Strange Situation

February 3, 2020
Saltman, a journalist and researcher, debuts with a fascinating deep dive into attachment theory. Her interest in the subject began as she struggled with mixed emotions toward motherhood, worrying that—in part because of her own upbringing by a cold and distant mother—she hadn’t formed the “secure attachment” to her young daughter described in parenting literature. Saltman’s quest to understand the theory leads her to its formative figure, psychologist Mary Ainsworth. In the early 1950s, Ainsworth began extending and developing the theories of John Bowlby, then an outlier in psychology who, in placing the mother-baby bond at the core of infant development, went against the prevailing “cupboard theory” of behaviorism, which held that infants simply attached to the person who fed them. Saltman, bolstered by her research, provides clear explanations of attachment theory, in particular Ainsworth’s cornerstone testing tool, the Strange Situation, where infants’ attachment styles are determined as they interact with their mothers in different situations, such as breast-feeding and co-sleeping. Readers will learn along with the author what creates a solid attachment between caregiver and child, how attachment styles manifest in adulthood, and what constitutes “the telltale heart of attachment.” Carefully researched and with copious endnotes, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in child development. Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary.

February 1, 2020
An examination of the psychological attachment between parent and child from both personal and more detached points of view. In her first book, Saltman, a Zen practitioner, writes about how she was prompted to look into the research surrounding attachment due to her own ambivalence about life with her young daughter, Azalea. Concerned that her experience with a chilly mother whom the author felt didn't adequately nurture her would prevent her from bonding with the baby, the author began to investigate what she could do to strengthen the mother-daughter bond and be a "warmer, more present, and more loving mom than mine had been." Saltman's search led her to the psychological study of attachment theory, including the experiment that gives the book its name. In the clinical research procedure called "Strange Situation," a mother and baby are brought into a room; the mother leaves and is replaced by a stranger, and then the mother returns. The baby's reaction to the mother's return is used to gauge the attachment style between the two. Saltman grew so fascinated with this tool that she learned how to administer it herself and underwent its adult equivalent, discovering that in fact she was less damaged than she had assumed she was. As she pored over the scientific literature, she became intrigued by the biography of Mary Ainsworth, considered by many to be the mother of attachment theory. Throughout the narrative, the author weaves Ainsworth's story into her own. As Saltman analyzed her personal history with the help of professionals, she began to understand her early life differently and to forgive and find a greater appreciation for her mother. While some might be concerned that the author accepts the tenets of attachment theory uncritically, she conveys them clearly, and her personal account is both honest and complex. A thoughtful engagement with a topic that affects all parents.

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Starred review from March 1, 2020
No. Get Mom. Those three words, from a childhood memory of a time when Saltman's father poked his head in the bathroom while she was taking a bath, had always haunted her. Were they evidence of a repressed history of abuse? Certainly, her childhood wasn't the happiest?picked on by her two brothers, with a mother who seemed distant, Saltman would act out in her teen years, everything from drinking to drugs and sex. But when her own daughter is born, Saltman is completely enamored and at the same time undone, resolving to make their mother-daughter relationship different from what hers had been. This fascinating mix of memoir and the history of a major revolution in the scientific theory of the relationships we form in our first year of life, centers around the strange situation, a 20-minute laboratory procedure that was developed in 1963. The procedure was first developed as an afterthought, an accompaniment to a series of home case studies with mothers and infants by psychology researcher Mary Ainsworth. In the decades since, it has formed the basis of thousands of studies globally. Saltman examines attachment research into the bonds between infants and their caregivers as part of her own journey of discovery into what problems in her childhood might mean for her understanding of the past and her daughter's future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)