Skip to main content
MedVellum
QuestionsVideosPricing

MedVellum

Fellowship exam preparation across every specialty: source-verified topics, questions in every format, and videos.

Product

  • Specialties
  • Questions
  • Videos
  • Exam tools
  • Pricing

Verification & policy

  • Verified register
  • Editorial policy
  • Privacy
  • Terms

Account

  • Sign in
  • Create account
  • Dashboard
  • Account & billing

© 2026 MedVellum. For education only — not a substitute for clinical judgement.

llms.txtPsychiatry LLM catalogSitemap

Psych VivasFoundations — attachment

Psych Vivas · Foundations — attachment

Attachment theory — structured clinical viva

Fellowship viva on attachment theory from infant classification through adult mentalization and clinical safety around coercive therapies.

clinical1 min readVerification in progress

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNB
On this page
Study tools

Target exams

FRANZCPMRCPsychABPNMD-DNB
Prompt
You are the psychiatry registrar. Discuss attachment theory for fellowship examiners using a 22-year-old woman with borderline personality features, recurrent self-harm after perceived abandonment, childhood emotional neglect, and a mother who still becomes dissociative when discussing the death of a sibling. Cover Bowlby constructs, Strange Situation patterns, AAI states of mind, mentalization, the difference between attachment style and RAD/DSED, clinical implications for personality/trauma care and parenting risk, and what interventions you would and would not recommend.

Interpretation

Reveal interpretationShowHide

Examiners want fluent movement from theory → classification → mechanism → adult psychopathology → disorders vs styles → safe treatment stance. The mother vignette invites unresolved loss, frightening behaviour, and intergenerational risk without blaming language.[1][3][4][6]

Psychiatry Fellowship Pro

Continue reading

You have read the opening of this viva. The complete unit — every section and its primary-source references — is part of the Psychiatry Fellowship fellowship library.

Sign in to continueSee pricing
References8ShowHide
  1. [1]Bowlby J The making and breaking of affectional bonds. I. Aetiology and psychopathology in the light of attachment theory Br J Psychiatry, 1977.PMID 843768
  2. [2]Ainsworth MD Patterns of infant-mother attachments: antecedents and effects on development Bull N Y Acad Med, 1985.PMID 3864510
  3. [3]Hesse E, Main M Disorganized infant, child, and adult attachment: collapse in behavioral and attentional strategies J Am Psychoanal Assoc, 2000.PMID 11212184
  4. [4]Schuengel C, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, Van IJzendoorn MH Frightening maternal behavior linking unresolved loss and disorganized infant attachment J Consult Clin Psychol, 1999.PMID 10028209
  5. [5]Fonagy P, Target M Attachment and reflective function: their role in self-organization Dev Psychopathol, 1997.PMID 9449001
  6. [6]Fonagy P, Luyten P A developmental, mentalization-based approach to the understanding and treatment of borderline personality disorder Dev Psychopathol, 2009.PMID 19825272
  7. [7]Zeanah CH, Chesher T, Boris NW Practice Parameter for the Assessment and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Reactive Attachment Disorder and Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 2016.PMID 27806867
  8. [8]Chaffin M, Hanson R, Saunders BE, et al. Report of the APSAC task force on attachment therapy, reactive attachment disorder, and attachment problems Child Maltreat, 2006.PMID 16382093
Psychiatry Fellowship Pro

$29/ monthor $279 / year

The complete Psychiatry Fellowship library, every exam format, one subscription.

  • Complete library for one chosen specialty
  • Timed MCQ mock exams and spaced review
  • Clinical cases & cross-table vivas
See pricingSign in
PreviousAttachment disorders in children — structured clinical vivaChild and adolescent psychiatry — attachment disordersNextAugmentation strategies — consultant vivaPsychopharmacology — augmentation in mood and psychosis