THE DYNAMIC MATURATIONAL MODEL

During the second world war, when London families were regularly waking to the noise of explosions and frantic runs to their bomb shelters, a decision was made by many families to send their children to the country side where it was thought to be safer.

Years later, these children grew, and it was after interviewing these children, that British Psychologist John Bowlby realized that many of them had been affected by the separation from their parents.

John Bowlby offended many of his colleagues when he decided to insist on seeing children with their mothers, but the seed had already been planted, and Attachment Theory has since become one of the most important theories when the field of child development.

One researcher who came after John Bowlby and really helped to develop the theory was Mary Ainsworth. There were two PhD students of Mary Ainsworth, one named Mary Soliman who is most closely linked with the traditional model of Attachment, known as the ‘ABC+D’ model, and another named Patricia Crittendon.

When attachment researchers assessed the children’s attachment style, they classified their behaviours according to either securely attached, avoidant attachment, or anxious (ambivalent) attachment. These ones who didn’t fall into those categories were labelled “Disorganised”.

Pat Crittendon on the other hand said that those behaviours weren’t actually disorganized, but were actually organized in a way that actually helped the child.

According to Pat Crittendon, if a child couldn’t get a nurturing response from their parent, then they still needed some way of connecting with their parent. Therefore, they developed particular strategies to try to keep their parents close by. What’s more, as the child grew up, then those behaviours also developed. In other words, those behaviours weren’t static, but were dynamic as the child matured. Hence the name of Pat Crittenden’s theory the Dynamic Maturational Model.

From her perspective, the behaviours developed in one of two directions.

What do you imagine would happen to a child who cried out but was never heard? They might cry even later, but then eventually they would stop trying altogether. The child would eventually learn to ignore their feelings, and come to terms with the fact that if they’re going to survive, they’re going to need to ignore the way they feel, and do what ever it takes to fit in with the environment and what the important adults around them are needing. In other words, the wiring of their brain that is responsible for emotions, or the memory systems associated with emotion are ignored, whereas the wiring of their brain that is more responsible for thinking, or cognition, is given more attention.

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In the traditional ABC+D model, this would correspond to the “Avoidant Attachment Style”, but in the DMM, this first direction has what are called the “Compulsive Strategies”. They are called “compulsive’ because the child feels compelled to use those strategies, and to put whatever feelings they have to the side. Over time, it just doesn’t feel right for the child if they don’t use those strategies.

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Some of the strategies on the side include having a face that always seems to be smiling and happy, and never showing distress, because the child has learnt that people like you better if you’re cheerful. Other strategies include being always obedient, always trying to achieve, or always taking care of others. These are all ways of trying to increase connection. People often do tend to like people better who are always agreeable, or tend to admire people who achieve, or be appreciative of people who go out of their way to help them. On the face of, it might look like that these people are doing quiet well. However, there will often be overwhelming outbursts of these

As the child grows, they may develop more strategies, such as for example being completely self reliant. A different strategy can be of actually being very social, and on the face of it having many friends. However, when you look deeper, you would find that those connections were actually superficial rather than intimate.

A lot of these behaviours might sound great. In fact, some people might think of these as showing someone who is high functioning. The catch is however that those negative feelings that have been to the side just don’t appear, but they in fact continue to linger in the memory systems of the brain, and in the right conditions, can suddenly explode. You might have met people, who are always calm, then suddenly explode in rage, with everyone becoming shocked and nervously  quiet, and with that person then becoming embarrassed after having shown those emotions. It may also be that people who suddenly suicide after having appeared to function so well would fall into this category.

The other problem is that these people may struggle with intimacy. Their partners might find that they seem to just shut down whenever there is conflict, or that they immediately try to problem solve rather than show empathy.

Let’s go back to the situation where the child cries, but no one listens. This time, the child grows louder, then the parent comes rushing. This child basically learns that if their emotions are exaggerated, then they get a response. The wiring of their brain that is more responsible for expressing emotions gets more attention, whereas the wiring of the brain that gives more attention to outside consequences gets less attention. Because of this, it’s harder for them to understand the point of view of other people.

These people do whatever it takes to keep people close by, in either words they force, or ‘coerce’ caregivers to leave them by triggering strong emotions in the caregiver.  These people will typically show two side. The first is a very vulnerable side. For example, the children show great distress when the parent goes to leave. They will also have a side that seems ‘bossy’ to others, for example not being obedient to their parent’s instructions, or being insisting on the rules in their school.

The Dynamic Maturational Model isn't just about attachment strategies, but is also about information processing and the integration of memory systems. This is beyond the scope of this article, but you can go here for an indepth explanation of DMM in general. You can also see this page for a discussion of integration of memory styems in general.

Sometimes, we see people showing patterns of behaviour that don’t neatly fit in to a mental health diagnosis. However, we find that those patterns actually match some of the strategies in the DMM. This helps clinicians to make sense of the behaviours, and more importantly to understand to the underlying attachment needs so they can best help the client.