8 Key excerpts on "Explanations of Attachment"

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  Child and Adolescent Psychology for Social Work and Allied Professions

  Applied Perspectives

  • Gabriela Misca, Peter Unwin(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Attachment theory is a highly influential theory in social work practice, specifically in the area of practice with children and families. Its popularity with social work can be traced back to its roots: original ideas of attachment theory spoke of maternal deprivation and proposed explanations of behaviour based on our early experiences and quality of relationship and/or separation from our primary carers: the mothers (see Bowlby, 1980). At the centre of social work practice with children and families is the endeavour to support children being cared for within their (birth) families, although many of the children that social workers are working, or will work, with are unable to live with their birth parents. What these children have in common is that they have had their primary attachment bonds interrupted. It is therefore intuitive to make the link between these early experiences of separation and loss and their later adjustment. Recent government policy (Unwin & Misca, 2013) has promoted adoption as the preferred choice for children at risk as compared to previous practices and policies that have given parents several attempts at rehabilitation. The belief in the critical need for stable early attachment is a key underpinning theory behind this policy change.

  John Bowlby is the originator of attachment theory and its core tenet that the early attachment of infants to their caregiver is the outcome of an evolutionary mechanism designed not only to guarantee the survival of the dependent and vulnerable infant but also to provide enduring psychological connectedness between human beings (Bowlby, 1980). Attachment theory puts the emphasis on the role of early experiences in shaping the expectations and beliefs a child constructs concerning the trustworthiness and responsiveness of significant others. According to the theory, a person who is cared for in a consistent and responsive manner forms the expectation that others will be both available and supportive when needed (Ainsworth, 1979). Such expectations, or internal working models (IWMs), not only influence the way through which people regulate their emotions but also they can determine to a great extent an individual’s social development and interpersonal relationships in later life. In Bowlby’s view, these working models of relationships become slowly stable and unconscious over time. As individuals use these models as the basis for their interpersonal behaviours, expectations and interpretations, so they become resistant to change (Bowlby, 1980).

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  Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

  One Hundred Years After 'Little Hans'

  • Karen Baker, Jerrold Brandell, Karen E. Baker, Jerrold R. Brandell(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Attachment theory encompasses a wide theoretical framework with dozens of research variables with layers of contextual cues from observable behavioral manifestations to inferred psychic constructs making it difficult to define and study. The interpersonal principles of this theory are lifelong, applicable from in utero embryonic experience, and impact an individual, from a systemic perspective, across the life span. At the same time, the in-trapsychic principles penetrate deep into the emotional and psychic life of the individual with a profound impact, again, across the life span.

  Attachment theory has a strong empirical research base evolving from Freud’s clinical observations and case studies (1963a, b, 1977). Bowlby (1973, 1982a,b) focused on animal studies through the lens of evolutionary biology. Ainsworth (1967) concentrated on naturalistic field observation of maternal-infant dyads, and then moved to a laboratory setting with the development of the Strange Situation where mother-infant attachment classification systems were developed (Ainsworth, 1978; Ainsworth & Bell, 1970).

  The long history of attachment research has informed many areas of child development. A study of the relationship between quality of mother-infant attachment and later toddler competence indicates that securely attached infants engage in more imaginative and symbolic play than their counterparts, are more socially and cognitively competent as toddlers, more enthusiastic and compliant during tasks, more persistent, and more affectively positive (Matas et al., 1978). An attachment and dependency study from a developmental perspective demonstrated that the quality of infant-caregiver attachment relationship strongly predicts emotional dependency (Sroufe et al., 1983). Preschool leave-taking and reunion experiences between children and caregivers are interactive and complicated by the child’s age, gender, the duration of time in school, and the gender and behavior of the parent (Field et al., 1984). Positive correlations were made between secure attachment and self-esteem and self-confidence (Field et al., 1984). Children have been shown to be object-attached or non-object attached. Laboratory procedures then demonstrate children’s use of these transitional soft objects to help regulate emotions, but it is also evident that intensity of distress is connected to use of object and unique to each child (Steier & Lehman, 2000). Complex caregiving systems, from the contemporary evolutionary perspective, demonstrate, for example, that maternal and paternal caregiving systems are separate and unique; caregiving systems are subject to complex contextual forces that exist in the present but are influenced by past experiences; caregiver systems operate in both harmony and conflict with child attachment systems; and that the roles of emotion, cognition, parental responsiveness and individual differences are all factors in the complex system of caregiving (Cassidy, 2000). More recent work has focused on atypical patterns of attachment that have been used to identify infants and children who might be at risk for delays or distortions in attachment (Forbes et al., 2003).

