Attachment and substance use disorders: A review of the literature and a study in drug dependent adolescents

Abstract

Earlier studies on attachment and substance use disorders using the Hazan and Shaver (1987 Hazan, C. and Shaver, P. 1987. Conceptualizing romantic love as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52: 511–524. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) self-report mainly indicate a link with “avoidant” attachment styles. Studies working with the Adult Attachment Interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1998 Main, M. and Goldwyn, R. 1998. Adult attachment scoring and classification system, Berkeley: University of California. Unpublished manuscript [Google Scholar]) have produced inconsistent results. The present study used the Bartholomew (1990 Bartholomew, K. 1990. Avoidance of intimacy - An attachment perspective. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7: 147–178. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) interview coding system to assess attachment in a sample of 71 German opiate using, drug dependent adolescents (DDAs, age 14 – 25) and 39 non-clinical controls. Fearful attachment was predominant in DDAs, while controls were predominantly secure. Severity of drug use, as assessed with the European Addiction Severity Index (Gsellhofer, Fahrner, & Platt, 1994 Gsellhofer, B., Fahrner, E. M. and Platt, J. 1994. European addiction severity index – German version, München: Institut für Therapieforschung. [Google Scholar]) and urinalyses, was positively correlated with fearful attachment, but negatively correlated with dismissing attachment. The presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders was associated with fearful attachment but not with addiction severity.

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