Part 2 book “Handbook of personality disorders” has contents: An attachment perspective on callous and unemotional characteristics across development, empirically validated diagnostic and assessment methods, clinical assessment, clinical features of borderline personality disorder, clinical aspects of antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, and other contents. | CH A P TER 19 An Attachment Perspective on Callous and Unemotional Characteristics across Development Roseann M. Larstone, Stephanie G. Craig, and Marlene M. Moretti There is an extensive history of research on the etiology and course of serious conduct problems and treatment outcomes among antisocial and violent youth (., Moffitt et al., 2008). A consistent finding from this work is that children and adolescents with conduct problems display considerable heterogeneity in the type and severity of their behavior problems, social and interpersonal functioning (., quality of interpersonal relationships; school dropout, incarceration), and response to treatment. This heterogeneity suggests that there are meaningful subgroups (., child vs. adolescent onset; see Moffitt, 2006) and multiple pathways to serious and persistent conduct problems and aggression (., Frick & Viding, 2009; Moffitt, 1993, 2006). The identification of heterogeneous clusters in the etiology and developmental course of severe conduct problems has become a pressing research priority (Frick & Marsee, 2006; Frick & White, 2008) with important implications for intervention. One well-developed line of research that has shed light on heterogeneity among children with serious behavior problems focuses on callous–unemotional (CU) traits (Frick & White, 2008; Waller et al., 2012). Historically, CU traits (., lack of empathy and guilt; shallow affect; uncaring attitudes) (Cleckley, 1941; Hare, Hart, & Harpur, 1991) have been thought to represent a core deficit that is associated with early-onset and persistent antisocial and aggressive behavior. Children and teens who have high levels of CU traits have been shown to demonstrate more severe, chronic and aggressive patterns of behavior than do children who show conduct problems in the absence of CU traits (., Frick & White, 2008; Kimonis, Bagner, Linares, Blake, & Rodriguez, 2014). Conduct problems in conjunction with high levels of CU .
