Journal of Environmental Psychology 30 (2010) 1122

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Journal of Environmental Psychology

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Towards a developmental theory of place attachment

Paul Morgan*
Child Protection Unit, Sydney Childrens Hospital, High Street, Randwick NSW 2031, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Available online 13 August 2009 Keywords: Place attachment Attachment theory Child development

a b s t r a c t
Place theory offers no explanation of the developmental processes by which place attachment arises. Drawing on recent ndings in human attachment theory, this study offers a developmental model of the process by which place attachment emerges from a childhood place experience. A pattern of positively affected experiences of place in childhood are generalised into an unconscious internal working model of place which manifests subjectively as a long-term positively affected bond to place known as place attachment. Qualitative analysis of adult remembrance of childhood place experience provides support for this model and nds important parallels in the developmental processes underpinning place attachment and human attachment as well as some differences. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The concept of place refers to the subjective experience of embodied human existence in the material world. It is a paradoxical concept with a meaning that is readily grasped, but difcult to dene. In their review of place attachment literature, Low and Altman (1992) state that while place is an integrating concept, there is no systematic theory of place, and numerous commentators since have echoed their concerns about the lack of conceptual coherence in place research. Patterson and Williams (2005) suggest that no systematic theory of place has emerged because the domain of place research is composed of multiple research traditions based on very different, often incompatible epistemological foundations and philosophical assumptions about the nature of reality. Some aspects of place research are best dealt with quantitatively, while for other aspects a qualitative approach is more appropriate. They argue that if researchers grounded in any one research paradigm recognise the limits to that paradigm and adopt an attitude of openness to alternative paradigms, their critical pluralist framework provides an overarching coherence to the eld. This study recognises three broad approaches to place theory, which often appear to be incompatible. Phenomenological and humanistic approaches explore the deeper signicance of place to human existence and the subjective, emotional quality of peoples relationship to places. This tradition has been criticised by positivistic place researchers for the lack of an empirical basis, and by

social place theorists as politically regressive in ignoring the social forces by which the meaning of place is contested (Creswell, 2004). A second tradition, which Patterson and Williams (2005) name psychometrics, explores the relationship between the physical environment and the human psyche by attributing numeric measures to psychosocial phenomena such as place attachment and then analysing this data using quantitative techniques. Grounded in the epistemology of scientic empiricism, this tradition has been criticised for reducing holistic phenomena to a mechanistic set of interacting objective elements, and failing to provide any account of the subjective aspects of the human experience of place (Malpas, 1999). The third tradition, social constructivism, while happy to embrace subjectivity, sees it as a socially constructed phenomenon (Massey, 1994). Constructivist place theorists have been criticised for seeking to explain place solely in terms of the social processes and failing to account for the embodied, individuated nature of subjective experience and the link that the body creates between subjectivity and the objective material world (Malpas, 1999). Following Patterson and Williams (2005), this study recognises that a broad discussion of the phenomenon of place attachment will draw on contributions to place literature from each of these research approaches. 2. Place attachment Most authors recognise an emotional or affective component in the concept of place attachment. But the word emotion, like place, has an easy-to-understand, hard-to-dene quality making place attachment if anything, more conceptually elusive than place itself. Giuliani and Feldman (1993) identify 11 different denitions of place attachment in a single review collection of articles. In this study place attachment refers to the experience of a long-term

* Tel.: 61 2 9382 1412. E-mail address: paul.morgan@sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au 0272-4944/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.07.001

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affective bond to a particular geographic area and the meaning attributed to that bond. Where a person lives in a particular locale over an extended period, that person will often develop feelings of affection for, and a sense of belonging, or being of that place, so that place becomes one anchor of his or her identity (Hay, 1998). Indeed Proshansky, Fabian, and Kaminoff (1983) coined the term place identity to signify the importance of the physical environment in shaping the human sense of self. Early studies tended to conceive of place attachment as static. More recently a dynamic view has emerged, so that while place attachment is understood as enduring, it is also seen as changing over time (Hay,1998). For many individuals, childhood place experience plays an important role in adult identity (Cobb, 1977; Cooper, 1992; Hester & ODonnell, 1987; Pearce, 1977). Film and literature offer numerous examples of adult identity being profoundly shaped by childhood place experience. Hay (1998), investigating place attachment over the entire human life span found that feelings of connection or belonging to place increased as people aged, and that place attachments formed in childhood were stronger than those formed later in life. Strong bonds to place are only possible when individuals remained in their place of origin for the duration of childhood. This nding reects a widespread agreement in the literature that the foundations of place attachment are laid down in middle childhood (Sobel, 1990). Descriptive studies also indicate a qualitative difference between adult and childhood experience of place. Adult accounts of place attachment tend to highlight their feelings for place, the meanings attributed to those feelings, and an awareness of the sociocultural inuence on place attachment (Massey, 1994; Twigger-Ross & Uzzell, 1996). On the other hand, enquiries into childrens attitude towards place describe an unselfconscious, taken-for-granted approach to place, where the physical environment is valued for what you can do in it, rather than in and of itself or for social meanings (Hart, 1979; Hay, 1998; Moore, 1986). Descriptive studies have identied common themes of childrens engagement with place. These include: childrens preference for natural over manmade environments (Jones & Cunningham, 1999); childrens sensuous engagement with place (Cobb, 1977; Sebba, 1991); exploration and place-play as inherently pleasurable, self-directed learning activities (Sebba, 1991); and childrens use of place for emotional regulation (Dovey, 1990; Kirkby, 1989; Korpela, 1989). Qualitative studies of adults retrospective accounts of childhood places note the important meaning that memories of childhood places take on later in life. The memories of those places can evoke powerful feelings and exert great inuence over adult identity (Cooper, 1992; Porteous, 1990; Rubenstein & Parmelee, 1992). Where adults have migrated away from their place of origin, they can be prone to spending signicant amounts of time reecting on memories of childhood place rather than engaging with their immediate surrounds. Our places of origin shape us whether we like it or not (Chawla, 1992). This importance attributed to the autobiographical memory of place should not be confused with veracity. Sebba found a marked disjunction between adult reports of a remembered childhood preference for outdoor settings (96.5%) and childrens reported preferences for outdoor settings (46%), indicating that adult remembrance of childhood experience is subject to a degree of reconstruction and reinterpretation. Nonetheless, the strong affects commonly experienced during adult remembrance of childhood place experience led Chawla to argue that this backward glance is an in important dimension of [place] attachment (Chawla, 1992). However, the processes that link adult identity with childhood place experiences are unclear. A number of qualitative studies of childrens use of place attribute place attachment to the support and stimulation of human developmental processes that place

