4. Discussion
traumatic, trauma
This study demonstrated that two different group interventions implemented in an urban middle-school setting were successful in improving students’ attachment security and reducing trauma symptoms in typically developing young adolescents from ethnically and socioeconomically minoritized backgrounds. Students benefit from school-based group intervention [The fact the students participating in both the STSA-A and MBT-G intervention conditions were not previously identified as having socioemotional difficulties and yet demonstrated positive changes suggests that school administrators can make these two group interventions widely available as primary prevention measures. Even low-risk students need opportunities for emotional expression, affect regulation, and reflection on interpersonal experiences, which could prevent children from becoming at risk or even clinically disordered. These psychodynamically oriented group interventions are not designed to replace other popular group interventions but rather to add to the list of successful interventions that might be attempted, especially if students show less enthusiasm for other group interventions [Interestingly, examining the total sample, as the affective valence of paternal mental representations became significantly more negative, attachment security significantly improved. We view these two changes as interrelated. According to Main (1995) [While girls in both intervention conditions did not show any changes in affective valence of mental representations over time, boys exhibited decreases in affective valence of maternal and paternal mental representations over time, instead of an expected increase. This finding might be related to an increased desire for individuation among boys in early adolescence. Males are more likely than females to seek independence from their parents during this phase of development [Unexpected changes over time for the affective valence of mental representations were also identified. When considering the two intervention conditions, participants in the STSA-A condition experienced decreases in affective valance of paternal mental representations over time, while participants in the MBT-G condition experienced decreases in affective valence of primary group leader mental representations over time. The changes in mental representations of their parents and themselves, and perhaps also their primary group leaders (if they have made an emotional connection), can affect how they respond to traumatic experiences after the intervention. Attachment security increased in both intervention conditions—no small feat, considering the unique and complex challenges these children of immigrants needed to work through to begin to view their parents and school authority figures as sources of support and comfort.As suggested earlier, perhaps paternal mental representations and primary group leader mental representations became de-idealized in the STSA-A and MBT-G conditions, respectively. Intervention for young adolescents sometimes involves incorporation of negative parental attributes into schemata [Herzog (2013) [Differences in changes of affective valence of mental representations from T1 to T2 were also different than hypothesized for the primary group leader mental representations, as the positive change in the STSA-A condition was significantly greater than the negative change in the MBT-G condition. Similar differences between changes in affective valence of primary group leader mental representations were also reported for both boys and girls. No significant differences in changes from T1 to T2 were reported for childhood trauma symptoms based on condition or gender, supporting the hypothesis.The decrease in affective valence of primary group leader mental representations in the MBT-G condition might be accounted for by MBT-G group leaders’ experience level. Research has indicated that successful intervention using MBT-G requires a high level of skill and proficiency from a clinician to establish epistemic trust with students [