ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the attachment-based discussion regarding extreme relational trauma in infancy and its link to dissociative identity disorder (DID). It focuses on the special role that infanticidalattachment plays in the most severe forms of dissociative disorders. The chapter emphasizes the forensic aspects of the trauma in the lives of people with DID. The chapter suggests that the term infanticidal attachment, symbolic or concrete, would correctly fit the attachment-style of babies whose parents are not just unable to contain their aggression or despair, but who actively want or need to see them dead or mutilated. A child who is attached to an infanticidal caregiver experiences reduction of stress when he or she is in the proximity of a person who aims to torture or kill them. The chapter suggests that what differentiates the cases from one another is that in the "concrete infanticidal attachment" group the infanticidal ideation was not covert, not implied, not hidden, not symbolized.