offers children. Hart (1979) and Olwig (1989) link place attachment to opportunities the physical environment offers children for the realisation of the developmental drive for mastery. Some authors attribute developmental signicance to the self-directed and pleasurable nature of childrens place-based play and exploration (Cobb, 1977; Hart, 1979; Porteous, 1990; Schachtel, 1959). Sebba (1991) argues that the developmental drive towards sensory integration and the drive to obtain information about the environment underpin a heightened attentiveness to place in childhood. Also, a developmental shift in early adolescence from the primacy of sensory to cognitive engagement with the world is accompanied by a dimming of sensory perception. Prior to the emergence of abstract thinking in adolescence, sensory perception is more vivid and pleasurable. Consequently, memory of childhood place is xed in the context of an intense and ecstatic sensory awareness (Cobb, 1977; Sebba, 1991). For these researchers, place attachment to a greater or lesser extent is established through the developmental processes of childhood. Some argue that childrens observed preference for natural settings over manmade environments represents a universal developmental need (Cobb, 1977; Hart, 1979; Pearce, 1977). However, it is difcult to reconcile this position with Chawlas (1986) nding that the experience of a positively affected place attachment is not universal. Place attachment quality and strength varies widely with some adults experiencing either no or negative feelings about their place of origin. The memory of childhood place is central to adult identity for some, but for others, place has little bearing on their sense of self. Chawla identied seven different qualitative categories of place attachment, but explanation of differences in the formative process responsible for the different strengths and categories of place attachment are vague. 3. Attachment theory1 Two decades before Patterson and Williams (2005) offered their critical pluralist resolution of the problem of conicting traditions of place research, Daniel Stern (1985) identied a similar epistemological impasse confronting developmental psychology. In order to progress, developmental psychology required an accurate working hypothesis of infantile subjective experience. Stern argued that such a hypothesis of infantile subjective reality needed to include both developmental psychologys observed infant and the subjectively reconstructed infantile experience of psychoanalysis, but that neither approach alone provided an adequate account of human psychological development. He pointed out that some of the tenets of psychoanalysis had been disproved by empirical observations while developmental psychology, restricted to observation, revealed little of the felt quality of lived social experience. To relate observed behaviour to subjective experience, one must make inferential leaps. As soon as we try to make inferences about. the actual experience of the real infant that is, to build in qualities of subjective experience such as a sense of self we are thrown back to our own subjective experience as the main

1 Strictly speaking, the use of the term attachment theory is a misnomer, as it represents only part of this new convergence. This eld of research and theory, currently in the throws of a Kuhnian revolution, is so wide ranging and rapidly expanding, that it is yet to attract a broadly accepted identifying name. Some researchers have named it infant brain research. However, this name overlooks the very signicant social aspects of the eld and restricts the age range of research. For its part attachment theory does not explicitly include the considerable neuro-scientic elements of the eld. The term attachment theory is used here because it has wide recognition, because it includes those aspects of the eld most pertinent ` -vis the term place to this study, and because it has a complimentarity vis-a attachment.

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source of inspiration. Here, then, is the problem: the subjective life of the adult is the main source of inference about the infants felt quality of social experience. A degree of circularity is unavoidable. Each view of the infant [adult clinical reconstruction and observational] has features the other lacks. (Stern, 1985, pp. 1317) Like Patterson and Williams, Stern noted that epistemologically conicted approaches show a high degree of complementarity, and the integration of objectivist, scientic approaches with subjective clinical methods resulted in a new holistic conception of how the human mind/brain develops. This overarching coherence is widely understood to have originated in the work of John Bowlby (1969, 1974, 1980). His attachment theory, developed from naturalistic observations of infants and mothers, described attachment as infant behaviours that elicit adult proximity and care-giving responses. These instinctive behaviours have their roots in neurophysiological structures of the body. In a break with behaviourist orthodoxy of the period, Bowlby also explained attachment behaviours as being motivated by subjective emotional states. He argued that long-term emotional bonds to particular individuals are a basic part of human nature. An attachment bond to someone endows feelings of security and wellbeing in the presence of that person. Attachment behaviours are triggered by feelings of anxiety and distress experienced by young children on separation from parental caregivers (Bowlby, 1974). By using subjective understanding of emotional states to explain observed infant behaviours, Bowlby integrated supposedly incompatible epistemologies to provide a holistic scientic theory of great scope and explanatory power. Previously under the dominance of behaviourism, emotions had been dismissed as subjective phenomena, unmeasurable, and irrelevant to the objective scientic study of the human psychology. However, with the development of a procedure known as the Strange Situation, attachment theorys recognition of emotional states was validated using a predictive empirical methodology (Colin, 1996). Attachment theory legitimised the scientic study of internal states and repositioned emotions as central to understanding the human mind. In this transactional model of human development, the simplistic nature versus nurture debate has been replaced by a model, where human development is shaped by a complex interplay of environmental and genetic factors occurring in the context of the attachment relationship (Rutter, 2002; Sameroff & Fiese, 2000; Siegel, 2001). From birth, infant and caregiver are engaged in a reciprocal system of sensory stimulation and nonverbal communication of emotional states, and these sequences of interaction usually culminate in the shared experience of mutual delight (Schore, 1994). Frequent daily experiences of care-giving and emotional attunement with the attachment gure are generalised in the infants mind into mental representations of self and caregiver that become unconscious psychological structures known as internal working models (Bowlby, 1980). These internal models are enduring psychological structures and form the template for all subsequent social relationships. Internal working models manifest subjectively as the long-lasting emotional bond known as love (Sroufe, 1990). Attachment interactions also shape the phenotypic expression of brain structure. The vast majority of connections between human brain cells are established postnatally. Advanced brain imaging techniques show the normal development of brain microstructure in infancy is highly dependant on the quality of the attachment relationship (de Haan, Belsky, Reid, Volein, & Johnson, 2004; Schore, 1997). The caregivers capacity to attune to the infants emotional state, and to engage in complex sequences of reciprocal behavioural interactions are fundamental to these developments. Where these

