ABSTRACT
Fifty years ago Bowlby (1958) theorised that secure attachment in infancy could predict mental health and well-being even into adulthood (see, for example, Sroufe et al., 2005), and Ainsworth and her colleagues (1978) created the procedure (i.e. the development and validation of the Strange Situation) by which attachment behaviour in infancy could be assessed in a reliable and valid manner. Over the years this procedure has become the gold standard in the assessment of an infant’s attachment behaviour. Having established that attachment behaviour was a signifi cant predictor of a child’s future emotional regulation and resilience (Svanberg, 1998), and the means by which to assess it, the antecedents or the determinants of secure attachment became the focus of attention, and sensitive responsiveness on the part of the parent was demonstrated to be signifi cantly associated with secure attachment in the infant (De Wolff and Van IJzendoorn, 1997). This growing body of research demonstrated that a sensitively responsive parent is more likely to have a securely attached child who is more likely to grow into a secure and empathic adult.
