The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 156(1), 57-72 Maternal Separation Anxiety. Relations to Adult Attachment Representations in Mothers of Infants WILMA J. LUTZ ELLEN HOCK Department of Family Relations and Human Development The Ohio State University ABSTRACT. Guided primarily by attachment theory, this longitudinal study explored how adult mental representations of attachment relationships and memories of childhood expe- riences with parents contributed to a mother’s anxiety about separation from her own infant. The Maternal Separation Anxiety Scale, the Adult Attachment Interview, and the Mother-Father-Peer Scale were administered to a sample of 49 first-time mothers. The mothers with insecure attachment representations, when asked to remember details of their own childhood, reported more negative recollections of early parental caregiving, part ularly rejection and discouragement of independence. When their own infants were 2 months old, these mothers experienced heightened levels of maternal separation anxiety The findings provide theoretical and empirical support for the view that very high levels of matemal separation anxiety may indicate dysfunction ————— eee RECENT STUDIES of the developing mother-infant relationship support the belief that maternal separation anxiety is an important psychological construct and is meaningfully related to both maternal behaviors toward the child and other aspects of maternal personality (Aber, 1987; Hock, McBride, & Gnezda, 1989; Hock & Schirtzinger, 1992; McBride & Belsky, 1988; Stifter, Coulean, & Fish, 1993). Maternal separation anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional state that reflects a mother’s concems and apprehensions about leaving her child, Such anxiety may be evidenced as feelings of worry, sadness, or guilt that accompany short-term separations (Hock, 1984; Hock et al., 1989). In the most recent stud- This study was partially supported by grant ROL MH46003-02 from the National Institute of Mental Health, awarded to Ellen Hock. We would like to express our appreciation to Mary Beth Schirtzinger for her assistance in collecting data for this study, and to Ed Wo}. niak and Holly Cole Detke for their help in scoring the data, Address correspondence to Ellen Hock, The Ohio State University, Department of Family Relations and Human Development, 1787 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH. 43210-1295. 37 Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.58___ The Journal of Genetic Psychology ies of this construct, researchers have used the Maternal Sep: le (Hock et al., 1989) and found that maternal separation anxiety is very stable over time and across situations (DeMeis, Hock. & McBride, 1986; Hock et al.. 1989) Although the items on this scale are quite concrete in terms of their substantive content, the scores are believed to reflect the mother’s comfort and security with respect to relationships. That is, the items on this scale are designed to tap the mother’s cognitions and feelings about closeness and separation regarding her self and her child “onceptuallly, a woman’s representation or sense of self is believed to be an important determinant of maternal separation anxiety (Hock & Schirtzinger, 1992) ‘The term sense of self refers to the extent to which an individual has acquired a dif- ferentiated, experiential feeling of self as a constant and discrete person. In healthy individuals, this representation is sufficiently differentiated from “other” o ensure that loss of (or separation from) the other is aot experienced as loss of the self, A hesilthy sense of self is believed to contribute to confident, autonomous function~ ing in the maternal context. In other words, a firm sense of self enables the moth- er to feel comfortable with closeness, yet manage separation issues to promote autonomy in herself and her child. Conversely, the extent to which the mother has not achieved a firm sense of self may contribute to difficulty in experiencing hei self as separate from her child regarding personal needs and fectings: that is, the mother may experience difficulty in balancing her own needs with those of her child. Theoretically, extreme levels of maternil separation anxiety are viewed as dis- iurbances in a woman's psychological functioning that contribute to dysfunctional mother-child relationships. According to Benedek (1970), heightened separation anxiety interferes with a mother’s ability to separate from her child, which may dis- rupt her own process of individuation as a mother, Excessive amounts of separa tion anxiety may give rise to overindulgent, oyersolicitous, and extreme, overpro- tective bchaviors that undermine the child’s attempts to become autonomous. Thus, a mother with high separation anxiety may have difficulty perceiving herself as a person with her own unique needs, and she may develop an enmeshed relationship with her child. In contrast, Benedek posited that the absence of any separation anx- iety reflects: emotional abandonment of the child and prevents the mother f becoming appropriately attached or emotionally connected to her child. B was implicitly stating that moderate levels of separation anxiety represent healthi- er psychological functioning in mothers and are less likely 10 contribuic to the development of dysfunctional relationships. In support of this reasoning, researchers have recently found that maternal sep aration anxiety is integrally related to emotional health in mothers, High levels of separation anxiety arc associated with less healthy aspects of emotional function- ing, including more negative representations of self (Hock & Schirzinger, 1992), lower self-esteem (McBride & Belsky, 1988), and increased risk of depressi symptoms (Hock & Schirtzinger, 1992; Hock, Schirtzinger, & Lutz, 1992). Mater jon Anxiety Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.Luz & Hock _59 nal separation anxiety has also been found to relate to overprotective and insensi- tive behaviors in mothers. In laboratory-based situations, the women with height- ened levels of separation anxiety were more likely to demonstrate intrusive behav- iors with their infants (Stifter et al., 1993) and to behave in ways that discouraged autonomy in their toddlers (Aber, 1987). Moreover, maternal separation anxiety has been found to relate to indices of healthy mother—infant relationships. Women with moderate levels of separation anxiety are more likely to have securely attached infants (McBride & Belsky, 1988). Given the importance of separation anxiety to both the psychological func- tioning of mothers and their relationship with their children, a fundamental, yet cru- cial, question needs to be considered: What are the origins of separation anxiety in adult women? A mother's feelings about separation are believed to originate from her personality structure, formed from experiences with her own parents during childhood. Bloom-Feshbach and Bloom-Feshbach (1987) claimed that the signifi- cance of separation for each person is derived from the nature of caregiving rela- tionships of early life. These relationships help to create a psychological founda- tion that shapes interpersonal experiences and emotional well-being in individuals, including their responses to separation. Likewise, as Fraiberg, Adelson, and Shapiro (1975) asserted, parents of young children are influenced by repressed, unresolved conflicts; thus, affective components of stressful and anxious childhood experiences with their own parents serve to “program” their current feelings and behavior regarding their own child. However intuitively sound this thinking is, there have been few empirical studies that have explored this intergenerational link by exam- ining qualities of the mother’s childhood experiences and subsequent feelings about her own child. Furthermore, attachment and psychoanalytic theorists alike have proposed that specific parental caregiving qualities during childhood contribute to both the origin and intensity of separation anxiety. Bowlby (1973) posited that adverse family experiences, such as parental rejection and threats of abandonment, contribute to excessive separation anxiety. Levy (1970) postulated that maternal overprotection G.c., high levels of maternal separation anxiety) is partially rooted in a woman's early experience with relationships. He stated that mothers who are extremely over- Protective with their own children have frequently experienced impoverished parental love; that is, childhood relationships with their own parents can be char- acterized as lacking in security, affection, warmth, and so forth. He further indicat- ed that when these women become mothers, their exaggerated need for love, some- times referred to as affect hunger, gives rise to marked overvaluation and overinvolvement with their children, to the extent that they may extricate them- selves from other social relationships. In other words, this need for love is trans- formed and interpreted as the child’s need for maternal contact and care, and it forms the basis for the cultivation of a highly exclusive mother-child relationship. The empirical literature on adult functioning has generally included two types or levels of measures of early parent-child relationships. Of these, the con- Copyright ©2001. All Rights Reserved.