abilities are present, attachment is secure, and large numbers of synaptic connections develop. However, where the attachment relationship is signicantly disrupted, synaptic connectivity and psychological functioning are markedly impaired (Greenspan, 1999; Rutter et al., 1997; Siegel, 1999; Zeanah, Boris, & Larrieu, 1997). Attachment relationships also inuence the way memory is structured (Siegel, 1999, pp. 2933). Implicit memory is composed of internal working models, the generalised representations of attachment interactions. Implicit memories do not require conscious attention for their formation, and normally lie outside of conscious awareness. They are xed in childhood, and are characterised by the absence of subjective sense of remembrance. Explicit autobiographical memory, the memory of self across time, is characterised by a subjective sense of recollection and narrative structuring. The storage of explicit memory involves a process known as cortical consolidation. Each act of explicit remembering involves the reorganisation of existing memory traces into new, unpredictable associative linkages. Internal working models have an important inuence over cortical consolidation, shaping both the content and narrative structuring of autobiographical memory. Themes reecting internal working models bring coherence and continuity to explicit memory (Siegel, 1999). 4. Emotion and the self: emergent phenomena More recently attachment theory has expanded to include an identity theory, self psychology (Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1994). It describes how the psychological structure of the self emerges from the intersubjective context of the attachment relationship, providing a biological developmental basis to social identity theories. Infants communicate their biological needs by becoming distressed. By attending to infantile biological needs and providing soothing, attachment gures regulate emotional distress. With time and frequent repetition, infants establish an internal working model of this care-giving role and through this process, learn to regulate emotional arousal for themselves. The process of emotional regulation that emerges in the attachment relationship plays a major role in establishing internal coherence in the infant (Schore, 1994). Brain imaging studies show that the processes of emotional regulation and integration of mental functions both utilise the same neural structures within the limbic system (Siegel, 1998). Emotions are now understood as emergent phenomena arising from the integration of all domains of physical and mental activity within the body (Damasio, 1998; Sroufe, 1996). The subjective sense of self (identity) arises from the experience of integration, the holistic, internal organisation that emerges from the generalisation of repeated experiences of affect regulation within the attachment relationship (Ciompi, 1991; Schore, 1994; Siegel, 1999; Sroufe, 1996). Three aspects of attachment interactions are essential for the emergence of a healthy sense of self: shared pleasure, soothing of distress and repetition (Schore, 1994). 5. Lack of a developmental theory of place attachment The last thirty years have witnessed enormous advances in the eld of developmental psychology and neurobiology. Attachment theory now provides a detailed, systematic account of the biological, psychological and social processes that shape human development and has achieved the status of scientic orthodoxy. By contrast, place theorists offer no systematic explanation of how the complex relationship between place, identity, affect and cognition develops throughout childhood. Place theory has failed to capitalise on progress in developmental science. Lack of dialogue between developmental psychology and environmental psychologys place

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theory is apparent from the very limited referencing across these elds in scientic journals. The few attempts to build a coherent developmental theory of place attachment (Chawla, 1992; Hart, 1979; Moore, 1986) draw on theories that predate the recent advances in developmental science. Low and Altman (1992) noted a growing interest in exploring the social relations that a place signies, and since the late 1980s the majority of studies have tended to focus on the social construction of place attachment. In that time most investigations of the relationship between place and identity have relied heavily on adult focused, cognitive and social frameworks, largely ignoring psychobiological developmental processes, as though place attachment arrives fully formed in adulthood (Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001; Massey, 1994; Twigger-Ross & Uzzell, 1996). Place attachment theory offers no systematic explanation of the formative processes by which place attachment in all its observed variations emerges (Chawla, 1992). In spite of Chawlas identication of the need for research in this area, the absence of a systematic explanation of the process by which place attachment emerges remains a signicant gap in the literature of place. 6. Integrating attachment and place attachment theory The environmental and developmental branches of psychology both stand to benet from a greater dialogue between attachment theory and place theory. This study brings together recent developments in these two elds. Attachment theory offers a theory that provides useful insights for the elaboration of the developmental perspective that place theory currently lacks. However attachment theory attributes no developmental signicance to the childs relationship with the physical environment place. Sameroffs (1975) transactional theory describes human development as emerging from a relationship of mutual interaction between child and environment. The reciprocity and mutual inuence between caregiver and child central to attachment theory exemplify transactional processes. In spite of place theorists identifying the important role that physical environment plays an in human development (Chawla, 1992; Hart, 1979; Moore, 1989; Proshansky et al., 1983), for attachment theorists, transactional theory applies only to the social environment, not the physical environment. The role of place in developmental processes remains largely overlooked by attachment theorists. Where the literature of childrens place describes a rich interactive relationship in which place nurtures and stimulates childrens development through interactions of play, exploration, sensory stimulation and emotional regulation, attachment theory sees place only as a passive backdrop for the attachment relationship. In comparison with the detailed analysis attachment theory affords the human attachment relationship, the role of place as a vital, interactive presence stimulating and supporting the childs development remains uninvestigated. Emotion is a crucial part of the relationship between person and environment (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1984; Russell & Snodgrass, 1987; Tuan, 1974; Wohlwill & Heft, 1987), and is central to the concept of place attachment. However, emotion has proved the most problem-fraught sector in contemporary psychology (Giuliani, 2003), prompting Russell and Snodgrass (1987) to observe with respect to environmental psychology, that the relationship between emotion and environment thus remains largely uncharted. Because emotions do not easily lend themselves to the empirical strategy of measurement, psychometrics has largely ignored them, favouring the investigation of behaviour and cognition in order to progress psychological theory. Mehrabian and Russell (1974) developed a three dimensional model for measuring the emotional qualities of environments, but to date, use of this

psychometric tool has not been widely repeated in environmental psychology. However, the role of emotion is seen as central to attachment theory. Place attachment theory could protably make use of both the detail and the epistemological approach of attachment theory. Attachment theory recognises that subjective affective states drive observed human behaviour. There is no action and no thought that is not affectively motivated. Motivation underpins agency and motivation is always emotional (Basch, 1988, pp. 68 69). The attachment theorist Lichtenberg (1989) has proposed that human behaviour is driven by a set of ve motivational systems, designed to promote the fullment and regulation of basic needs. Two of these systems, the attachment-afliation system and the exploration-assertion system are of interest here. The attachment system motivates proximity and care seeking behaviours. The exploration system motivates engagement with the environment. According to Lichtenberg, the experience of exploration and agency in the world produces positively affected sense of efcacy and competence. Lichtenberg (1989) suggests that behaviours prompted by his exploration-assertion motivational system (play and exploration) result in positive affect, motivating engagement with the world other than the attachment gure. The attachment system activates a positively affected caregiving interaction between attachment gure and infant. Frequent repetition of this interaction results in patterning of the behaviour and associated emotional states, and the emergence of an unconscious psychological structure (internal working model of the relationship) which manifests in conscious awareness as a longterm, specic affective bond towards the attachment gure. The character of the internal working model (as template for all subsequent social relationships) is shaped by the generalised quality of these attachment interactions. Where the positive quality of the interactions is signicantly compromised by negative emotional states of the attachment gure, the attachment is described as insecure (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Marvin, Cooper, Hoffman, and Powell (2002) have developed a model of child behaviour in relation to the attachment gure resulting from the interplay of the attachment and exploration motivational system. Their Circle of Security (COS) model describes the childs circular pattern of movement through the physical environment (called the world in attachment theory), that begins and ends with the attachment gure. When the exploration system is activated, the child moves away from the attachment gure to explore and play. When the child becomes distressed, anxious or tired, the attachment system is activated and he seeks proximity to, and emotional regulation from, the attachment gure. The model emphasises the emotional states and developmental needs underpinning this circular pattern, and explains how a childs developmental trajectory is shaped by their patterned experience of interaction with the attachment gure (Marvin et al., 2002). The physical environment has no role in this model. Motivation to explore and play is located wholly in the child, rather than in a relationship between child and environment. Striniste and Moore (1989) contest such a non-transactional construction of the childs relationship with the physical environment. Motivation [is] both a quality inherent to the child, which determines how the child will use the environment, and a quality of the environment, which has the potential to draw the childs involvement (p. 25). Place is a vital, fascinating presence that draws in the child. Fascination is the human response to environments or circumstances that call on the effortless attention [and] are intrinsically compelling (Kaplan, 1995, p. 172). The integration of this understanding of the physical environment as an interactive presence inuencing child behaviour and attachment theorys detailed interactional model of human development points the way towards a developmental theory of

