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This evening's scientific meeting at the Karen Horney Clinic auditorium was filled to capacity with eager analysts, candidates, and interns; not a single chair remained. Dr. Beatrice Beebe, known for her extensive work on mother-infant relations, gave a riveting speech on the effects of caretaking and attachment at 4 months and its correlation with psychopathology in early adulthood. Dr. Beebe is a Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, NY State Psychiatric Institute, Faculty at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center, the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, and the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. This speech edified the viewers by providing video footage, interactive tasks, and an extensive review of research results.
Beebe elaborated that children of mothers with unresolved trauma, abuse, or loss are more likely to develop disorganized attachment styles. In addition, children with disorganized attachment styles are more likely to show signs of pathology later in life. Difficulties for children with disorganized attachment may begin as early as preschool but pathology usually emerges in early adulthood. Beebe explained her view of disorganized attachment development, how this attachment style translates to pathology, and lastly, offered practical applications for adult patients in the clinical setting.
According to Beebe, disorganized attachment styles develop when mothers are not in sync with their infants. Beebe discusses what she calls a co-constructed regulation; this entails the regulation of the self as well as that of the other, as mothers and infants have an intimate relationship and have an effect on each other (mother-mother, mother-child, child-mother, and child-child). Secure attachments are more likely to result from mothers who react with mirroring with some space, what Beebe characterizes as “optimum mid-range.” Disorganized attachment consist