Inge Bretherton is a developmental psychologist interested in attachment relations from infancy to adulthood. Her contributions to attachment theory are both conceptual and empirical. She has published several chapters reflecting on and expanding Bowlby’s construct of “internal working models” (representations) of self and attachment figure(s). She has applied these ideas to her Attachment Story Completion Task which has been used in a variety of studies in the U.S., Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland to gain insight into how preschool children think and feel about their attachment relationships and about themselves. Along similar lines, she has collaborated with others in developing the MacArthur Story Stem Battery that elicits information about young children’s understanding of moral issues and family relationships more generally. Dr. Bretherton’s published work includes Growing Points of Attachment Theory and Research, and many theoretical and empirical articles on attachment, symbolic play, and emotion language.
