DMM danger list

When people are exposed to danger, survival-ensuring psychobiological processes take precedence over other brain and body systems. The fight-flight-freeze response is an example of one system taking control from other systems. Attachment theory, and the Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) in particular, describes how exposure to danger in childhood helps shape neural function, and the resultant patterns of information processing (PIP). There are two primary PIP’s, one is cognitively oriented and one is affectively oriented. Danger is more complex than meets the eye. There are universal dangers that threaten all humans, but there are unique dangers that are relevant to the cognitive and affective orientations. Danger is also age-salient, and some dangers are more or less relevant depending on age.

Types of danger generally

Basic survival needs, hunger, cold
Relationship needs: not being rejected
Not receiving comfort after experiencing danger
Loss of very important things: children, parents, financial safety, autonomy
Trauma (but not necessarily, because trauma can be resolved)
Abuse
Neglect
Violence: being a victim, witnessing violence, death
Parent’s divorce
Certain specific things: snakes, cliff edges, swimming pools for untrained swimmers

Possible subjective dangers from a cognitive (attachment A) perspective

Doing the wrong thing
Doing what one wants
Showing one’s own true feelings
Taking one’s own perspective
Expect comfort
“Leaking discrepant or forbidden information”
Criticism
Expressing negative affect
Engaging in negative behaviors (crying, not following rules)
Conflict with attachment figure
Admitting vulnerability
Intimacy
Inability to understand child’s perspective
Inability to act appropriately with child
Memories of negative affect and negative experiences
It may be safe to:
Attend to powerful people
Follow some external rule-set (even if it leads to harm)

Possible subjective dangers from a affective (attachment C) perspective

Abandonment, being alone
Not being in conflict
Not being true to one’s own feelings, even if in conflict with other people’s desires
Not attending to relationships, letting important people not attend to oneself
Believing that others will do as they say
Ambiguous reactions by others
Compromise
Delaying gratification
Feeling comfortable, i.e. exploration and reflection
It is safe to:
Exaggerate affect
Split good and bad aspects of a person or people
Insist on perspective
Deceptive attacks

Age-salient dangers

Infancy

Unavailable mother
Separation
Lack of stable caregiver or attachment figure
Neglect
Risk of physical harm
Physical abuse
Potentially, medical procedures
Hunger, cold, attack by angry parent
Not: death of parent so long as child’s needs met; abandonment; bullying

2-5 year olds

Birth of a sibling
Development of locomotion
Parents not keeping up with child’s ability to explore and get into trouble
Unpredictable parents
Includes too much compassion for child
Parents failing to shift from doing for the child to negotiating with child (Motherese, Fernald & Kuhl, 1987)
Parents failure to create hierarchical relationship
Children’s preferences matter, but providing safety governs
Handling child’s “No!” with appropriate respect, discipline, and fairness
Abandonment, and threat of it
Physical abuse
Deception (can’t deceive an infant)
Separation changes without advance warning
Inconsistency
Over-protection (prevents development of building skill to manage small threats)
Death of parent
Sexual abuse
Psychiatric illness of parent (may be a reduced danger if child is able to understand and manage which is more likely at older ages)

School Age

Parental conflict
Bullying
Name calling
Moving (relocation)
Not: separation

Adolescents

Moving (more of an irritation unless losing significant peer attachment)
Early onset of menstruation

Danger list contributors: Dr. Patricia Crittenden, Dr. Shari Kidwell, Rebecca Carr-Hopkins

DMM Danger List