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place attachment. This study proposes a variation to the Circle of Security model to one in which the childs pattern of behaviour is depicted as to and fro between two antithetical poles physical environment and attachment gure. Fig. 1 depicts this integrated developmental model of human attachment and place attachment. The diagram outlines the interactional pattern emerging from integration of the attachment system and the exploration-assertion motivational system. The upper arc of the diagram represents activation of the explorationassertion motivational system. The childs exposure to the physical environment elicits arousal of this motivational system, resulting in internal states such as fascination or excitement, and a consequent movement away from the attachment gure to exploration and play interactions with the environment. These place interactions generate positively affected senses of mastery, adventure, freedom as well as sensory pleasure. The lower part of the diagram represents the attachment motivational system. When interaction with the outdoor environment elicits pain (through injury), or anxiety (through perceived threat or overlong absence from the attachment gure), the attachment motivational system is engaged overriding the exploration system. The child seeks proximity to and comfort from the attachment gure. Interaction with the attachment gure results in regulation of emotional arousal and a positively affected sense of connection. When the childs need for connection and regulation is satised, environmental cues stimulate the exploration motivational system causing it to override the attachment system, reinitiating the cycle. This sequence results in a to and fro movement between attachment gure and environment, and a cyclical pattern of emotional arousal, interaction and positive affect. Using a pluralistic combination of attachment theorys holistic model of human development and place theorys recognition of a transactional role for the physical environment in human development, this study proposes a developmental model in which place attachment emerges from a child-environment interactional sequence of arousal, exploration/play and pleasure. An internal working model of the attachment relationship develops from the patterning of repeated positively affected interactions with the attachment gure. In a similar process, the day-to-day pattern of

a childs positively affected exploration/play/mastery and sensory interactions with her environment is internalised into an unconscious internal working model of that relationship. The long-term affective bond known as place attachment is the conscious subjective manifestation of that internal working model. This is the process by which place attachment develops. 7. Research method This study explores if there is preliminary support for the developmental model of place attachment presented here, by investigating if qualitative accounts provide grounds for the proposition that a long-term affective bond to place develops from a childhood pattern of positively affected interactions with place. The study uses qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews of adults to look for indications of a process of internalisation and generalisation of positively affected childhood place experiences into internal working models of childhood place relationships which manifest consciously as place attachment. It is argued that qualitative accounts of subjective adult remembrance of childhood place experiences will contain common themes reecting the inuence of internal working models of childhood place experience on explicit memory. Attachment theory also theorises that the attachment relationship is central to the development of the self, and the study also investigates whether there is further support for the model presented here (Fig. 1) in the form of participants identication of a role for childhood place experience in the development of adult sense of identity that parallels the identityshaping role of the attachment relationship. In the study seven adults, ve male and two females undertook a semi-structured interview. Participants in the study were selected on the basis of having previously expressed adult place attachment sentiments likely to indicate the presence of long-term affective bonds. This approach reects the phenomenological method of choosing the best group of subjects available in our culture (Van Kaam cit Crotty, 1996) to articulate the phenomenon being researched. Participants were all middle aged (early forties to mid sixties). In recognition of Rileys (1992) emphasis on the concept of readily accessible ordinary places, and of the importance of

Fig. 1. Integrated model of human attachment and place attachment

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natural environments to childrens development (Striniste & Moore, 1989), and which abound in objects and processes which elicit human fascination (Kaplan, 1995), participants were also selected on the basis of having grown up in locales where they had everyday access to natural environments either on suburban fringes (4), or rural areas (3). The interviews were divided into three sections. In the rst section, participants were asked open questions about their places and families of origin in order to position participants biographically and geographically. These questions drew on exclusively on explicit memory. Can you tell me something about the place where you grew up? Can you tell me about your childhood family? Were there any particular special places that you remember? The second part of the interview process had some similarity with the psychoanalytic approach of bringing unconscious material to consciousness (Frosh, 2002, p. 16), in order to arrive at the subjectively reconstructed childhood experience of adult psychoanalysis, which Stern (1985) identied as the main source of inference about the infants felt quality of social experience. The aim here differed somewhat from psychoanalysis in that the interviews were intended to reveal unconscious internal working models of place relationships rather than social relationships. To this end, questions focused on place memories and participants were encouraged to describe any involuntary place memories (Game, 2001) and associations that came to mind, as these are likely to reect unconscious processes (Freud, 1976; Frosh, 2002). At the start of this part of the interviews participants were administered a passive relaxation exercise (Everly & Rosenfeld, 1981; Madders, 1981; Payne, 2005), a procedure intended to induce a mental state of unfocused reverie, which facilitates the emergence of unconscious material associated with childhood environments (Bachelard, 1969). Participants were also encouraged to enter into the felt quality of memories, in order to highlight the subjective emotional and sensory qualities of childhood place memories and minimise analytic cognitive processes. Questions from this section included. Can you describe that place [you are remembering], how it looked, the sounds and smells? Can you tell me how you felt as a child in this place? In the third section of the interview, respondents were invited to reect on the meaning of their memories from an adult perspective, particularly as to how they understood the relationship between their childhood experiences of place and adult identity. How do you think the experience of growing up in that place has shaped who you are now? Can you tell me what is it like for you as an adult to remember your childhood experience of where you grew up? These questions were intended to explore cognitive meanings that participants attributed to their childhood place memories. Data interpretation drew on phenomenologist, Giorgis method of data analysis (Giorgi cit Von Eckartsberg, 1998) in which interviews were broken up into numerous meaning units, short sequences of uniform meaning. Using the process of phenomenological reduction, broad themes emerging from the interviews were identied, and meaning units are coded according to those themes. Major themes, those with the highest aggregates of meaning units, were interpreted as reecting unconscious working models (Siegel, 1999), and detailed in the results. Finally, in a separate analysis, longer interview sequences reecting the arousal-interactionpleasure dynamics of the proposed developmental model of place attachment (Fig. 1) were identied.

