Premise of Attachment Failure in Child Exposed to Domestic Violence

Violence is a destructive force in inter-subjective relationships; a child who is exposed to domestic violence is a spectator of a relational disorder, a shocking relationship between two people who influence him both through their behaviours and their speech. When parents are violent, the child sees his attachment figures fail in their main functions, which are to protect him and give him security. We have followed in clinical evaluation research children exposed to domestic violence. The objective was to identify the effects of exposure to violence between parents on the attachment link. The main question raised is to what extent does exposure to domestic violence affect the quality of the attachment bond? We have proceeded with an improvised method that we call Squiggle-history. This a game without rules in which a child draws hears stories and invents a story in turn. The stories we collected focus on themes of rejection, abandonment, privatisation, loss, murder, and rescue. The stories told by the children reflect the importance of an experience of security and their ability to build a stable relationship with attachment figures. The attachment insecurity also affects the identifications of the subject ? the identification process seems altered