Malattachment and the Self Struggle

The author’s doctoral dissertation, Malattachment and the Self Struggle, offers
an in-depth portrait of intergenerational attachment disruption, its relationship to depression and defensive
personality disorders, and approaches to healing-all within the context of the fictional narrative of Pearl, for
whom “mothering tears her open, then urges her to wholeness.” This excerpt features an explanation of the
effects and implications of an attuned attachment relationship between infant and caregiver, casting it as critical
developmental nourishment and terming its corruption malattachment; the importance of the caregiver’s own
self-narrative; a discussion of the unconscious implicit learning and memory processes that engrave lifelong
relational patterns in the growing child; a portrayal of personality “disorders” as the self struggle-adaptive
survival strategies forged in the face of thwarted attachment; and the seldom-explored notion of energetic
abandonment. These theoretical discussions are set against the relief of Pearl’s suffering the dual cut of the
wounded-mother knife: the agony of her own parched capacity to mother her son, and the painful awakening of
her own long-dormant malattachment wounds. KEY WORDS: attachment; malattachment; relational trauma;
postpartum depression; mothering; brain development; neurobiology; personality disorders; narcissism;
borderline; depression; narrative.