8. Results The seven interviews yielded seven highly particular accounts of childhood place experience. In each interview, childhood place is inextricably interwoven into broader biographical narrative. Individual family members, family structure and culture, as well as the wider culture, and place itself, all interact to create a unique set of conditions within which a child experiences place. Adult place attachment cannot be understood without reference this broader biographical frame, and a brief biography of each participant as revealed in the interviews is included to contextualise exerts cited. Phillip grew up in suburban Sydney with access to extensive open spaces of farm, bush, park and industrial land along the upper reaches of Sydney Harbour. In his early twenties he spent some years in Europe until he felt compelled to return home after encountering the unique smell of the Sydney ora at Kew Botanic Gardens. He still lives in his childhood home. Bluey grew up on a small family farm of pasture and woodlands outside of Melbourne. This property became a refuge from a school life where he was unhappy and struggled academically. He lived on the property until it was sold in his early twenties. He now lives in a suburb 25 km from the farm, which still has an important place in his dream-life. Annie grew up on a large sheep grazing property in New South Wales. At age 12 much of the property was excised from her familys ownership and she was sent to boarding school. After school she went to college, and lived in Europe for several years before returning to care for her father. She now lives on another property 20 km from her childhood farm. Mick grew up on the outskirts of Christchurch, New Zealand where he had access to the Port Hills, a large grassy volcano remnant. When he was 11 his younger brother died in an accident as they played, and Mick became very socially withdrawn through his adolescence. As a young man he left New Zealand and now lives in Melbourne. Jim grew up on an orchard outside Adelaide. He left the family farm to attend boarding school in adolescence. He went on to university and a successful academic career in USA, but abandoned this and returned to Australia to work as a farmer and environmental consultant. He now lives in coastal bushland 1200 km from his childhood farm. Neal grew up in a suburb of Sydney with access to large tracts of forested parkland. His account of childhood local neighbourhood was extremely limited, and focused instead on of holiday places away from home, and his bedroom. He now lives in the very urban environment of inner Sydney. Jane grew up in Canberra when it was a very small city with extensive open spaces. At age 8 her family spent a year in England, and she experienced clinical depression, missing her older brother, her dog and the clear blue skies and trees of Canberra. When she returned her brother had left home, her dog had died, a much-loved tree was cut down, and Canberra was never the same for her. Jane now lives in inner Melbourne. 8.1. Adult emotional connection to place Participants estimated that most place memories described in the interview date from between the ages of eight and thirteen, with none dating from earlier than ve. They expressed two broadly different degrees of emotional connection within the interviews. Annie, Jane, Bluey, Phillip and Mick reported moments during the interview of intensely reliving childhood memories, to the point where the present-day context was experienced as less vivid, less real than the remembered experience. Such memories were often involuntary. Jane: [That memory] came into my mind unbidden. I was intending to talk about other places, but this image was just there, too strong to ignore. These memories appeared in the

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form of a static image rather than a narrative structure, although in most cases participants soon added a narrative context. Present day surroundings faded to background when feeling states associated with these images were experienced as being intensely relived in the present rather than being recalled. Recounted in the present tense, these memories lacked a subjective sense of remembrance. Although these experiences during the interview were relatively brief they were very intense and participants attributed great signicance to them. Jane: Ive always had those memories, but not with so much feeling. Its like theyre in full colour rather than black and white. This subjective emotional intensity was also conveyed in nonverbal expressions such as gesture, facial expression, and vocal tone. These moments of deep immersion in childhood memory were characterised by enormous intersubjective power. Sensory impressions were described with great clarity and detail giving these memories a vitality that was absent from other parts of the interview when a more mundane adult cognitive sensibility predominated, and memories were described as distant pictures viewed from the outside rather than being relived from within. Participants who experienced these moments of deep immersion in childhood emotional states also reported strong adult place attachments. Jane, Bluey, Phillip and Mick reported that as adults they still experienced a strong sense of attachment to their childhood places. Annie said that she recalled having a strong emotional bond to her family farm as a child, but she no longer felt this way. She did however report a very strong adult attachment to her current home, a similar landscape to that of her childhood. Although they were known to have previously expressed sentiments of adult place attachment, both Neal and Jim reported little sense of emotional connection with their childhood place experience. Their generally at non-verbal expression, and a marked lack of sensory detail in their descriptions of childhood place added weight to these self reports. Neal said that he had never felt a strong place attachment his childhood neighbourhood places, and in his interview he spoke only of special distant places where holidays were spent. Neal: I wish I could recall more of the detail of it.I dont feel great attachment to [childhood places]. Jim did report a sense of place attachment. However, when questioned further he could articulate little sensory or emotional detail to give substance to his attachment to either childhood or adult place.

8.2.2. Grief The most intense expressions of emotion connected with memories of childhood place were those of grief. Annie: [Losing the family farm] was like losing a limb. You know, I mean something vital had gone. With the exception of Annie, this grief was still keenly felt in adulthood. Mick and Jane experienced loss of childhood place through migration, while Phillip expressed a deep sense of grief over changes he has witnessed to his childhood place where he still lives. For Mick, Annie and Jane this place-related grief was interwoven with childhood losses associated with family. Bluey and Mick also reported experiencing feelings of intense emotional distress being soothed by time spent in childhood place. Neal and Jim denied any sense of grief associated with absence from their childhood places. 8.2.3. Pleasure The emotion most frequently expressed throughout all the interviews was that of pleasure/delight. Non-verbal expressions indicated that as they remembered during the interview, respondents frequently re-experienced feelings of pleasure associated with various childhood place experiences. Participants described several different types of pleasure. PLAY: All participants enjoyed recounting memories of play-in-place. Jim: We made a racetrack in there no one knew about. And it was curves, and rises and jumps and stuff. And we would go and race bikes in there. I havent thought about that for a long time. That was a lot of fun. SENSORY PLEASURE: Jane: And this lovely sort of mellow kind of lambent quality to the light, as it is ltered by those beautiful green leaves of the willow. I just absolutely love it. It just lls me with the most buoyant sense of joy, like I could just leap into the air. Participants expressed delight in remembered childhood sensory experience of place, and stated they were re-experiencing the original feelings as they spoke. These memories were often multisensory. Mick: The smells would be a mixture of sheep shit, pine, um a certain um crispness, crispness in the smells, and the sound is the wind in the tussocks. MASTERY: All respondents reported childhood feelings of pleasure associated with a growing sense of agency, skill and achievement in the material world. Mick: The physical world is where I had most of my success and achievement as a kid, because I certainly had none academically and certainly very limited socially. ADVENTURE: Most respondents reported a delightful sense of adventure associated with exploration, imaginative play, risk and manageable feelings of anxiety. Phillip: You could be anywhere in the world, you could imagine yourself a pirate or you could play war games or any adventurous sense of a story could be easily conjured up from these places and they always involved the outdoors. FREEDOM: An enjoyable sense of freedom was frequently expressed, usually in association with the perceived absence of adult control. Annie: The sense of movement through space, you know the emptiness, the wind, and the freedom of being on a horse that was cantering along. You know thats the overwhelming memory of place that came back to me. just a great feeling. In the absence of major trauma, childhood experience of place appears to be inherently pleasurable. The process of remembering childhood place was also described as enjoyable by most participants, even where feelings of loss and grief were experienced. 8.2.4. Security Mick: Being on the vine and snuggled into it, and feeling very contained and secure and comfy in it. Most respondents expressed a positively affected sense of security associated with childhood place. This recalled sense of security-in-place appears to have emerged from a strong sense of childhood familiarity with place described by six of the seven respondents. Mick: This tussocks familiar, the sounds are familiar, the bird-lifes familiar, the tracks are

