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This paper focuses upon frightened, threatening, and dissociative parental behavior (frightening [FR]; Main & Hesse, 1992-2006), together with (a) its origins in parental unresolved trauma and (b) its frequent outcome: infant disorganized attachment (Main & Solomon, 1986, 1990). Here, we review the mechanisms by which these three forms of FR parental behavior may be frightening to infants and suggest that parental FR behaviors themselves are often guided by fright. This latter proposal is partly based upon the three "classic" outcomes of mammalian fright, namely, attack (comparable to threat), flight (comparable to frightened withdrawal from the infant), and freezing (comparable to dissociative behavior; Vanderlinden, Van Dyck, Vandereycken, & Vertommen, 1991).
It has long been recognized that infant disorganized (D) attachment as identified in Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) often takes its origins in fear of the parent (Main & Hesse, 1990). We examine how FR (frightened/frightening) parental behavior inevitably places the infant in a behaviorally irresolvable situation in which the attachment figure simultaneously becomes both the haven of safety and the source of the alarm. We have termed this a situation of "fright without solution," because unlike other frightening situations also involving the parent (such as extended separations, which are solvable by parental return), it should create an irresolvable approach-flight paradox for the infant. This paradox may also lead to a feedforward "looping" of attention, which we can express as a self-perpetuating series of if-then propositions, namely, "IF toward, then away, IF away, then toward, IF toward, then away, and so forth." The activation, and perhaps at times perpetuation, of this particular form of attentional looping may well be associated with "prepared" (evolutionarily channeled) fear, and hence, potentially occur outside of consciousness (Ohman, Flykt, & Lundqvist, 2000, pp. 297-298; see also Ohman, 2005). In terms of the concept of equifinality, however (see Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996), we are discussing one highly specific and sufficient, but not necessary, pathway to D attachment status.
Although fear-related experiences and behaviors no doubt occur in some maltreating parents of D infants, in maltreatment samples many parents may abuse offspring because of, for example, problems involving lack of impulse control, lack of empathy, and excessive negative affect. However, this paper focuses upon low-risk samples and therefore...