EARLY RELATIONAL TRAUMA, ATTACHMENT REPRESENTATIONS AND MENTALIZING CAPACITY IN CHILDREN: PRESENTING AND APPLYING NEW FINDINGS IN CHILD WELFARE RESIDENTIAL CARE

Children placed in child welfare residential care by the Youth Protection Services, display great difficulty in behaving, coping, controlling their impulses, and regulating their emotions. Clinical and theoretical writings on the subject show that the traumas these children may have experienced in their attachment relationships (neglect, maltreatment, and abuse) can compromise the quality of their attachment relationships and the development of their capacity to mentalize. These elements, which are closely related to each other, play an essential role in these children's emotional and behavioral regulation, and influence their subsequent interpersonal functioning. In this article, we study the relationship between attachment representations and mentalization from a theoretical perspective. We also integrate these concepts in order to better understand the difficulties faced by children placed in child welfare residential care.