Karlen Lyons-Ruth
Biographic Data
| ID | 3885515 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karlen Lyons-Ruth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karlen |
| FAMILY NAME | Lyons-Ruth |
| SIGNATURE | LYONS-RUTH K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard Medical School |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 172 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Early Parent–Child Relationship in the Shadow of War-Related Trauma: A Systematic Review
War-related trauma has detrimental effects on millions of individuals worldwide, including infants, toddlers, and their parents. Among various adverse outcomes, this trauma may significantly disrupt the essential sense of security crucial for fostering a healthy early parent–child relationship. Yet, research on the effects of war-related trauma on parent–child relationships remains limited. This study aimed to bridge this gap by synthesizing evid…
Aspects of Parent–Child Interaction from Infancy to Late Adolescence are Associated with Severity of Childhood Maltreatment through Age 18
Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a pervasive public health problem worldwide, with negative health consequences across the lifespan. Despite these adverse outcomes, identifying children who are being maltreated remains a challenge. Thus, there is a need to identify reliably observable features of parent-child interaction that indicate risk for CM and that can instigate strategically targeted family supports. The aim of this longitudinal study was t…
Disorganized attachment in infancy: A review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers
Disorganized/Disoriented (D) attachment has seen widespread interest from policy makers, practitioners, and clinicians in recent years. However, some of this interest seems to have been based on some false assumptions that (1) attachment measures can be used as definitive assessments of the individual in forensic/child protection settings and that disorganized attachment (2) reliably indicates child maltreatment, (3) is a strong predictor of path…
Representational and questionnaire measures of attachment: A meta-analysis of relations to child internalizing and externalizing problems
The foundational level of psychodynamic meaning: Implicit process in relation to conflict, defense and the dynamic unconscious
Traditionally, intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defense were assumed to determine what happened at the interactive level. The interactive level was seen merely as the instantiation of such deeper forces. The authors delineate the upsidedown theoretical conception of the relationship between the supposedly ‘superficial’ layer of immediate interaction and the supposedly ‘profound’ layer of intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defens…
The relationship questionnaire-clinical version (RQ-CV): Introducing a profoundly-distrustful attachment style
Cost-efficient prenatal assessments are needed that have the potential to identify those at risk for parent/infant relational problems. With this goal in mind, an additional attachment style description was added to the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), an established self-report attachment measure, to create the Relationship Questionnaire: Clinical Version (RQ-CV). The additional description represents a profoundly-distr…
Differential attachment responses of male and female infants to frightening maternal behavior: Tend or befriend versus fight or flight
Taylor and colleagues (2000) proposed that males tend to display fight or flight responses to threat while females are more likely to display affiliative "tend or befriend" responses. In light of this hypothesis, gender differences in infant attachment behaviors were examined in a sample of 65 low-income mother-infant dyads, half of whom were referred to a home-based intervention service because of concerns about the quality of caregiving. Attach…
Chapter IV. Maternal Frightened, Frightening, or Atypical Behavior and Disorganized Infant Attachment Patterns
Dissociation and the Parent-Infant Dialogue: A Longitudinal Perspective From Attachment Research
Two longitudinal attachment studies of families at social risk have now followed their cohorts of infants to late adolescence. Several key findings have emerged related to outcomes of interest to psychoanalysts. First, data from both studies indicate that disorganized attachment behaviors in infancy are important precursors of later dissociative symptomatology. Second, this early vulnerability is related to patterns of parent-infant affective com…
I sense that you sense that I sense: Sander's recognition process and the specificity of relational moves in the psychotherapeutic setting
Attachment and psychopathology
Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change
This paper addresses an intersubjective issue that arises out of our model of therapeutic change: Why do humans so strongly seek states of emotional connectedness and intersubjectivity and why does the failure to achieve connectedness have such a damaging effect on the mental health of the infant? A hypothesis is offered—the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis—as an attempt to explain these phenomena. This hypothesis is based on the Mutu…
Case illustration: Moving along…and, is change gradual or sudden