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  Child and Adolescent Psychology

  Typical and Atypical Development

  • Stephen von Tetzchner(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  19 ATTACHMENT    

  F rom birth throughout the life span, human beings are oriented toward social stimulation and participation, making social relations a core area of developmental psychology. This chapter is about children’s early social relations and the influence they may have on the child’s social functioning and development. According to attachment theories, early close relationships provide children with knowledge about social relations that form the basis for how they meet other people and contribute to forming their later reactions and behaviors.

  Attachment behavior is defined as “any behavior that results in a person attaining or maintaining proximity to some other clearly identified individual who is conceived as better able to cope with the world” (Bowlby, 1982, p. 669). Thus, the function of attachment behaviors is to ensure a feeling of safety by reducing the physical distance to specific individuals, attachment figures. If a child’s attachment system is to perform its function, attachment figures must respond to the child’s attachment behavior. Adults react to signaling behavior by reducing the distance to the child when necessary, calling the child or moving closer when the distance exceeds a certain limit, for example when the child has wandered off (Bowlby, 1969).

  THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ATTACHMENT

  Views differ with regard to the basis of attachment and the possible outcomes of different types of attachment. John Bowlby presented the first comprehensive theory of attachment and laid the foundation for all later theories (Hinde, 2005). Bowlby’s ethological theory will therefore be presented first and in particular detail, although some other views predated his.

  Seeking security by the mother.

  Ethological theory

  Attachment has to do with relationships, whose biological basis, according to Bowlby (1969), is survival. From an evolutionary perspective, the survival value of attachment behavior lies in the fact that human infants would be unable to survive without a caregiver. The same applies to infant monkeys, although their development is somewhat faster (Suomi, 2008). The imprinting behavior of ducks and other birds seems to fulfill a similar function as attachment behavior in humans (see Figure 19.1

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  Conducting Research in Developmental Psychology

  A Topical Guide for Research Methods Utilized Across the Lifespan

  • Nancy Jones, Melannie Platt, Krystal D. Mize, Jillian Hardin, Nancy Jones, Melannie Platt, Krystal D. Mize, Jillian Hardin(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Possibly, John Bowlby’s most important contribution was his method for generating attachment theory. In his clinical work, Bowlby discovered continuities among the life histories of his patients. For example, he observed that many troubled adults had experienced separations from their parents during childhood (Bowlby, 1944) and that, far from being self-generated fantasies, many troubled adults had experienced danger in their early years (Bowlby, 1973). Bowlby sought explanations for such observations in other theories and empirical findings from diverse fields of inquiry. For Bowlby, the theories were psychoanalysis, general systems theory, and ethology; later he added cognitive psychology in the form of information processing (Bowlby, 1980). His central ideas were that (1) attachment was selected through evolution because it increases the probability of survival, (2) behavior is based on representation, and (3) external reality can be represented in more than one way (as opposed to being known directly in a unified manner). Although not a developmental psychologist, Bowlby introduced the notion of developmental ‘pathways’ to adaptation and maladaptation (as opposed to linear ‘trajectories’ or the absence of developmental influence on adult outcomes). The crucial methodological takeaway from Bowlby is the importance of integrating ideas from other fields.

  Ainsworth’s Individual Differences in the Quality of Attachment Relationships

  Mary Ainsworth gathered the empirical data that gave credence to attachment theory. Her observations revealed three patterns of attachment relationships; these became the ABC individual differences in infant–mother attachment. Ainsworth’s (1967) early work in Uganda used anthropological observation and introduced the concept of the mother as a secure base for her infant. Ainsworth replicated this finding in Baltimore, using periodic home observations across the first year of life. Developmentally, Ainsworth tracked infant and mother behavior across the first year of life; methodologically, she transformed home observations into rating scales of central constructs and created a culminating laboratory assessment, the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). The SSP became the ‘gold standard’ for validating most future assessments of attachment. Ainsworth’s work established the link between maternal sensitive responsiveness and secure attachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Later studies of brief bouts of mother–infant interaction found a weaker than expected association (Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2003; De Wolff & van IJzendoorn, 1997). Possibly, single brief dyadic interactions did not capture the essence of repeated long home observations, specifically, mothers’ responses when infants felt anxious. Although Ainsworth’s research used normative samples, she noted that mothers must not themselves feel endangered if they were to promote secure attachment in their infants. Ainsworth’s work initiated a half-century of research, mostly by developmental psychologists, on individual differences in attachment relationships, especially in infancy and adulthood.

