Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma

ISSN: 1092-6771 (Print) 1545-083X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wamt20

The Effect of Childhood Emotional Maltreatment

on the Emerging Attachment System and Later
Intimate Relationships

Nancy Dodge Reyome

To cite this article: Nancy Dodge Reyome (2010) The Effect of Childhood Emotional Maltreatment
on the Emerging Attachment System and Later Intimate Relationships, Journal of Aggression,
Maltreatment & Trauma, 19:1, 1-4, DOI: 10.1080/10926770903486007

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903486007

Published online: 13 Jan 2010.

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Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19:1–4, 2010
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1092-6771 print/1545-083X online
DOI: 10.1080/10926770903486007

INTRODUCTION
1545-083X
1092-6771
WAMT
Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma,
Trauma Vol. 19, No. 1, Dec 2009: pp. 0–0

The Effect of Childhood Emotional

Maltreatment on the Emerging Attachment
System and Later Intimate Relationships

NANCY DODGE REYOME

Emotional
N. Dodge Reyome
Maltreatment, Attachment, and Relationships

State University of New York College at Potsdam, Potsdam, New York, USA

Researchers have historically overlooked the influence of child-

hood emotional abuse on the emerging attachment system and the
formation of later intimate relationships in adolescence and
adulthood. The purpose of this special issue of the Journal of
Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma is to shed some light on the
role of emotional forms of child maltreatment on the development
of attachment and provide some insight into how clinicians might
overcome attachment difficulties that result from childhood
histories of emotional abuse. This introduction provides a brief
overview of each article in this special issue.

KEYWORDS attachment, child abuse, emotional maltreatment,

intimate relationships

This issue of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma is the

first of two special issues concerned with the influence of childhood
emotional maltreatment on the formation and maintenance of intimate
relationships in adolescence and adulthood. This special issue focuses on
theory and research pertinent to the effect of early emotional maltreatment
on the emerging attachment system and later intimate relationships. The
influence of childhood maltreatment on the formation of early attachment

Submitted 15 May 2009; accepted 10 November 2009.

Address correspondence to Nancy Dodge Reyome, Research and Sponsored Programs,
510 Raymond Hall, State University of New York College at Potsdam, Potsdam, NY 13676.
E-mail: dodgenm@potsdam.edu

1
2 N. Dodge Reyome

relationships has been a topic of research for nearly three decades, but very
little work has actually been done to tease out the effect of emotional forms
of maltreatment on the attachment system (Baer & Martinez, 2006; Carlson,
Cicchetti, Barnett, & Braunwald, 1989; Crittenden & Ainsworth, 1989;
Egeland & Sroufe, 1981; Morton & Browne, 1998). The content of this issue
is a step toward rectifying that oversight. There are four articles in this
special issue. The first article provides a theoretical and empirical overview
of the topic. The second article explores the influence of emotional mal-
treatment on attachment in youth who have been placed in foster care. The
third article is an empirical report on some of the connections proposed in
the first article. The final article presents evidence from the clinical world on
the efficacy of particular therapeutic methods in addressing attachment
difficulties in survivors of childhood emotional maltreatment.
In the first article, Riggs presents a comprehensive theoretical and empir-
ical overview of the influence of childhood emotional abuse on the develop-
ing attachment system. She provides a framework for demonstrating how
attachment difficulties experienced by emotionally abused children translate
into later problems with intimate relationships for these individuals. Riggs
introduces a model based on theory and research that focuses on how child-
hood emotional abuse influences the development of the attachment system,
which subsequently influences socioemotional development and ultimately
provides the foundation for the formation of later interpersonal relationships.
Through this model she explains that childhood emotional abuse is related to
the development of insecure attachment during childhood. Further, Riggs
argues that individuals with insecure attachments demonstrate poor
emotion regulation, ineffective coping strategies, low self-esteem, deficits in
self-understanding, impaired social skills, and poor mental health. Riggs
argues that it is through these psychological and social mechanisms that inse-
cure attachment has a deleterious effect on the formation of later intimate and
romantic relationships of childhood emotional abuse survivors.
In the second article, Taussig and Culhane explore the influence of
emotional abuse on psychological and interpersonal functioning in a study
of preadolescent youth in foster placement. The young people in the Taussig
and Culhane study were exposed to a myriad of emotionally abusive behav-
iors, including overall emotional maltreatment, verbal aggression, parentifi-
cation, abandonment, and violence exposure. Among the outcome variables
measured in this study were attachment to caregivers, parents, and peers.
For the entire sample studied, the authors discovered that the emotional
trauma associated with abandonment was associated with poorer attach-
ment relationships with peers. Interestingly, they found the attachment
relationships of males were most affected by a history of emotional
maltreatment. Specifically, they found that males who experienced verbal
aggression experienced difficulty in attachment relationships with parents
and males who experienced overall emotional maltreatment had difficulties
 Emotional Maltreatment, Attachment, and Relationships 3

