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In other words, people cannot adequately learn and defend themselves at the same time. When parents, especially high-risk parents who are often under social and legal scrutiny, take the risk of placing their caregiving approach under a magnifying glass their attachment needs (for protection and comfort) are often activated.

what is needed is a system for differentially identifying each child’s attachment pattern and his or her parent’s caregiving pattern, followed by a specific treatment protocol assigned to that dyadic pattern. Such a protocol helps eliminate the potential problems of a “one size fits all” approach to intervention.

this differential assessment-intervention protocol would allow more standardization in the training of service providers and implementation of their services, as well as the replication of the success we have come to know in our current work.

The Circle of Security™ is a user-friendly map that we developed to teach attachment theory to parents.

When children feel safe, their exploratory system or innate curiosity is activated and they need support (either verbally or non-verbally) for exploration; As they are exploring, sometimes they need their parents to watch over them, sometimes they need help, and sometimes they need their parents to enjoy with them; When they have explored long enough, (or if they get tired or anxious, or find themselves in an unsafe situation) they need their parents to welcome them back. When they return, they need their parents to comfort, protect, delight in, and/or organize their feelings. We focus on the last piece because for many of the parents it is a new idea that children need help organizing their internal experience as well as the external environment. When the attachment system is terminated, children are ready to start the circle again.

the goal of our research is to better understand the role that early experiences in children's lives have on development of brain structure and function.