PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2

Abstract

This is a retroactive analysis of a case study of a 24-month-old girl by the name of Annette, who is beginning to exhibit a potentially rare attachment style. The fearful-avoidant style only appears in 7% of the population. Annette not only shares living space with both parents but also has had some of the traditional traumas that can lead to such a disorder. The extended family is German American with 2nd- and 3rd-generation extended family that offer unreliable financial and emotional support. The counterculture that Annette’s parents are raising her in is the late 60s and 70s. Annette’s mother experienced high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression throughout prenatal development with Annette.

She also drank alcohol during pregnancy and Annette’s early childhood development to tranquilize her potential attachment style of anxious-ambivalent. Her father is typically absent, irritable, and aggressive, as he is not at home to work. He employs alcohol in dealing with his potential attachment style being dismissive-avoidant. Positive psychology interventions, including 12-step recovery and brief parental linguistic intervention, are offered as best practice to prevent disorganized attachment style in early adulthood for Annette.

Early Development Case Intervention Analysis: Annette, A Case Study in Retrograde

Annette is a 24-month-old child who lives with both parents and her older brother, and although they have relocated a number of times throughout the past couple of years, they now live in Ft. Worth, Texas, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both parents reported that their daughter has always been quiet and generally only plays with her brother. Any relatives are far away; they sometimes and infrequently contribute emotionally and financially to Annette’s parents but do not stay nearby. Annette’s parents are now concerned about her since she has started having some times of crying, punching her brother, taking off her clothes, putting on someone else’s diaper, and even getting caught sucking from someone else’s bottle.

She has been weaned from the bottle by her mother since she was 9 months old and now eats solids. She has sucked her thumb, however, the whole time. Annette seems to want attention from her father when he is present and her mother otherwise but is content to play with her brother too. Now about her sleeping habits, she started sleepwalking and being more withdrawn about a month ago. Moreover, alcohol, domestic violence, depression, cultural differences, abuse, and neglect perhaps have a place in Annette’s life and analysis and that of her family. Because, in line with John Bowlby (1978), Annette’s relationship with parents and other carers is crucial to her being a functional or dysfunctional adult. Peer-reviewed intervention research is required. The attachment theory can, as such, be applied to justify Annette’s fearful-avoidant behavior and re-justify the need for multiple interventions in order to offset her behavior.

Present Challenges and Primary Issues

The alcohol drinking and family violence, however, present humongous challenges to address and make up an overwhelming percentage of the main issues with Annette’s abnormal behavior. The parent’s coping mechanism has led to a pattern of violence and potential SUD, such as alcohol dependence, major depression, and comorbid anxiety. Therefore, these are treated first, after which the underlying family of origin issues are treated with the mother and the father. The mother has developed possible anxious-ambivalent attachment traits as a result of the alcoholism and sexual abuse she went through in childhood (Salter et al., 2015; Darling Rasmussen & Storebø, 2021; Johnsen et al., 2022). She shows depression and anxiety on a regular basis, which has affected the nurturing she gives to her children (Glover et al., 2018).

This prenatal stress can contribute to fetal and child developmental abnormalities. The father exhibits behaviors of a dismissive-avoidant in his marriage and towards the children (Salter et al., 2015; Rempel et al., 2017). Both tend to use alcohol to excess as a coping mechanism for their unresolved psychological issues. Even they have confessed to administering alcohol to the children to put them to sleep. Moreover, the mother also had issues with previous pregnancies that led to excessive blood loss and necessitated an emergency cesarean delivery. Annette was born normally and a couple of weeks early. Thus, she was a bit underweight. Of significance, however, is that the mother indicated that she had cravings during pregnancy for alcohol and drank beer and wine during pregnancy.

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2 Early Childhood Case Intervention Analysis of Emma

These actions can lead to future environmental challenges for Annette, such as SUD and maltreatment, as suggested by Cornelius et al. (2017). Drinking alcohol also leads to child developmental issues, such as psychopathologies and cognitive issues. Severe behavioral and functional impairments can arise from prenatal alcohol use (Guille & Aujla, 2018). Potentially resulting in Annette’s early life behavioral, mental, emotional, and physiological deficits, the dysfunctional family system is the root cause. In Annette’s case, it appears she is developing a rare attachment style, fearful-avoidant, given the extent of abuse and trauma that she has experienced. This attachment style arises in only approximately 7% of the population and typically forms within an 18-month time frame for a child (Salter et al., 2015; Felitti et al., 2019).

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2 Early Childhood Case Intervention Analysis of Emma

Annette has perhaps perceived the aggressive abuse from her father as threatening. For instance, her father might mock her and her family’s actions. Then at other times, he becomes angry with the same behaviors and punishes them in violent or aggressive ways, specifically her mother (Bowlby, 1978; Salter et al., 2015). Annette’s not-present self-boundaries with taking clothes off, wearing a different child’s diapers, playing off on herself, and occasionally hitting her brother is another example of the potentiality of this attachment style. She is also able to quickly adapt to new environments in the short term but prefers to play only with her brother or herself (Broderick & Blewitt, 2019).

She also has very little eye contact with individuals. Sleep disorders are another issue of Annette. She has been seen sleepwalking during the past month, which is likely because of excessive fatigue due to anxiety and stress at home or due to a lack of adequate nutrition (Broderick & Blewitt, 2019). These behaviors are issues that could endanger Annette’s future relationships, coping mechanisms, and well-being.