in attachments to peers. Although exploratory in nature, this study provides

new avenues for further examination as researchers look at the contribution
of different forms of emotional maltreatment to the formation of attachment.
Using an attachment theory perspective, Riggs and Kaminski investigated
childhood emotional abuse, adult attachment security, and depression as pre-
dictors of relational functioning and psychological aggression in the romantic
relationships of young adults. Among other things, their study sought to
explore the link between childhood emotional abuse and adult attachment
quality and the link between childhood emotional abuse and later intimate
relationship functioning. The authors conclude that the results of the study
uphold the theoretical model introduced in the first Riggs article, linking a his-
tory of childhood emotional abuse to insecure attachment in late adolescence
and adulthood and determining that insecure attachment style makes a signif-
icant contribution to functioning in romantic relationships in later life.
Finally, the Carbone article presents five clinical case studies of individ-
uals with insecure attachment histories attributable to childhood emotional
abuse and social rejection from parents and peers. In detailing the experi-
ences of each of the individual cases presented, Carbone discusses how
three treatment methods—cognitive behavioral therapy, rational emotive
therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing—were used in
each case to assist the individual in overcoming the negative social cogni-
tions and internal working models of relationships associated with a history
of childhood emotional abuse and social rejection. This article provides a
glimpse into the clinical techniques used to help emotional abuse survivors
reprocess and reframe these painful experiences and begin to lead socially
productive and satisfying adult lives.
Childhood maltreatment has long been associated with the formation of
insecure, disorganized attachment relationships in childhood and adulthood.
The content of this issue supports and reinforces this finding while exploring
ways that childhood emotional maltreatment has a unique, possibly more dev-
astating effect on the emerging attachment system than other forms of mal-
treatment. Further, material in this issue provides hope for assisting adult
survivors with overcoming the devastating interpersonal effects of childhood
emotional trauma by exploring successful clinical interventions for moving sur-
vivors forward in their effort to experience healthy, secure adult relationships.

REFERENCES

Baer, J., & Martinez, C. (2006). Child maltreatment and insecure attachment: A
meta-analysis. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 24, 187–197.
Carlson, V., Cicchetti, D., Barnett, D., & Braunwald, D. (1989). Disorganized/
disoriented attachment relationships in maltreated infants. Developmental
Psychology, 25, 525–531.
4 N. Dodge Reyome

Crittenden, P., & Ainsworth, M. (1989). Child maltreatment and attachment theory.
In D. Cicchetti & V. Carlson (Eds.), Child maltreatment: Theory and research
on the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect (pp. 432–463).
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Egeland, B., & Sroufe, A. (1981). Attachment and early maltreatment. Child Develop-
ment, 52, 44–52.
Morton, N., & Browne, K. (1998). Theory and observation of attachment and its
relation to child maltreatment: An overview. Child Abuse and Neglect, 22,
1093–1104.