8.2. Common themes of childhood place remembrance These reported differences in the intensity of emotional engagement with memories of childhood place offered one dimension in which narratives could be differentiated. Through the process of thematic analysis the following themes emerged from the adult remembrances of childhood place experience. Excerpts from the interviews cited typify the thematic expressions of a number of participants. 8.2.1. Love Annie: I was intensely engaged in the love I had for that farm. [It was] really intense as a child. All respondents except Neal reported a love of childhood place. Five participants who still felt this love strongly, also described a reciprocal sense of having felt loved and nurtured or nourished by their childhood place, and of having derived a sense of psychological wellbeing from this experience. Phillip: I feel like I belong here. Its like I just know this is my home, and um. Im always going to be, I suppose nourished by it. Jane: Theres a kind of nurturing, nourishing space around you.

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familiar, all the different brows, the contours and textures are familiar. Implied here is a repeated, goal-less criss-crossing of childhood place, which Bluey named wandering, and which gave rise to this sense of familiarity. In marked contrast to other respondents, Neals accounts of childhood places were frequently coloured by feelings of anxiety and lack of security. His account also differed in that it contained no sense of familiarity with childhood place or any recollections of exploration and play-in-place independent of adult supervision. The potential for the sense of place-security to be illusory was powerfully brought home to Mick when his brother was killed as a result of play-in-place. Along with the sense of personal security emerging from familiarity, the rapid pace of the childs developmental change, vis-a-vis the usually slow pace of change to place, gave rise to a sense that childhood place itself is secure, permanent; a trust that place was always just out the backdoor (Phillip). The sense that place itself is secure could also be illusory as Annie found out when much of the family farm was lost. You know, . something vital had gone. 8.2.5. Identity Annie, Jane, Bluey, Phillip and Mick all attributed great importance to the developmental inuence of childhood place, stating that it helped form and still contributes to their adult identity. Mick: Somehow those hills are connected to my soul.you know just as I began to think about it a lot more, um [I realise] how bloody important it was. This is home. This is what shaped me. It was shaping my identity. It was shaping who I was, who I am. This retrospective attribution of importance to the developmental inuence of childhood place was very different from participants ve, descriptions of their childhood attitude to place. These had a na taken-for-granted quality, with place being a lot of fun or just out the back door. Unlike the participants who reported a strong emotional connection to childhood place, both Neal and Jim denied that their childhood place experiences made any signicant contribution to their adult identity. 8.3. The arousal-interaction-pleasure model The themes of adult recollections of childhood place experience are captured in relatively succinct excerpts from participants accounts. However, the more complex pattern of child interaction with place depicted in the upper arc of Fig. 1 is only revealed in more extensive excerpts. The following passage from Blueys account captures his place-induced excitement, his playful behavioural response, and a strong positive affect associated with the sense of mastery resulting from that behaviour. [There] was a long hill down to the house. Id walk it and Id [feel like] running, and Id um get a real momentum up. And Id start to leap. And that each time Id leave the ground, Id pick a point on the grass ahead of me to land, and each leap Id extend it more and more and the hill got steeper and steeper, and by the point of the last bit of that hill I would just y. I would just be having such a momentum going, and Id pick a point that was way beyond what I could possibly reach. But I would always reach it, and Id feel like Id be in the air, and Id be like Ive still got another two metres to go, and Id make it, and Id sort of make myself make it. So, that was always something I did [going down that hill. And the feeling was] just fantastic, just fantastic. I was um. (smiles). Id just y, literally y and I would be doing something that I couldnt do, but I was doing it. Other passages capture not only the pattern of arousal play/ exploration pleasure, but also link aspects of adult identity to this formative pattern. Mick reported deriving a great sense of achievement from ascending the 1000 metre high hills of his childhood. He attributed his high levels of motivation characteristic of his adult personality to childhood experiences of mastery in the

hills. Youd have this [huge] valley to climb out of. Youd think Thats a long way up. And away youd go, put your head down and youd sweat it out for the next 45 minutes. And there was always [a sense of] Thats great. We got there..I never felt defeated by that landscape, whereas in many other environments I felt quite defeated. It presented me with so many opportunities to engage in enough challenge that I felt stretched, but not so much that I was over-stretched. and [felt] a sense of defeat. I think [that was responsible for my adult] sense of must do, my get-up-and-go. The physical world is where I had most of my success and achievement as a kid, because I certainly had none academically and very limited socially. Bluey attributes his adult aesthetic sensibility to a childhood fascination with and pleasure in the material form of place. Id just sort of wander, and thered be points where Id be literally observing every rock or old bit of car body, or anything that was intriguing me. Rocks, I just loved rocks, I was always fascinated by rocks.That waterfall had good rocks on it. Mossy rocks.Id feel them. And thered be times of just wonder, you know like looking. I guess I was like I am now with my [adult] intrigue of form. I love things that look intriguing. I love the material and how theyre placed. So yes, I was intrigued, I guess. There were denitely little pockets on the property that I liked more than the others. And Id just. explore the rocks around you know, literally, in some areas, Id know every rock.. I was very aware of the environment. And I liked it, so that made me feel good to be around that. 9. Discussion While noting some variation in the place attachments reported by participants, this study found enough similarities in the majority of the accounts suggest a common process by which place attachment develops; and which shows many parallels with the developmental process described by attachment theory. Attachment theorists describe an interactional pattern in which the infants distress (arousal) is soothed by the attachment gures care-giving behaviours, and which culminates in a positively affected sense of mutual connectedness. Frequent repetition of this sequence stimulates and consolidates the infants internal developmental processes, and gives rise to an unconscious internal working model of the attachment relationship, which is characterised by a longterm affective bond (Ciompi, 1991; Lichtenberg, 1989; Schore, 1994; Sroufe, 1990). This study has proposed that a parallel pattern of arousal-interaction-pleasure, shown in the upper arc of Fig. 1 characterises childhood place experience. Extended excerpts from interviews cited in 8.3 reect this pattern of child-environment interaction as well the developmental inuence of childhood place experience on adult identity. These ndings support the proposition that repeated enactments of the arousal-interaction-pleasure pattern generate an internal working model of the childs relationship with environment, which manifests consciously as a longterm affective bond to that environment known as place attachment. Five participants who reported strong place attachment sentiments also described involuntary place memories in the form of vivid re-experiencing during the interview of emotional states and sensory perceptions associated with childhood place experiences. These moments when childhood emotional states were re-lived during interviews in full colour rather than black and white demonstrated characteristics that Siegel (1999) attributes to implicit memory. The absence of narrative structure and subjective sense of recollection (reected in use of the present tense in the interviews) suggest that such memories are part of implicit memory. As such, these potent, affect-laden images of childhood place provide further support for the presence of internal working models of childhood place experience. The two participants who

