Adult attachment and emotional responses to traumatic memories among Palestinian former political prisoners

Katri Kanninen, Raija-Leena Punamäki, and Samir Qouta The association between attachment styles and emotional responses to traumatic memories was examined among 153 Palestinian former political prisoners. Self-report tools revealing adult attachment and intensity and valence of emotional responses were applied. As hypothesized, a high intensity of cognitive appraisal and a low intensity of affective responses characterized the emotional profile of insecure-dismissing men. By contrast, the emotional profile of insecurepreoccupied men was characterized by low cognitive and high affective responses, and intensive behavioral urge to act. Secure men in turn had a moderate and balanced emotional profile involving both cognitive and affective responses. In accordance with the activation hypothesis, when exposed to a high level of torture and ill-treatment, the insecure-preoccupied men showed especially intensive affective and behavioral responses. Contrary to the hypothesis, the insecure-dismissing men showed high-intensive cognitive and low-intensive affective responses independently of the severity of the trauma exposure.