| Summary: | The purpose of this preliminary and exploratory research
project was to identify possible links between insecure male
attachment patterns and wife assault. Attachment theory suggests
that the quality of early interpersonal relationships has a
profound effect on the psychological, emotional and social
development of the individual. Insecure attachment has been found
to be associated with a number of relationship problems and these
interpersonal problems have also been identified with men who
assault their wives. Based on this similarity, the insecure
attachment paradigm may offer a useful theoretical orientation
for understanding the conflict behaviours of men who assault
their wives.
The sample of fifty adult men who had assaulted their female
partners was drawn from two therapy groups. In this
preliminary and exploratory study, a number of measures were used
to assess each man's mental representation of childhood
attachment and his adult intimate attachment patterns, intimate
conflict tactics and interpersonal jealousy and anger problems.
The associations between insecure preoccupied, dismissing, and
fearful attachment pattern ratings and male conflict tactic and
relationship problems were then analyzed. The findings indicated
that men who assault their wives had a high proportion of
insecure adult intimate attachment patterns. These assaultive men
were also found to be predominantly insecure in both their mental
representations of childhood attachment and adult intimate
attachment pattern ratings, with the greatest continuity occurring with the insecure preoccupied and fearful pattern
ratings.
Three patterns of relationship problems corresponding to the
three insecure adult intimate attachment pattern rating were
found. Preoccupied attachment pattern ratings were positively
correlated with interpersonal jealousy scores and the reported
use of the reasoning, verbal/symbolic abuse, physical abuse and
severe physical abuse conflict tactics. Dismissing attachment
pattern ratings were positively correlated with interpersonal
anger scores and negatively correlated with the reasoning,
verbal, physical and severe physical abuse conflict tactics.
Fearful attachment pattern ratings were similar to the dismissing
pattern in the positive correlation with interpersonal anger
scores. The importance of considering insecure adult intimate
attachment pattern ratings when providing group therapy to men
who assault their wives was considered. Men with high insecure
dismissing adult intimate attachment pattern ratings seem to
require a distinctly different therapeutic approach than those
with high insecure preoccupied adult intimate attachment pattern
ratings and ideas in this regard are discussed.
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