A sequence of analytic sessions of a professional woman in her forties is used to illustrate the moving along process. The material shows a gradual change, where the patient's experience of her sense of agency is altered through a particular kind of interactive sequence. The example is intended to make it clear that the group's view of how change occurs is not strictly or primarily in terms of sudden changes, and that the problem of assessing mom…
The process of therapeutic change involving implicit knowledge: Some implications of developmental observations for adult psychotherapy
Several aspects of developmental change that are dependent on interactions between parent and infant are examined for their value in casting light on the processes of change in adult psychotherapies. First, the domain of implicit knowledge (where changes necessarily occur in nonverbal infants) is identified. The vast majority of therapeutic change is found to occur in this domain. We then examine the improvised, largely unpredictable, nonlinear m…
The case of Sophie
The analysis of a girl from ages 3 to 5 years old offers a clinical illustration of an alternative theory of change. In this theory the process of change is organized around nodal points of exchange between patient and analyst, designated as “now moments” and “moments of meeting.” In the case presented, these moments were preceded by an intensification of affect and were accompanied by a sense of openness and ambiguity. As often as not they were …
Reflections on the process of psychotherapeutic change as applied to medical situations
This article takes the basic ideas on the process of changing implicit knowledge put forward in this special issue, and extends them beyond psychotherapy to include other therapeutic relationships that occur in medicine. One vignette, from an encounter between a medical student and a dying patient, illustrates how a “moment of meeting” changes the student as well as the patient. The second shows how therapeutic interventions for new mothers with …
Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic treatment
It is increasingly apparent that “something more” than interpretation is needed to bring about change in psychoanalytic treatment. Drawing on clinical and developmental observations, we propose that interactional processes from birth onward give rise to a form of procedural knowledge regarding how to do things with intimate others, knowledge we call implicit relational knowing. This knowing is distinct from conscious verbalizable knowledge and fr…
Moving along to things left undone
This paper expands on three areas of clinical theory that are introduced and discussed in the lead paper and the others in this symposium. The first issue addressed is the concept of the real relationship as used in the moment of meeting model of psychotherapeutic change. Particular focus has been placed on the past, the present, and the hierarchy of goals in the treatment relationship. Second, the paper explores the concept of implicit relationa…
Interventions that effect change in psychotherapy: A model based on infant research
Infant attachment strategies, infant mental lag, and maternal depressive symptoms: Predictors of internalizing and externalizing problems at age 7
The predictive relations between assessments in infancy and parent- and teacher-reported behavior problems at age 7 were investigated within a low-income sample. Infancy assessments indexed family adversity, parent-infant interaction at home, infant attachment, infant anger-distress at home, gender, and cognitive functioning. Among children at age 7 identified by teachers as highly externalizing, 83% were both disorganized in their attachment beh…
Attachment relationships among children with aggressive behavior problems: The role of disorganized early attachment patterns.
The disturbed caregiving system: Relations among childhood trauma, maternal caregiving, and infant affect and attachment
The interrelations among maternal childhood experiences of physical or sexual abuse, adult trauma-related symptoms, adult caregiving behavior, and infant affect and attachment were investigated among 45 low-income mothers and their 18-month-old infants. A history of physical abuse was associated with increased hostile-intrusive behavior toward the infant, increased infant negative affect, and a decreased tendency to report trauma-related symptoms…
Broadening our conceptual frameworks: Can we reintroduce relational strategies and implicit representational systems to the study of psychopathology
In the context of current studies of parental depression, methodological and conceptual issues related to the study of relational behavior are highlighted in this commentary. These issues include the need to develop measures of relational behavior that are well-validated in high-risk samples, the need for methods that describe a variety of individual relational patterns rather than focusing primarily on sigle linear dimensions of behavior, and th…
Disorganized Infant Attachment Classification and Maternal Psychosocial Problems as Predictors of Hostile-Aggressive Behavior in the Preschool Classroom
Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Lisbeth Alpern, Betty Repacholi, Disorganized Infant Attachment Classification and Maternal Psychosocial Problems as Predictors of Hostile-Aggressive Behavior in the Preschool Classroom, Child Development, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 572-585
Rapprochement or approchement: Mahler's theory reconsidered from the vantage point of recent research in early attachment relationships.
