Towards a better understanding of the parental context of children’s attachment development: Early Maladaptive Schemas, Parental Mentalization

Although attachment theory widely accepts that parents are a critical factor in children’s attachment development, associations between parenting behaviours and child attachment have been substantially smaller than proposed (Verhage et al., 2016). While improving theoretical clarity of attachment core constructs (Bosmans et al., 2020) has resulted in research revealing important child-related factors moderating this association, similar work at the parental context level could further inform our understanding of the parenting-child attachment association. This doctoral research aims to examine how individuals’ attachment developmental history (and inborn temperament) relate to early maladaptive schemas, how parents’ early maladaptive schemas relate to parental mentalisation, and how one can manipulate components of mentalisation to causally affect children’s attachment building on the learning theory of attachment (Bosmans et al., 2020).