ABSTRACT
The quality of maternal care is crucially related to the development of stress reactivity, cognition, and caregiving behaviours in her offspring, while nursing and other careseeking behaviours in infants trigger the release of oxytocin, a neuropeptide associated with "reduced levels of maternal anxiety, an attenuated physiological stress response, and more attuned patterns of maternal behaviour". This chapter suggests that assessing reflective functioning in addition to attachment classification will greatly broaden the measurement of attachment processes. Attachment researchers have thought of such individual differences in parents, which are palpable at both the representational and behavioural levels, as linked to underlying differences in attachment organization. A continuing and rich dialogue between clinicians and neuroscientists will only enrich the way both think about and make meaning of human experience. P. Fonagy and his colleagues have suggested that adult attachment classificatory schemes actually measure underlying differences in the capacity to hold complex emotional experiences in mind.
