ABSTRACT
The terms ‘pattern of attachment’ and ‘quality of attachment’ have been used to refer to the ABC patterns described by Ainsworth (1979). They are also considered strategies for eliciting care from attachment figures and internal representational models of how to elicit care. That is, as Ainsworth’s work developed, it moved from being strictly descriptive (patterns of attachment) to awareness of the interpersonal function of the patterns (strategies) to awareness of the mental processing that underlies behavior (inner working models and, now, dispositional representations). Although academic discussion of these reflects a historical progression, the three are inseparable and co-occurring aspects of the same phenomenon, a trinity, we might say. This chapter considers both what constitutes a self-protective strategy and what the array of possible self-protective strategies looks like in behavioral and information-processing terms. The chapter closes with a transgenerational look at the cases introduced in Chapters 1-5.
