Emanuel Miller Lecture: Attachment insecurity, disinhibited attachment, and attachment disorders: where do research findings leave the concepts?

BACKGROUND: Despite the evidence on anomalous attachment patterns, there has been a tendency to interpret most of these as reflecting differences in security/insecurity. METHODS: Empirical research findings are reviewed in relation to attachment/insecurity as evident in both infancy and later childhood, disorganised attachment, inhibited attachment disorder, and disinhibited attachment disorder. FINDINGS: Substantial differences are found in the correlates and meaning of these different features, as well as in the patterns associated with conditions such as autism, psychopathy, and Williams syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: It is seriously misleading to view all of these patterns through the lens of security/insecurity. This heterogeneity in social relationship features necessarily has implications for the assessment measures for social relationships that need to be used.