Attaccamento, organizzazione-disorganizzazione, e regolazione diadica dell’attenzione

In attachment theory, the key to continuity from childhood to adulthood is based on the organization construct. According to Bowlby, adult attachment behavior is organized around purpose, while different attachment styles differ from each other in terms of the organizational clarity with which an object is researched and reached and in which behaviors related to antithetical objectives take place. The direction and the quality of attention are of crucial importance to this process, allowing for the focalization on a set objective. As for behavioral organization, secure attachment implies an intentional and attentive direction, so it follows that disorganized attachment implies both an intentional and attentive difficulty. Thus, disorganized attachment is characterized by a deficit of emotional organization and regulation and by the failing of shared attention. The impossibility to establish attentive focus, which is coherent with a univocal purpose, produces that particular attention pathology defined as a disorientation that could be included in the detachment category, which is typical of a dissociative disorder.