Secure Base Script Knowledge among Parents with Childhood Abuse: An Examination of Protective and Promotive Factors

Secure Base Script Knowledge among Parents with Childhood Abuse: An Examination of Protective and Promotive Factors

Clinical Psychology

Kristen Walker

Gabrielle Myre, Marije Verhage, Carlo Schuengel, Chantal Cyr, Theodore E. A. Waters, Shannon Maingot, Elja Meijer, E.C. Van Meeuwen

2024

Research paper

English

Restricted Access

It has been established that parents who experienced childhood abuse are at greater risk for negative outcomes in the relationship with their own children (Racine et al., 2018; Sauvé et al. 2021), including insecure and unresolved attachment classifications (Raby et al., 2017; Roisman et al., 2017). Early experiences in childhood provide an important foundation on which the child will build its future attachment representations (Bowlby, 1969). However, discontinuity of attachment classification between early childhood and late adolescence is linked to high-risk contexts and negative life events, such as abuse, parental depression, or a change in parental sensitivity (Fraley, 2002; Booth LaForce et al., 2014). A history of childhood abuse has been linked to the intergenerational transmission of insecure and disorganized attachment (Madigan et al., 2019) as well as later maladjusted parenting behaviors (Savage et al., 2019). Therefore, it is important to understand how individuals with histories of childhood abuse may build internalized scripts of these attachment experiences.