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did not report these vivid involuntary memories during the interview process expressed little or no sense of adult place attachment, suggesting the absence of robust internal working models of childhood place. Siegel (1999) also suggests that unconscious internal working models are reected in the themes of explicit autobiographical memory. This study argues that themes emerging from participants remembrances of childhood place experience reect internal working models of childhood place experience and something of the processes by which they arise. The study found the ve themes emerging through phenomenological reduction and these appear to support the proposed arousal-interaction-pleasure developmental model of place attachment. The experience of pleasure as a result of childhood interactions with the environment is central to this developmental model of place attachment. The presence of positive affect resulting from childhood interactions with place is clearly demonstrated by the emergence of pleasure as the most prominent theme of the interviews. It just lls me with the most buoyant sense of joy. That was a lot of fun. Participants associated pleasure with the activities of place-exploration, place-play and sensory perception, as well as with the subjective senses of mastery, freedom and adventure. The ve participants who provided highly detailed recall of positively affected experiences of childhood place, also reported a strong long-term affective bond to place, supporting the idea of a developmental link between positively affected childhood place experience and place attachment. The developmental role of childhood place experience is further supported by the emergence of identity as a prominent theme of the interviews. Attachment theory holds that the internal organisation resulting from emotional self-regulation and the unconscious working model of the attachment relationship gives rise to the psychological structure of the self (Schore, 1994; Siegel, 1999; Sroufe, 1996). Suggesting a parallel to this developmental process, Bluey, Jane, Phillip and Mick attribute their adult place attachment to their childhood place experience, and expressed the belief that their childhood place experiences also contributed to their psychological development and adult identity. In extended excerpts (Section 8.3), Bluey and Mick explicitly attribute the development of specic aspects of adult personality to childhood place experience. Conversely participants with very limited childhood place memories, Neal and Jim, stated they did not believe that childhood place experiences had contributed to their adult identity. The emergence of this link between childhood place experience and adult identity as a prominent theme, along with some participants reective awareness of that link, further supports the developmental model offered here (Fig. 1). In a similar nding Korpela and Hartig (1996) concluded that experiences of positive affect in child-environment interactions contribute to identity consolidation (developmental) processes. Five participants used the word love (of place), accompanied by congruent non-verbal communications. This was understood as indicating a long-term affective bond to place (place attachment). Four of these participants also reported experiencing strong grief associated with loss of childhood place, providing further support from the interviews for the presence of a strong affective attachment to place. The prominence of these two themes in adult remembrances of childhood place experience, and participants assertion that their love of place arose out of their childhood place experience, supports the proposal that an affective bond to place (place attachment) emerges through childhood place experience. Conversely Jim, whose memories of childhood place experience contained very limited affect or sensory detail, expressed only supercial place attachment. Neal whose place memories were tinged with anxiety rather than pleasure denied any attachment to

his place of origin. Neither reported any deep immersion in childhood experience suggestive of implicit memory during their interviews. Although both reported they experienced some place attachment as adults, their descriptions lacked noticeable congruent non-verbal expressions that would have given them greater substance. Also, neither Jim nor Neal reported any sense of grief associated with separation from childhood place. The lack of detailed childhood place memories and strong place attachment sentiments from the accounts of Neal and Jim suggest the absence of strong internal working models of childhood place. This range of results across all participants suggests some variability in the developmental processes that give rise to adult place attachment. This nding accords with Chawlas (1992) identication of a qualitative spread of different types of adult place attachments. While it is possible that Neal and Jims accounts reect a failure of the interview procedure to evoke implicit memory, the results are consistent with the explanation that their childhood place experiences were not generalised into robust internal working models with strong subjective feelings of place attachment. This nding does not undermine the proposed model, but suggests that where childhood place experience is not consolidated into an internal working model, place attachment is weak. While Neals experience of childhood place anxiety appears to have undermined the development of a robust place attachment, the reasons why Jims childhood place experiences did not consolidate into a strong place attachment remain unclear. Attachment theory uses a continuum of anxiety-security to evaluate the quality of attachment (Bowlby, 1974). The attachment gures proximity and emotional attunement engenders feelings of security and wellbeing. Threats to security give rise to anxiety in the short term and attachment disorders if sustained. Findings of this study suggest that for the majority of participants, a sense of security of place was associated with feelings of wellbeing, a sense of the souls being nurtured, and disruptions to place attachment were associated with strong feelings of grief and anxiety, similar to those observed in young children in response to separation from attachment gures (Bowlby, 1980). The developmental model of place attachment proposed here requires frequent re-enactment of the arousal-interaction-pleasure pattern in order that childhood place experience be generalised and internalised into a strong internal working model of place. The security/familiarity theme provides support for this aspect of the proposed model. The sense of familiarity and security reported by participants expressing strong place attachment feelings are unlikely to have emerged without those participants undertaking frequent interactions with the physical environment in childhood. Attachment theory argues that by settling distress through caregiving and soothing behaviours, the attachment gure acts as an external emotional regulator until the infant can internalise this function for himself (Trevarthen, 1993; Schore, 1994). The restorative (soothing) qualities of natural environments (Altman & Wohlwill, 1983; Kaplan, 1995; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) are here understood as being somewhat analogous to the soothing effect of human care-giving. Korpela (1989) took this analogy further, nding that place functions as external regulator for emotional states. Likewise, several participants in this study described using childhood place to regulate emotional distress. Bluey was very clear that he used his time wandering the farm each weekend to recover from his negative experience of school and create a sense of calm self belief. Similarly, in a study of autobiographical writing, Chawla (1992) found that the most common reported benet of fondly remembered childhood places was that they form an internal centre of stability and calm in adulthood. Alongside these parallels between human attachment and place attachment, there are some important differences. Human attachment is universal a fundamental requirement of human

