INTERVENTIONS WITH VIDEO FEEDBACK AND ATTACHMENT DISCUSSIONS - DOES TYPE OF MATERNAL INSECURITY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Parents' insecure representations of attachment are associated with lo wer parental sensitivity and insecure infant-parent attachment relatio nships, leading to less optimal conditions for the children's socio-em otional development. Therefore, two types of short-term intervention w ere implemented in a group of lower middle-class mothers with an insec ure representation of attachment as assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview. In one group of mothers, the intervention efforts were dir ected at promoting maternal sensitivity by means of written informatio n about sensitive parenting and personal video feedback. In the other group, additional discussions about the mothers' early attachment expe riences took place, aiming at affecting the mothers' attachment repres entation. The interventions were implemented during four home visits b etween the 7th and the 10th month after the baby's birth Preliminary r esults on 30 mothers pointed at an intervention effect: Mothers in bot h intervention groups were more sensitive at 13 months than mothers in a control group, t(28) = -2.3, effect size d =.87, p =.01. Mothers wh o were classified as insecure dismissing tended to profit most from vi deo feedback, whereas mothers who were classified as insecure preoccup ied tended to profit most from video feedback with additional discussi ons about their childhood attachment experiences, F(1,16) = 1.9, d =.6 5, p =.19.