Paternal contributions to the etiology of gender identity disorder: A study of attachment, affect regulation, and gender conflict.
Item
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Title
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Paternal contributions to the etiology of gender identity disorder: A study of attachment, affect regulation, and gender conflict.
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Identifier
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AAI9917640
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identifier
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9917640
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Creator
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Cook, Cassandra Graham.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Arietta Slade
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Date
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1999
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Sociology, Individual and Family Studies | Psychology, Social | Psychology, Behavioral
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Abstract
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The goal of this study was to formulate hypotheses concerning the contribution of paternal dynamics to the etiology of Childhood Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in boys. Six fathers of sons diagnosed with GID were interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the Early Memories Test, and the Fatherhood Interview, a semi-structured interview designed for this project to assess the fathers' experience of their sons' cross-gender symptoms. AAI transcripts were scored using both Main & Goldwyn's (1998) scoring system and Fonagy et al's (1998) Reflective Functioning Manual. According to Main's system, every father in this sample evidenced clinically significant levels of Unresolved Trauma, and no subject was classified as Secure. The dramatic over-representation of Insecure and Unresolved Trauma classifications in this sample was understood as suggesting that these fathers' are very likely to have formed insecure attachment relationships with their sons, as well as to have manifested, when stressed, the kinds of frightened and frightening behaviors that may lead a sensitive and highly reactive child to feel anxious and unsafe in establishing a masculine identification. The low levels of reflective functioning obtained on this sample were seen as suggestive of these fathers' difficulties in forming accurate and detailed inner representations of their children. Significantly, however, this sample also provided clear clinical evidence that overall reflective functioning scores may not capture certain key capacities which interact to determine the quality of parents' internal representations of their children. It was proposed that the capacity to take responsibility for one's own role in relationships is critical to the constructive use of reflective capacities, and also that the absence of well-developed reflective capacities in the specific domain of the relationship with the child may render the more general capacity for reflective functioning relatively useless in the process of preventing the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Finally, traumatic attachment-related experiences in these fathers' histories were found to be intimately related to past and present experiences of gender. The identification of two distinct attitudes toward the child's cross-gender symptoms led to the formation of hypotheses concerning two distinct dynamic pathways for paternal reinforcement of cross-gender symptomatology.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