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development. Like this study, Chawla (1986) found that place attachment is not universal, or at least there appears to be a much greater range in its quality and perceived importance than there is for human attachment. The need she identied for place theorists to dene the different types of place attachment still stands unaddressed. Also, attachment theorists see the rst three years of life as most important in the attachment relationship, as this is when brain development is greatest (Siegel, 1999). Participants in this study estimated that most of the place memories described in the interview date from between the ages of 8 and 13, with none dating from an age younger than ve. Place attachment emerges at a later age than human attachment (Sobel, 1990). However, there is nothing in the study to suggest that the circular interactional dynamic depicted in Fig. 1 is not operational from a much earlier age, but that the childs sense of place attachment only emerges long after the strong emotional attachment to the attachment gure. Another difference between the two is the absence of an identied attachment gure in place attachment. In human attachment, the attachment gure is another human being. A shared biological substrate allows for the broad intersubjective, deeply attuned relationship necessary for the psychobiological development of the infant. The sophisticated intersubjective attunement underpinning human attachment has no obvious parallel in place attachment. Instead of a clearly identiable, deeply attuned gure, place attachment is more usefully conceptualised in terms of an attachment eld. In attachment theory, this eld is seen as arousing the young childs fascination, excitement and anxiety the antithesis of the attachment gure who soothes, settles and regulates emotional arousal (Marvin et al., 2004). Yet, despite this absence of an identied, attuned gure, four of the participants reported a subjective sense of reciprocity about their relationship with childhood place. They described feeling loved and nurtured by childhood place, adding support to the transactional view of place as a rich and active presence supporting psychological development and wellbeing. In the most thorough exploration to date of the links between place attachment and human attachment, Giuliani (2003) looks to Ainsworths denition of an affectional bond to compare the two. Drawing on Ainsworths criteria of longevity, uniqueness of the attachment gure, and the experience of security and pleasure in proximity and distress on separation, Giuliani nds that on balance, the differences between place attachment and human attachment outweigh the similarities. However, the model of place attachment development supported by the majority of the accounts in this study suggests important similarities between the two forms of attachment. Four of the participants in this study report place attachment to be as long lasting and as particular as human attachment. Five participants reported the experience of security and pleasure in proximity and distress on separation from place. Regarding Ainsworths criterion of uniqueness, four participants expressed stronger feelings for remembered childhood places than current adult place. The picture of place attachment emerging from this study is that, while feelings of pleasure and security arising from proximity to, and distress on separation from, place may be more subtle and take longer to register than similar feelings associated with human attachment gures, such feelings are denitely a part of the experience of place attachment. Overall, while acknowledging differences between the two forms of attachment, this study nds important similarities in the childhood experience at the core of both human attachment and place attachment. However, the study is limited in its scope. It sketches out a basic theoretical model of the development of place attachment from childhood experience of place. The retrospective, subjective accounts of the interviews lend support to that model. However,

this can only be considered preliminary support, and there is need for stronger evidence. An obvious limitation of the study is the very small number of participants, a product of the qualitative orientation. Also, while the proposed model draws on Sterns (1985) inferential leap of integrating subjective and objective approaches, this study only attempts to replicate one of the two complimentary epistemological approaches that Stern argued were necessary for a holistic picture of child development. Empirical observations of children-in-place have not been undertaken. Instead the theoretical model draws on observational studies previously described in the literature. However, in the light of the major developments in attachment theory that have occurred since, there is need for an updating of Hart (1979) and Moores (1986) rich observational studies of childrens engagement with place. Also this study has limited its focus to the childs relationship with the physical environment. The model proposed here has not addressed social constructivist notions of place. This is a reection of the limited scope of the study rather than an implicit denial of the role of culture in place attachment. The model proposed here is compatible with Moores (1986) modication to Bronfenbrenners ecological model of child development, which provides an overarching theoretical modal that incorporates both place and cultural inuences on child development. A promising area for future research is the longitudinal perspective of the interplay of these two inuences over the course of human developmental. A further challenge to the inferences drawn from this study is the well-recognised unreliability of adult recollections of childhood events. This study argues that while explicit memory of childhood events is unreliable, the subjective emotional states experienced during deep remembrance and the ve emergent themes are associated with unconscious internal working models. These implicit memory generalisations of repeated childhood experiences of place are more robust than the reconstructed recollections of explicit memory. Two participants in this study reported an adult place attachment that did not appear to have developed from childhood experience, or at least not according to the developmental model provided here. This nding suggests the possibility of at least one alternative to the model offered here. In spite of Chawlas (1986) identication of different types of place attachment, there is yet no equivalent of attachment theorys four experimentally validated types of attachment (Goldberg, 2000), and certainly no mapping of the different processes that give rise to the various forms of place attachment. Ultimately however, much of the evidence and theoretical detail are most likely to emerge through longitudinal studies and these are sadly lacking (Hay, 1998). Hopefully this study can provide some impetus towards such work. This study elicited involuntary childhood place memories with the characteristics of implicit memory from those participants reporting a strong adult place attachment. The numerous expressions of remembered place-pleasure support the proposition that outdoor environments elicit place-exploration and place-play behaviours in children which give rise to frequent positive affect states. The frequent repetition of this child-environment transactional pattern (Fig. 1) is implied in the security and familiarity associated with childhood place by these same participants. Such repetition allows for the generalisation of this pattern into an internal working model of the relationship with childhood place which manifests subjectively as long-term positively affected bond to place. The implicit memory characteristics of the most vivid place memories reect the presence of internal working models of childhood place experience. Reports by these same participants of the use of childhood place to regulate emotional distress, of a positively affected childhood sense of place-security, and of intense grief on separation from place, all suggest strong parallels to the

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developmental role of the attachment relationship. These parallels along with a belief expressed by the same group of participants that childhood place experience has shaped their adult identity supports the argument for a developmental role for childhood place experience. The study also details the absence of such reports from participants who described a weak adult place attachment. These results combine to provide preliminary support for the developmental model of place attachment offered and the proposition that the process by which place attachment develops has strong similarities to that by which human attachment develops. The parallels between human attachment and place attachment appear to be signicant enough to be recognised by several participants who describe a subjective sense of being shaped or parented by place. Similarly, the wide use of the term Mother Earth signies a broader cultural recognition of close parallels between the two forms of attachment. These links have been recognised both transculturally and transhistorically (Malpas, 1999). Giuliani (2003) argues the need for a theory of attachment and affect that includes persons, places and even animals and physical objects. By extending the dialogue between place theory and attachment theory, this study has begun to address the absence of a developmental theory of place attachment as well as attachment theorys lack of attention to place as an interactive presence contributing to human developmental processes. In identifying signicant parallels between childrens experience of place and the human attachment relationship, particularly the way both phenomena stimulate human development, give rise to long-term affective bonds and contribute to adult identity, this study is a step towards an integrated developmental theory. Acknowledgements The author wishes to John Cameron for his generous and informed comments on this research. References
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