Infant attachment strategies, infant mental lag, and maternal depressive symptoms: Predictors of internalizing and externalizing problems at age 7
The predictive relations between assessments in infancy and parent- and teacher-reported behavior problems at age 7 were investigated within a low-income sample. Infancy assessments indexed family adversity, parent-infant interaction at home, infant attachment, infant anger-distress at home, gender, and cognitive functioning. Among children at age 7 identified by teachers as highly externalizing, 83% were both disorganized in their attachment beh…
The foundational level of psychodynamic meaning: Implicit process in relation to conflict, defense and the dynamic unconscious
Traditionally, intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defense were assumed to determine what happened at the interactive level. The interactive level was seen merely as the instantiation of such deeper forces. The authors delineate the upsidedown theoretical conception of the relationship between the supposedly ‘superficial’ layer of immediate interaction and the supposedly ‘profound’ layer of intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defens…
Infants at social risk: Relations among infant maltreatment, maternal behavior, and infant attachment behavior
Fifty-six 12-month-old infants, including 10 maltreated infants, 18 nonmaltreated high-risk infants, and 28 matched low-income controls, were videotaped in naturalistic settings at home with their mothers for 40 min and were observed 2 weeks later in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Maltreating mothers were rated higher than nonmaltreating mothers on covertly hostile and interfering behaviors toward their infants at home. Maltreated infants were …
Representational and questionnaire measures of attachment: A meta-analysis of relations to child internalizing and externalizing problems
Dissociation and the Parent-Infant Dialogue: A Longitudinal Perspective From Attachment Research
Two longitudinal attachment studies of families at social risk have now followed their cohorts of infants to late adolescence. Several key findings have emerged related to outcomes of interest to psychoanalysts. First, data from both studies indicate that disorganized attachment behaviors in infancy are important precursors of later dissociative symptomatology. Second, this early vulnerability is related to patterns of parent-infant affective com…
Differential attachment responses of male and female infants to frightening maternal behavior: Tend or befriend versus fight or flight
Taylor and colleagues (2000) proposed that males tend to display fight or flight responses to threat while females are more likely to display affiliative "tend or befriend" responses. In light of this hypothesis, gender differences in infant attachment behaviors were examined in a sample of 65 low-income mother-infant dyads, half of whom were referred to a home-based intervention service because of concerns about the quality of caregiving. Attach…
The relationship questionnaire-clinical version (RQ-CV): Introducing a profoundly-distrustful attachment style
Cost-efficient prenatal assessments are needed that have the potential to identify those at risk for parent/infant relational problems. With this goal in mind, an additional attachment style description was added to the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), an established self-report attachment measure, to create the Relationship Questionnaire: Clinical Version (RQ-CV). The additional description represents a profoundly-distr…
Broadening our conceptual frameworks: Can we reintroduce relational strategies and implicit representational systems to the study of psychopathology
In the context of current studies of parental depression, methodological and conceptual issues related to the study of relational behavior are highlighted in this commentary. These issues include the need to develop measures of relational behavior that are well-validated in high-risk samples, the need for methods that describe a variety of individual relational patterns rather than focusing primarily on sigle linear dimensions of behavior, and th…
Face-to-face interactions of depressed mothers and their infants
Although some depressed mothers are withdrawn, others are highly engaged and intrusive. There are correspondences between the behavior of depressed mothers and their infants
The depressed mother and her one-year-old infant: Environment, interaction, attachment, and infant development
Maternal depression is a prevalent symptom among lowincome mothers with infants. Depressed mothers are more likely than nonde pressed mothers to show hostile and intrusive behavior toward their infants, and infants of depressed mothers are more likely to exhibit slowed development and unstable, avoidant attachment behaviors
Infants at social risk: Relations among infant maltreatment, maternal behavior, and infant attachment behavior
Fifty-six 12-month-old infants, including 10 maltreated infants, 18 nonmaltreated high-risk infants, and 28 matched low-income controls, were videotaped in naturalistic settings at home with their mothers for 40 min and were observed 2 weeks later in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Maltreating mothers were rated higher than nonmaltreating mothers on covertly hostile and interfering behaviors toward their infants at home. Maltreated infants were …
Rapprochement or approchement: Mahler's theory reconsidered from the vantage point of recent research in early attachment relationships.
Rapprochement or approchement: Mahler's theory reconsidered from the vantage point of recent research in early attachment relationships
Rapprochement or approchement: Mahler's theory reconsidered from the vantage point of recent research on early attachment relationships
Issues in the identification and long-term management of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome within a clinical infant service
Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome is a version of Munchausen's Syndrome whereby a parent, usually the mother, simulates or fabricates disease in one or more of her children in order to seek medical attention. Because this disorder is usually identified in pediatric settings, current literature focuses on identification of the syndrome, with little discussion of treatment issues or management strategies other than confrontation of the parent and remova…
Disorganized Infant Attachment Classification and Maternal Psychosocial Problems as Predictors of Hostile-Aggressive Behavior in the Preschool Classroom
Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Lisbeth Alpern, Betty Repacholi, Disorganized Infant Attachment Classification and Maternal Psychosocial Problems as Predictors of Hostile-Aggressive Behavior in the Preschool Classroom, Child Development, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 572-585
Broadening our conceptual frameworks: Can we reintroduce relational strategies and implicit representational systems to the study of psychopathology
In the context of current studies of parental depression, methodological and conceptual issues related to the study of relational behavior are highlighted in this commentary. These issues include the need to develop measures of relational behavior that are well-validated in high-risk samples, the need for methods that describe a variety of individual relational patterns rather than focusing primarily on sigle linear dimensions of behavior, and th…
Attachment relationships among children with aggressive behavior problems: The role of disorganized early attachment patterns.
