Recent Publications
Ballen, N., Bernier, A., Moss, E., Tarabulsy, G., & St-Laurent, D. (2010). Insecure attachment states of mind and atypical caregiving behavior among foster mothers. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31, 118–125.
Benoit, D., Madigan, S., Lecce, S., Shea, B., & Goldberg, S. (2001) Atypical maternal behavior before and after intervention. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22, 611-626.
Brumariu, L., Bureau, J-F., Nemoda, Z., Sasvari-Szekely, M., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2016). Attachment and temperament revisited: Infant distress, attachment disorganisation and the serotonin transporter polymorphism. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, (34)1, 77-89.
Bureau JF, Easterbrooks MA, & Lyons-Ruth K. (2009) Attachment disorganization and role-reversal in middle childhood: Maternal and child precursors and correlates. Attachment and Human Development, 11, 265-284.
Crawford A, Benoit D.(2009) Caregivers’ disrupted representations of the unborn child predict later infant-caregiver disorganized attachment and disrupted interactions. Infant Mental
Health Journal, 30, 124-144.
Crockett, E., Holmes, B., Granger, D., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2013). Maternal disrupted communication during face-to-face interaction at four months: Relation to maternal and infant cortisol among at-risk families. Infancy, 18, 1111-1134.
David, D., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2005). Differential attachment responses of male and female infants to frightening maternal behavior: Tend or befriend versus fight or flight? Infant Mental Health Journal, 26, 1-18.
Dutra, L., Bureau, J., Holmes, B., Lyubchik, A., Lyons-Ruth, K. (2009). Quality of early care and childhood trauma: A prospective study of developmental pathways to dissociation.
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197, 383-390.
Easterbrooks, M.A., Bureau, J-F., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2012). Developmental correlates and predictors of emotional availability in mother-child interaction: A longitudinal study from infancy to middle childhood. Development & Psychopathology, 24, 65-78.
Forbes, L., Evans, E., Moran, G., & Pederson, D.R. (2005). Change in atypical maternal behavior predicts change in attachment disorganization from 12 to 24 months. Child Development, 78, 955-971.
Gervai, J., Novak, A., Lakatos, K., Toth, I., Danis, I., Ronai, Z., Nemoda, Z., Sasvari-Szekely, M., Bureau, J.F., Bronfman, E., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2007). Infant genotype may moderate sensitivity to maternal affective communications: Attachment disorganization, quality of care, and the DRD4 polymorphism. Social Neuroscience, 2, 307-319.
Goldberg, S., Benoit, D., Blokland, K., & Madigan, S. (2003). Atypical maternal behavior, maternal representations and infant disorganized attachment. Development and Psychopathology, 15, 239-25
Grienenberger, J., Kelly, K., & Slade, A. (2005). Maternal reflective functioning, mother-infant affective communication, and infant attachment: Exploring the link between mental states of observed caregiving behavior in the intergenerational transmission of attachment. Attachment and Human Development, 7, 299-311.
Haltigan JD, Madigan S, Bronfman E, Bailey H, Borland-Kerr C, Mills-Koonce R, Lyons-Ruth K. Refining the assessment of disrupted maternal communication: Using item response models to identify central indicators of disrupted behavior. Dev Psychopathol. 2019 Feb; 31(1): 261-277.
Hobson RP, Patrick MP, Hobson JA, Crandell L, Bronfman E, Lyons-Ruth K. (2009) How mothers with borderline personality disorder relate to their year-old infants. Britsh Journal of Psychiatry, 195(4), 325-30.
Lyons-Ruth, K. (2008) Contributions of the mother-infant relationship to dissociative, borderline, and conduct symptoms in young adulthood. Infant Mental Health Journal, 29, 203-218.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E., & Parsons, E. (1999). Atypical attachment in infancy and early childhood among children at developmental risk. Part IV. Maternal frightened, frightening, or atypical behavior and disorganized infant attachment patterns. In J. Vondra & D. Barnett (Eds.), Atypical patterns of infant attachment: Theory, research, and current directions. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64(3, Serial No. 258), 67–96.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bureau, J-F., Easterbrooks, A., Obsuth, I., Hennighausen, K. (2013). Parsing the construct of maternal insensitivity: Distinct longitudinal pathways associated with early maternal withdrawal. Attachment & Human Development, 15, 562-582.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bureau, J-F., Holmes, B., Easterbrooks, A., & Brooks, N. (2013). Borderline symptoms and suicidality/self-injury in late adolescence: Prospectively observed relationship correlates in infancy and childhood. Psychiatry Research, 206, 273–281.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bureau J., Riley, C., Atlas-Corbett, A. F. (2009). Socially indiscriminate attachment behavior in the Strange Situation: Convergent and discriminant validity in relation to caregiving risk, later behavior problems, and attachment insecurity. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 355-372.
Lyons-Ruth, K. & Jacobvitz, D. (1999). Attachment disorganization: Unresolved loss, relational violence and lapses in behavioral and attentional strategies. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of Attachment, New York: Guilford, 520-554.
Lyons-Ruth, K. & Jacobvitz, D. (2008). Attachment disorganization: Genetic factors, parenting contexts, and developmental transformation from infancy to adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of Attachment (2nd Edition). New York: Guilford, pp. 666-697.
Lyons-Ruth, K. , Pechtel, P. , Yoon, S.A., Anderson C.M. , & Teicher, M.H. (2016). Disorganized attachment in infancy predicts greater amygdala volume in adulthood. Behavioral Brain Research, 308, 83-93.