Individual and Cultural Differences

Additionally, cultural and individual variations have to be factored. Both parents are of German descent, and the rest of the family resides as 2nd-generation German Americans. This gives some insight into their acceptability of drinking alcohol while pregnant and giving alcohol to children for fussiness or sleeping (Elam et al., 2018). Germans do not view alcohol in the same manner as Americans. It runs more deeply within culture and may even continue to remain a cross-cultural identity within German Americans. There are differences between cultures that demand some perpetuation of unhealthy traits in close relationships due to what are considered family and religious values (Khamis et al., 2022; Lavelli et al., 2019). Being divorced or departing from one’s partner is not as socially tolerated, especially with those individuals following religions such as Catholicism or Southern Baptist. Finally, there are also some issues related to the counterculture that must be addressed in this scenario as well. The period during which the incidents took place is the late 60s and early 70s, and this was an overall time frame of protest about accepted things on the part of young adults across the United States. Consumption of alcohol and use of drugs were perceived and applied differently at this time. Hence, cultural and individual differences can have a potential correlational significance with the case.

Interventions

Furthermore, interventions are of utmost significance to prevent long-term harm to Annette. There are correspondences between genes, environmental aggression, and family cohesion with subsequent alcohol use or SUD (Elam et al., 2018; Wertz et al., 2019). As Annette grows up within this dysfunctional, violent, and alcohol-soaked ethnic family, she may wind up growing into adulthood with the development of aggression, SUD, and disturbed relationships. So, according to Leontopoulou (2015), interventions for self-worth, gratitude, and goal-setting have the ability to create positive modification in the character of a person, such as perseverance, kindness, self-worth, and virtue. Annette’s parents can be helped through positive psychology methods such as 12-step recovery and Imago therapy (i.e., empathic communication and positive cognitive abilities for individuals and couples).

Positive psychology interventions have the potential to bring back cohesion, sobriety, and hope to the family, which would de-activate Annette’s attachment style. Brief parent language guidance is another approach that can improve parents’ positive parenting skills and reduce Annette’s behavioral issues or potential insecure attachment style. This brief parenting intervention teaches caregivers improved ways to interact with their children using different methods of communication. According to Heymann et al. (2020), home issues or child maladaptive behaviors can be attributable to many parent-child interactions (i.e., art of language/communication) that can affect child development. Therefore, language and behavior need to be worked on with infants/toddlers at risk, like Annette.

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2 Early Childhood Case Intervention Analysis of Emma

The interventions include practices like games that target the importance of parental responsiveness and back-and-forth parent-child interaction (Heymann et al., 2020). For example, the parents begin to interact with Annette in a positive linguistic style using “do” skills and not “do not” skills. These include praise, reflection, and description of behavior but not instructions. The intervention leads to word diversity, linguistic quality, and alignment of language, which improves potential child behavioral disorders, especially those residing in poverty (Heymann et al., 2020). Hence, strengthening a healthy environment and reducing Annette’s likelihood of attachment disorder that can negatively influence the remainder of her life.

Conclusion

Annette is potentially developing or has already developed a scarce attachment style due to the intensity of trauma and abuse she underwent directly and vicariously within her 24 months of existence. A fearful-avoidant may emerge as early as 18 months of age and form a disorganized attachment pattern as she grows into adulthood. At present, she is exhibiting inappropriate behavior by removing her clothes, sleepwalking, crying intermittently for attention, not appearing to need it, becoming aggressive at times, and being more withdrawn with minimal eye contact. She has received mixed messages from her parents about attention, rewards, punishments, and care.

Alcoholism, depression, and stress during pregnancy and childcare in early life may be linked with behavioral pathology, violence, aggression, and composite communication (Paquin et al., 2020). Positive psychology methods and verbal guidance interventions are advocated to break the cycle of alcoholism and dysfunction. Cultural diversity tolerance is essential while dealing with the German heritage family and this 60s and 70s counterculture. If these interventions are successful, Annette will have an opportunity to build good relationships as she grows into an adolescent.

Case Study

Annette is 24 months old and resides with her mother, father, and 3.5-year-old brother, who is older. However, as her father works as a traveling salesman, she lacks routine contact with him. Annette’s family is of German descent, and her parents were 2nd- and 3rd-generation German Americans who were also part of the counterculture of the 60s and 70s. Annette’s mother is a home parent, and her father is away from home most of the month due to work. The family has relocated a number of times in Annette’s life and is currently residing in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Annette’s mother experienced significant pre- and postnatal stress, had a past history of pregnancy complications, had several family-of-origin issues, and experienced physical and emotional abuse from her husband. She also consumed alcohol during pregnancy, exacerbating her underlying depressive disorder and producing erratic parenting of Annette and her brother. The children are also given alcohol to sleep when they become cranky.

When Annette’s mother takes her out with her husband, leaving her with friends or relatives behind, Annette is not very distressed and can adapt to the new situation within a short period through exploring. The outings sometimes result in inappropriate behaviors such as undressing and wearing the diapers of another child. Annette has also started exhibiting aggressive behavior towards her brother, occasional crying, sleepwalking, and social withdrawal.

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2 Early Childhood Case Intervention Analysis of Emma

Annette has sucked her thumb since she was born, despite her parents’ efforts to prevent her from doing so, including the application of hot sauce. Annette’s parents also consume excessive alcohol when the father is home, entertaining friends, and this sometimes results in domestic violence after the visitors have left. Sometimes the violence is also targeted at Annette and her brother, with their father exhibiting violent behavior towards them.

Annette’s mother says that she feels depression but channels her energy into running the house. Therefore, she will prioritize cleaning over spending time with Annette, and as a result, she spends hours playing with her brother. Financial limitation because of the nature of work her father does means having fewer resources, like food. Annette’s mother, nevertheless, prioritizes feeding the children and her husband above everything else, missing meals sometimes. The two families provide occasional emotional and financial assistance.

PSY FPX 6015 Assessment 2 Early Childhood Case Intervention Analysis of Emma

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