study could be used to promote public awareness of the potential adverse consequences of maternal migration on young children’s socioemotional development. A faculty contact in the Department of Psychology at UWI will facilitate subject recruitment and data collection. Funding for this study is supported by two intramural grants from Long Island University (2005-07).

STUDENTS ARE NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT: Students are needed to transcribe Adult Attachment Projectives. The data can be used for dissertations.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: “Psychotherapy Process and Symptom Outcome in Inpatients with Borderline Personality Disorder”. Dr. Goodman is using the Psychotherapy Process Q-Set (Jones, 2000) to code 127 psychotherapy sessions of five psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. These patients participated in psychodynamic psychotherapy three times per week over a six-month period and were administered a battery of symptom and personality measures at admission (The Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, American Psychoanalytic Association, previously awarded a grant to cover the costs associated with data collection and session transcription to James W. Hull, Ph.D., John F. Clarkin, Ph.D., and Frank E. Yeomans, M.D., Ph.D.). Patients’ final sessions of each week were audiotaped and transcribed. Patients also completed the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1983) on a weekly basis from admission to discharge, which yields a Global Symptom Index (GSI) score. First, each of these Q-sorted sessions will be correlated with each of three prototypical Q-sorts, which will yield three adherence correlations associated with each session—a TFP adherence correlation, an MBT adherence correlation, and a DBT adherence correlation. The resulting adherence correlation scores will be correlated with the weekly SCL-90-R GSI scores to determine which of the three sets of scores produced the most global symptomatic change among each of the five patients. Second, a P-technique (Luborsky, 1953, 1995) factor analysis will be conducted on the 127 session Q-sorts that will yield common process factors associated with these five treatments. The resulting process factor scores associated with each session will also be correlated with the weekly GSI scores to determine which process factors are most closely associated with global symptomatic change among each of the five patients. Third, a growth-curve analysis of these five patients’ treatment course will be conducted with the mean weekly GSI scores as the dependent variable to determine how global symptoms reported by borderline inpatients change as a function of the adherence scores and process-factor scores. Borderline diagnostic covariates such as identity diffusion, affect dysregulation, and impulsivity (Clarkin, Hull, & Hurt, 1993) will also be added to the growth-curve analysis to determine whether this information significantly improves the fit of the curve over and above the adherence and process-factor information. Dr. Goodman and his colleagues have already published a growth-curve analysis of treatment response in borderline inpatients as a function of specific diagnostic features (Goodman, Hull, Clarkin, & Yeomans, 1998). Funding for this study is supported by an extramural grant from the International Psychoanalytical Association (2006-07).

STUDENTS ARE NEEDED FOR THIS PROJECT: Students are needed to code psychotherapy transcripts using the Psychotherapy Process Q-Set. The data can be used for dissertations.

CO-INVESTIGATOR: “Using Video Feedback To Enhance Mother-Infant Interaction Between Mothers and Their Infants in Foster Care”. The aims of this treatment-outcome pilot study are to enhance mother-infant communication, which has been associated with children’s socioemotional and behavioral outcomes, and to prevent readmission to foster care. Twenty mothers whose infants (2-36 months) have been placed in foster care within six weeks will be randomly assigned to two groups: a six-session dyadic treatment group and an age-matched no-treatment group. Dyadic treatment will consist of a 10-minute, videotaped free-play session followed by a 45-minute review of the videotape between the mother and a trained therapist. The therapist will facilitate the mother’s commentary on her observations of the dyadic interaction and the meanings of the infant’s behaviors and patterns of communication. Prior to the intervention, all mothers will receive a battery of assessment instruments, including the Adult Attachment Interview (assessing the quality of the mothers’ internal working models) and the NCAST Teaching Scale (assessing the quality of the mother-infant interaction). All mothers will also receive the NCAST Teaching Scale following the sixth session to determine treatment efficacy. This study is designed to test two hypotheses: 1) that video feedback enhances mother-infant interaction in six sessions and 2) that mothers with organized internal working models are more likely to benefit from this intervention than mothers with unresolved internal working models. IRB approval has been granted by both Long Island University and the Administration for Children’s Services. Funding for this study is supported by an extramural grant from the International Psychoanalytical Association (2005-06).

CLINICIAN AWARD: This extramural grant was awarded by the Association for Child Psychoanalysis to treat a financially disadvantaged child in four-times-per-week psychoanalysis (2003-04).