Applying the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation in criminal justice interventions

Abstract

This article describes how contemporary attachment theory can support accurate assessment and effective intervention in criminal justice contexts. I offer an introduction to Crittenden’s Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM) of Attachment and Adaptation and explain why this well-evidenced model is especially relevant to criminal justice interventions. The DMM is a biopsychosocial model, informed by neurodevelopmental research, and as such it offers a developmental understanding of the wide range of adaptations used by people who are endangered or endangering to others. It is a strengths-based, non-labelling and non-pathologising model which conceptualises adaptations to danger as self-protective strategies that promote survival in their original context, but which may later lead to problematic, dangerous, or self-defeating behaviour.