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The Stage Model of Attachment Care is a process- and content-oriented motivation theory that originates from family law psychology. It was developed and introduced by the German from Turkish descent systemic psychologist Kemal Temizyürek. Temizyürek describes three distinct attitudes of parents toward their child's attachments to the other parent or other attachment figures. These attitudes/motives can be observed on the parental behavioral level and interpreted as a visible expression of attachment care.

Basics
Shortly after the child's birth, parents, in their role as "organizational instance, directly and actively or indirectly and passively help shape the child's relationship with the other parent." Temizyürek refers to this process as parental attachment maintenance within a family system. Already in infancy, children have the ability to interpret the attitudes of caregivers, for example, on the basis of their facial expressions, so-called social-emotional signals, and to adapt their own behavior (social referencing).

Temizyürek distinguishes three levels of attachment care:

Attachment care (positive)

Attachment tolerance (neutral)

Attachment blockade (negative)

Parental attachment care is characterized by an "appreciative attitude toward their children's evolved attachments to other attachment figures (usually the other parent) and proactive behavior to nurture and promote these attachments." It has a positive psycho-emotional effect on the child and the relationship quality with the other parent. In contrast, attachment tolerance refers to a tolerant attitude of parents who do not actively nurture attachments. They often leave relationship maintenance with the other parent to the child and the other parent. In the event of relationship disruptions or threatened break-offs, attachment-tolerant parents do not intervene or intervene only "half-heartedly." Attachment-blocking parents reject the other parent as a significant attachment figure for their own child. These parents seek to break off contact, which can lead to parent-child alienation. Child abduction and infanticide are extreme forms of attachment blockade.

Attitude changes can lead to jumps between levels, from attachment-tolerant to attachment-care or from attachment-care to attachment-blocking, etc. "The likelihood of attitude change decreases with the intensity and stability of the attitude over time."

Attachment care does not end with the dissolution of the family and separation of the parents. "The family system, along with the constituent relationships between individuals, remains, albeit in a different form." The family reorganizes. Attachment care gains importance after parental separations, as the best possible guarantee for the maintenance of intra-family ties. Positive relationship maintenance with both parents usually constitutes an important protective factor for separation children. Wassilios E. Fthenakis postulated that "the primary negative aspect of parental divorce is the loss of one parent for the child".

SCOPE
Family courts may commission experts to prepare a family law psychological report in child custody cases concerning issues relating to custody, visitation rights and threats to the welfare of children. Attachment care is assigned to the principle of support as a subcategory of custody and represents a central criterion in the overall weighing of the best interests of the child in Germany. In a decision from 2018, the Frankfurt/Main Higher Regional Court referred to the distinction between attachment care and attachment tolerance. The Higher Regional Court of Celle has emphasized the bonding care behavior of a father.

Criticism
In her response, Brebeck comes to the following assessment: "The model presented by Temizyürek in ZKJ 6/2014 (pp. 228-230) this year is helpful because it introduces different dimensions of the behavior of the main caretaker parent toward the parent entitled to contact or requesting contact. Temizyürek thus succeeds, in part, in presenting criteria for a more refined diagnostic by introducing the concept of attachment care." Brebeck criticizes that it is not always clear which concept of attachment Temizyürek uses as a basis. Moreover, the model of attachment care "leaves a large number of questions unanswered."

Psychologist and lawyer Rainer Balloff argues that "Temizyürek ... rightly speaks of gradations of attachment tolerance" in relation to attachment theory and the concept of sensitivity, "which, following Dettenborn's .... conceptualizations, shows itself in behavior of 'attachment care = best variant,' 'attachment tolerance = enough variant,' and 'attachment blockade = endangerment variant.'"

Professor of Law Hildegund Sünderhauf-Kravets and Attorney Rixe note, "Separation children need not only attachment tolerance, but active attachment care.[...] Their parents must allow them to meet the other parent, love him/her, miss him/her, engage with him/her, and actively enable this."

Weblinks
Website of Kemal Temizyürek