PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 1

Abstract

This is a retrospective review of a case study of a 24-month-old female, Annette, who is only beginning to demonstrate a potentially rare attachment style. The fearful-avoidant attachment style occurs in only 7% of the population. Not only does Annette live with both parents, but she has also experienced some of the traditional traumas that can lead to such a disorder. Her family is German American, with 2nd- and 3rd-generation extended family members that offer occasional financial and emotional support. The counterculture Annette’s parents are raising her in is the late 60s and 70s.

Her mother experienced high stress, anxiety, and depression levels throughout prenatal development with Annette. She also drank alcohol during gestation and Annette’s early childhood development to help medicate her potential attachment style of anxious-ambivalent. Her dad is often distant, irate, and violent due to working away from home. He engages in drinking alcohol in a bid to control his likely attachment pattern of being dismissive-avoidant. Positive psychological interventions like 12-step recovery and brief parental linguistic training are offered as best practice in avoidance of the disorganized form of attachment at early adulthood in Annette.

Introduction

Annette is a 24-month-old girl who lives with her mom, her dad, and her big brother, and although she has moved multiple times over the last couple of years, currently they reside in Ft. Worth, Texas, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The mother and the father both suggested that their daughter was always quiet and tended to play only with her brother mostly. Any near relatives live far, far away; however, they financially and emotionally support Annette’s parents infrequently and do not come to visit. Annette’s parents recently started being concerned about her because she has been experiencing difficulty with indiscriminate crying, hitting her brother, taking off her clothes, putting on another child’s diapers, and even getting caught drinking from another child’s bottle.

According to her mother, she was weaned at 9 months old and started eating solid food. However, she sucked her thumb constantly. Annette seems to require her father’s attention in his staying at home and that of her mother for the rest of the time, but she likes playing with her brother too. As far as her sleeping habits are concerned, she started sleepwalking a month ago and withdrawing. In addition, alcohol, domestic violence, depression, cultural differences, abuse, and neglect may all have a role to play in the life and assessment of Annette and her family.

Challenges and Primary Issues

But the alcohol use and violent family dynamics are a gigantic task to work on and are a behemoth part of the primary issues with Annette’s strange behavior. The parent’s coping mechanism has led to violence and potential SUD, such as alcohol dependence, significant depression, and anxiety comorbidities. Therefore, these are treated first, followed by addressing the embedded family of origin issue with the mother and the father.

The mother has most probably obtained anxious-ambivalent attachment characteristics based on sexual abuse and alcoholism endured during her childhood. The mother is anxious and depressed on a regular basis, and the same has had an impact on the quality of care given to the children. Pregnancy stress would probably lead to fetal and child developmental abnormalities. The father illustrates traits of dismissive-avoidance in marriage as well as among the children. Both appear to consume alcohol to excess in an attempt to cope with their unresolved psychological issues. Even they have reported giving alcohol to the children so that they sleep. In addition, the mother has experienced difficulty with previous pregnancies that have caused excessive blood loss and necessitated an emergency cesarean section. Annette was born normally and a few weeks early. Thus, she was a little underweight. Most notably, the mother indicated having cravings for alcohol during pregnancy and drank beer and wine during pregnancy.

Development and Behavioral Analysis

As for Annette’s issues, she is apparently developing a rare attachment style, fearful-avoidant, in response to the level of trauma and abuse she has experienced. This form of attachment style only develops in around 7% of the population and tends to develop in a child’s first 18 months of life. Annette could have thought the violent physical abuse by her father was intimidating. For example, her father may laugh at her and at her family’s behavior. He then becomes upset at the same behavior and attacks them violently or aggressively, specifically her mother.

Annette’s failure to establish boundaries in the removal of clothes, wearing someone else’s diaper, wandering off alone, and sometimes hitting her brother is yet another example of this potential attachment style. Also, she can easily adapt to a new environment for short periods but likes playing only with her brother or alone. She also has little eye contact with others. Annette’s sleeping problems are also something to be concerned about. She has been caught sleepwalking for the past month, which is due to extreme tiredness brought about by stress and anxiety at home or an unhealthy diet. These practices are concerns that could jeopardize Annette’s future relationships, coping mechanisms, and overall well-being.

Individual and Cultural Differences

There are also certain individual and cultural differences that need to be taken into account. First, the parents are both of German descent, while the rest of the family immigrated as 2nd-generation German Americans. This helps to account for their acceptance of consuming alcohol while pregnant and providing children with alcohol for irritability or sleeping. Alcohol is not viewed by Germans in the same way as by Americans. It is more embedded in culture and can survive as a cross-cultural identity with German Americans. Cultural variations can govern some long-term pathological behaviors in close relationships based on perceived religious and family values.

Divorcing or breaking up with a partner is less accepted culturally, especially among the religious, including Catholics and Southern Baptists. Lastly, certain counterculture concerns must be discussed here as well. The timeframe for this case is the late 60s and early 70s, which was largely an era of resisting traditionalism for young adults in America. Alcohol and drug use were viewed and used differently than they are today. Individual and cultural variation at that time does have potential correlational significance to the case.

Interventions

In addition, interventions are a priority to prevent long-term harm to Annette. There are correlations between genes, environmental aggression, and family cohesion with future alcohol use or SUD. As Annette develops in this broken, violent, and alcohol-soaked ethnic family, she might become aggressive, have SUD, and have unhealthy relationships as an adult. Thus, based on Leontopoulou, gratitude, self-worth, and goal-setting interventions can bring positive changes in a person’s character, such as endurance, empathy, self-esteem, and virtue. Annette’s parents would be assisted by positive psychology interventions, including 12-step recovery and Imago therapy.

These interventions have the capability of re-establishing coherence, sobriety, and hope for the family that would limit Annette’s attachment style. Brief parental linguistic intervention is also an intervention that would maximize positive parenting skills and minimize Annette’s behavioral issues or potential attachment style. Brief parenting intervention teaches caregivers different modes of communication with their children. According to Heymann et al., home problems or behaviors can be attributed to various parent-child interactions that can have an impact on child development. Therefore, working on language and behavior with at-risk infants/toddlers like Annette is crucial. Interventions entail practices such as games that stress the importance of parental responsiveness and back-and-forth parent-child interaction. For example, parents begin interacting with Annette in a linguistic style through “do” skills instead of “do not” skills. These include things such as praise, reflection, and descriptions of behavior but not commands. The intervention produces word variety, linguistic value, and alignment of language that strengthens potential disorders of child behaviors, especially for those living in poverty. Thus, by creating a positive environment and reducing Annette’s chances of attachment disorder, that can impact the rest of her life.

Conclusion

In brief, Annette is at risk of developing a rare attachment pattern or has already developed it because of the amount of abuse and trauma that she has faced directly and indirectly in the 24 months of her life. The fear-avoidant may appear as early as 18 months of age and later develop a disorganized attachment pattern once she is an adult. She is now displaying inappropriate behavior by stripping off clothes, sleepwalking, crying erratically for attention, not seeming to need it, being cranky at times, and becoming increasingly withdrawn with little eye contact. She has been given mixed messages from her parents for attention, reward, punishment, and nurturing.

Alcoholism, stress, and depression during pregnancy and early developmental care may have a connection with aberrations of behavior, violence, and mixed communication. Positive psychological interventions and linguistic input are advised to break the cycle of alcoholism and dysfunction. Cultural diverse tolerance is necessary when dealing with the German-American family and this 60s and 70s counter-culture. Successful interventions will provide Annette with an opportunity to form positive relationships as she matures into a young adult.

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 1 Early Development Case Intervention Analysis

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PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 1 Case Analysis: Early Development Intervention

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