Predicting depressive symptomatology and resiliency during COVID-19: An embodied attachment perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore recollected caregiver sensitivity and embodied attachment and their relation to depressive symptomatology and resiliency during COVID-19. The study involved 279 participants from the USA and Canada who completed an online survey. The research expanded on the previous work of Dobson et al. (2022) on their study of depressive symptomatology from an embodied attachment perspective, by examining the relationships in a broader population. The present study also examined resiliency from an embodied attachment perspective, as there has been limited research in this area. The data were analyzed using bootstrapped regressions. Two significant three-way interactions between caregiver sensitivity, attachment avoidance, and attachment anxiety were found in predicting resilience and depressive symptomatology. These three-way interactions partially supported the hypotheses and gave a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between caregiver sensitivity and adult attachment style as predictors of resilience and depressive symptomatology.