The disturbed caregiving system: Relations among childhood trauma, maternal caregiving, and infant affect and attachment
The interrelations among maternal childhood experiences of physical or sexual abuse, adult trauma-related symptoms, adult caregiving behavior, and infant affect and attachment were investigated among 45 low-income mothers and their 18-month-old infants. A history of physical abuse was associated with increased hostile-intrusive behavior toward the infant, increased infant negative affect, and a decreased tendency to report trauma-related symptoms…
Infant attachment strategies, infant mental lag, and maternal depressive symptoms: Predictors of internalizing and externalizing problems at age 7
The predictive relations between assessments in infancy and parent- and teacher-reported behavior problems at age 7 were investigated within a low-income sample. Infancy assessments indexed family adversity, parent-infant interaction at home, infant attachment, infant anger-distress at home, gender, and cognitive functioning. Among children at age 7 identified by teachers as highly externalizing, 83% were both disorganized in their attachment beh…
Attachment and psychopathology
Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change
This paper addresses an intersubjective issue that arises out of our model of therapeutic change: Why do humans so strongly seek states of emotional connectedness and intersubjectivity and why does the failure to achieve connectedness have such a damaging effect on the mental health of the infant? A hypothesis is offered—the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis—as an attempt to explain these phenomena. This hypothesis is based on the Mutu…
Case illustration: Moving along…and, is change gradual or sudden
A sequence of analytic sessions of a professional woman in her forties is used to illustrate the moving along process. The material shows a gradual change, where the patient's experience of her sense of agency is altered through a particular kind of interactive sequence. The example is intended to make it clear that the group's view of how change occurs is not strictly or primarily in terms of sudden changes, and that the problem of assessing mom…
The process of therapeutic change involving implicit knowledge: Some implications of developmental observations for adult psychotherapy
Several aspects of developmental change that are dependent on interactions between parent and infant are examined for their value in casting light on the processes of change in adult psychotherapies. First, the domain of implicit knowledge (where changes necessarily occur in nonverbal infants) is identified. The vast majority of therapeutic change is found to occur in this domain. We then examine the improvised, largely unpredictable, nonlinear m…
The case of Sophie
The analysis of a girl from ages 3 to 5 years old offers a clinical illustration of an alternative theory of change. In this theory the process of change is organized around nodal points of exchange between patient and analyst, designated as “now moments” and “moments of meeting.” In the case presented, these moments were preceded by an intensification of affect and were accompanied by a sense of openness and ambiguity. As often as not they were …
Reflections on the process of psychotherapeutic change as applied to medical situations
This article takes the basic ideas on the process of changing implicit knowledge put forward in this special issue, and extends them beyond psychotherapy to include other therapeutic relationships that occur in medicine. One vignette, from an encounter between a medical student and a dying patient, illustrates how a “moment of meeting” changes the student as well as the patient. The second shows how therapeutic interventions for new mothers with …
Implicit relational knowing: Its role in development and psychoanalytic treatment
It is increasingly apparent that “something more” than interpretation is needed to bring about change in psychoanalytic treatment. Drawing on clinical and developmental observations, we propose that interactional processes from birth onward give rise to a form of procedural knowledge regarding how to do things with intimate others, knowledge we call implicit relational knowing. This knowing is distinct from conscious verbalizable knowledge and fr…
Moving along to things left undone
This paper expands on three areas of clinical theory that are introduced and discussed in the lead paper and the others in this symposium. The first issue addressed is the concept of the real relationship as used in the moment of meeting model of psychotherapeutic change. Particular focus has been placed on the past, the present, and the hierarchy of goals in the treatment relationship. Second, the paper explores the concept of implicit relationa…
Interventions that effect change in psychotherapy: A model based on infant research
I sense that you sense that I sense: Sander's recognition process and the specificity of relational moves in the psychotherapeutic setting
Chapter IV. Maternal Frightened, Frightening, or Atypical Behavior and Disorganized Infant Attachment Patterns
Dissociation and the Parent-Infant Dialogue: A Longitudinal Perspective From Attachment Research
Two longitudinal attachment studies of families at social risk have now followed their cohorts of infants to late adolescence. Several key findings have emerged related to outcomes of interest to psychoanalysts. First, data from both studies indicate that disorganized attachment behaviors in infancy are important precursors of later dissociative symptomatology. Second, this early vulnerability is related to patterns of parent-infant affective com…
Differential attachment responses of male and female infants to frightening maternal behavior: Tend or befriend versus fight or flight
Taylor and colleagues (2000) proposed that males tend to display fight or flight responses to threat while females are more likely to display affiliative "tend or befriend" responses. In light of this hypothesis, gender differences in infant attachment behaviors were examined in a sample of 65 low-income mother-infant dyads, half of whom were referred to a home-based intervention service because of concerns about the quality of caregiving. Attach…
Psychology (29 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (13 works) · Attachment theory (10 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Psychoanalysis (10 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (10 works) · Psychotherapist (9 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (8 works) · Psychiatry (8 works)