We ask authors to describe their impressions regarding the implications of their accepted work, how their findings will change practice, and what is noteworthy about the work.
A Review on Attachment and Adolescent Substance Abuse: Empirical Evidence and Implications for Prevention and Treatment
Andreas Schindler , Sonja Bröning
Substance Abuse
Vol. 36, Iss. 3, 2015
Attachment theory holds great explanatory power with regard to the massive emotional and relational changes occurring during adolescence. Thus far, its influence on the development of SUD during adolescence has been understudied. This paper reviews and structures existing evidence linking attachment and SUD development in order to guide future research in the field. Though we still face a lot of unknowns in the relation between attachment and SUD, there is strong evidence for a general link between SUD and insecure attachment. Data on connections between different patterns of attachment and different pathways towards SUD mainly point to disorganized and externalizing pathways. Evidence suggests that fostering attachment security might improve the outcome of state-of-the-art approaches in both early interventional treatment and prevention.