L’utilizzo del costrutto di attaccamento in ambito giuridico: per un suo corretto uso a difesa dell’interesse del minore un invito alla discussione

Attachment Theory is instrumental in the context of court-appointed and party-appointed experts consultations provided within the Juvenile Court – recently redefined by new regulatory provisions as a single court for families and individuals- in terms of custody, separations, and divorces. Unfortunately, however, there are numerous occasions of incorrect use of the conceptual and methodological tools indicated by Attachment Theory, which significantly impacts the decisions taken about minors and families. The recent proposal of an article dedicated to this topic (Forslund et al., 2022) which collects, in the form of a «consensus statement», the opinions of authoritative scholars and international researchers in the field, is an opportunity to bring attention to what it means to pursue the «best interests of the child» by applying, in an empirically based and non-ideological way, the methodological and conceptual indications offered by the Attachment Theory. The suggestion for discussion we present here has two aims: first, to shed light on the current misunderstandings in decision-making practices that are inspired by Attachment Theory in forensic contexts for families and children; second, to suggest good practices in the work of the court-appointed or party-appointed experts, which is in line with what the research indicates as «plausible» statements and, therefore, translatable into reliable practices for all parties involved.