A Personalized Map of Attachment Traits – Design for Application

Abstract

Attachment styles, rooted in early interactions with caregivers, play a pivotal role in shaping individuals' emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, and overall psychological well-being throughout their lives [1]. Understanding these attachment styles is crucial for developing tailored therapeutic interventions that address the unique needs of clients. This thesis project aims to design and develop an application that leverages data from the ECR 36 Questionnaire [2] to provide therapists with deeper insights into their clients' attachment styles and associated behavioral traits.

Traditional psychological questionnaires, like the ECR 36, typically produce numerical data that categorize individuals into general attachment styles, which can be overly simplistic and fail to capture the nuanced complexities of human behavior. By visualizing more detailed data extracted from each question on a 7-point Likert scale, this project seeks to transcend these limitations and offer a more granular understanding of clients' attachment patterns.

The application will employ Python language advanced data visualization techniques, such as radar charts, to illustrate the multifaceted dimensions of attachment styles. Additionally, it will utilize natural language processing algorithms to generate descriptive text summaries that help therapists interpret these visualizations. This deeper, more personalized insight can enable therapists to design more effective, individualized therapeutic interventions. 

Potential subcategories that could emerge from this detailed analysis include variations in attachment dimensions such as anxiety, avoidance, and secure attachment tendencies. By dissecting these dimensions further, the application can reveal specific behavioral traits and patterns, such as the degree of trust, dependency, and emotional regulation, offering a richer, more comprehensive profile of each client.

Ultimately, this project aims to bridge the gap between psychological theory and practical application, providing therapists with innovative tools to enhance their clinical practice and promote better mental health outcomes for their clients.

References

[1] Brennan, K. A., & Shaver, P. R. (1995). Dimensions of adult attachment, affect regulation, and romantic relationship functioning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21 (3), 267–283.

[2]  Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G., & Brennan, K. A. (2000). An item-response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350-365.