Lyons-Ruth, K., Yellin, C., Melnick, S., & Atwood, G. (2005). Expanding the concept of unresolved mental states: Hostile/Helpless states of mind on the Adult Attachment Interview are associated with disrupted mother-infant communication and infant disorganization. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 1-23.
Madigan, S., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M., van IJzendoorn, M., Moran, G., Pederson, D., & Benoit, D., (2006) Unresolved states of mind, anomalous parental behavior, and disorganized attachment: A review and meta-analysis. Attachment and Human Development, 8, 89-111.
Madigan, S., Benoit, D. & Boucher, C. (2011).Exploration of the links among fathers' unresolved states of mind with respect to attachment, atypical paternal behavior, and disorganized infant–father attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 3, 286-304.
Madigan, S., Hawkins, E., Benoit, D., & Goldberg, S. (2006). Reduction of disrupted caregiver behavior using modified interaction guidance. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27, 509-527.
Madigan, S., Moran, G., & Pederson, D.R.(2006). Unresolved states of mind, disorganized attachment relationships, and disrupted mother-infant interactions of adolescent mothers and their infants. Developmental Psychology, 42, 293-304.
Madigan, S., Moran, G., Schuengel, C., Pederson, D., & Otten, R. (2007). Unresolved maternal attachment representations, disrupted maternal behavior and disorganized attachment in infancy: Links to toddler behavior problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 1042-1050.
Madigan, S., Voci, S., & Benoit, D. (2011). Stability of atypical caregiver behaviors over six years and associations with disorganized infant-caregiver attachment. Attachment and Human Development, 13(3), 237-252.
Moran, G., Forbes, L., Evans, E., Tarabulsy, G., Madigan, S. (2008) Both maternal sensitivity and atypical maternal behavior independently predict attachment security and disorganization in adolescent mother-infant relationships. Infant Behavior and Development, 31, 316-320.
Najmi, S., Bureau, J., Chen, D., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2009) Maternal attitudinal inflexibility: Longitudinal relations with mother-infant interaction and childhood hostile-aggressive behavior problems. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33, 924 - 932.
Niccols, A., Smith, A., & Benoit, D. (2015) The Working Model of the Child Interview: Stability of the disrupted classification in a community intervention sample. Infant Mental Health Journal, 36(4), 388–398.
Pechtel, P., Woodman, A., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2012). Early maternal withdrawal and non-verbal childhood IQ as precursors for substance abuse diagnosis in young adulthood: Results of a 20-year prospective study. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 5, 316-329.
Schechter DS, Coates, SW, Kaminer T, Coots T, Zeanah CH, Davies M, Schonfield IS, Marshall RD, Liebowitz MR Trabka KA, McCaw J, & Myers MM (2008). Distorted maternal mental representations and atypical behavior in a clinical sample of violence-exposed mothers and their toddlers. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 9(2), 123-149.
Schechter, DS, Willheim E, Hinojosa C, Scholfield-Kleinman, K, Turner JB, McCaw J, Zeanah CH, & Myers MM (2010). Subjective and objective measures of parent-child relationship dysfunction, child separation distress, and joint attention. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 73(2), 130-144.
Schechter, D. S., Zeanah, C. H., Myers, M. M., Brunelli, S. A., Liebowitz, M. R., Marshal, R. D., et al. (2004). Psychobiologcal dysregulation in violence-exposed mothers: Salivary
cortisol of mothers with very young children pre- and post-separation stress. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 68, 313–336.
Tereno, S., Madigan, S., Lyons-Ruth, K., Plamondon, A., Atkinson, L., Guedeney, N., Greacen, T., Dugravier, R., Saias, T., & Guedeney, A. Assessing a change mechanism in a randomized home-visiting trial: Reducing disrupted maternal communication decreases infant disorganization. Development and Psychopathology, 2017, 29, 637–649.
Vulliez-Coady, L., Obsuth, I., Torreiro-Casal, M., Ellertsdottir, L., & Lyons-Ruth, K (2013). Maternal role-confusion: Relations to maternal attachment and mother-child interaction from infancy to adolescence. Infant Mental Health Journal, 34, 117-131.
Yoon, S., Kelso, G. A., Lock, A., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2014). Mother-infant joint attention and sharing: relations to disorganized attachment and maternal disrupted communication. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 175(5-6), 494-510.
Review Chapters
Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E., Atwood, G. (1999) A relational diathesis model of hostile-helpless states of mind: Expressions in mother-infant interaction. In: Solomon J, George C, editors. Attachment disorganization. New York: Guilford, p. 33-69.
Lyons-Ruth, K. & Jacobvitz, D. (1999). Attachment disorganization: Unresolved loss, relational violence and lapses in behavioral and attentional strategies. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. New York: Guilford, pp. 520-554.
Lyons-Ruth, K., & Jacobvitz, D. (2008) Disorganized attachment: Genetic factors, parenting contexts, and developmental transformation from infancy to adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.) Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. 2nd Edition. New York: Guilford, pp. 666-697.
Lyons-Ruth K., & Jacobvitz D. (2016). Attachment disorganization from infancy to adulthood: Neurobiological correlates, parenting contexts, and pathways to disorder. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications 3rd Edition. New York: Guilford, pp. 667-695
Clinical Chapter
Baradon, T. & Bronfman, E. (2010). Contributions of, and divergences between, clinical work and research tools relating to trauma and disorganization. In Baradon, T. (Ed.), Relational Trauma in Infancy: Psychoanalytic, Attachment and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-Infant Psychotherapy: Routledge: London, England, p. 163-179.