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  Constructivist Perspectives on Developmental Psychopathology and Atypical Development

  • Daniel P. Keating, Hugh Rosen(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Building on this work, attachment researchers have recently moved in several promising theoretical and empirical directions. This has contributed to a broadening of attachment theory to include a concern with the emotional bases of the attachment behavioral system, how attachment relationships are manifested at later ages, their links to representational systems derived from the infancy period, and the question of the intergenerational transmission of caregiving relationships. As we shall see, such work offers a much broader view of how attachments become successively revised and reconstructed with development, especially as this work is critically integrated with the infancy literature reviewed previous. Moreover, this research strengthens the applications of attachment theory to problems of developmental psychopathology by focusing on the affective and representational processes that may lead to disordered as well as normal socioemotional functioning in the early years.

  Emotional Underpinnings of Attachment System Functioning

  Emotional processes have long been considered an important aspect of attachment system functioning. Bowlby (1969), for example, regarded emotion as a significant component of the appraisal processes by which attachment behavior is instigated, monitored, and later terminated, and Sroufe and Waters (1977) argued that the “set goal” of the attachment behavioral system is the baby's feeling of security with the caregiver. Despite these views, the specific role of emotion in attachment behavior has remained unclear, and important controversies in attachment research pertain to the role of emotion in the organization of attachment behavior (e.g., temperamental influences on attachment, the assessment of attachment, cross-cultural differences in attachment patterns, etc.). These controversies center on the extent to which individual variations among infants in emotional arousal and its regulation contribute to attachment security along with the effects of prior parental care discussed earlier (cf. Sroufe, 1985). A recent set of investigations from our lab suggests that emotional reactions may underlie the organization of individual differences in attachment and their consistency over time.

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  Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis

  • Peter Fonagy(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 Introduction to Attachment Theory

  Attachment theory is almost unique among psychoanalytic theories in bridging the gap between general psychology and clinical psychodynamic theory. Many have noted the gulf that exists to this day between theories of the mind that have their roots in empirical social science (largely psychological research), and clinical theories that focus on the significance of individual experience in determining life course, including psychopathology. Paul Whittle (in press) recently described this discontinuity of theories as a fault line that runs across the entire discipline of psychology. Indeed, it is easy to discern the fault line between the tectonic plates of psychoanalysis, where giving meaning to experience is seen as the primary cause of behavior as well as the royal road to its therapeutic change, and the abutting plate of experimental psychology, with its emphasis on parsimony, insistence on reliable observation, and abhorrence of rhetoric and speculative theory-building. Yet attachment theory has a home on both sides of the fault line. How can this be?

  John Bowlby’s work on attachment theory started when, at the age of 21, he worked in a home for maladjusted boys. Bowlby’s clinical experience with two boys, whose relationships with their mothers were massively disrupted, made a profound impact on him. A retrospective study he carried out ten years later, examining the history of 44 juvenile thieves (Bowlby 1944), formalized his view that the disruption of the early mother–child relationship should be seen as a key precursor of mental disorder. The one factor that distinguished the thieves from the clinic children was evidence of prolonged separation from parents, particularly striking among those whom he termed “affectionless.” In the late ’40s Bowlby extended his interest in mother–infant relations by undertaking a review of research findings on the effects of institutionalization on young children (Bowlby 1951). Children who had been seriously deprived of maternal care tended to develop the same symptoms as he had identified in his “affectionless” young thieves. While giving central place to parenting in general and the infant–mother relationship in particular, the 1951 monograph was silent on the mechanisms by which maternal deprivation might be expected to generate adverse consequences. The maternal deprivation literature was itself wide open to alternative interpretations, particularly ones that deemphasized the mother-infant bond (e.g., Rutter 1971). At about the same time, James Robertson, with Bowlby’s encouragement, spent 4 years documenting on film the impact on 18- to 48-month-olds of separation from the parents during an episode of hospital admission or admission to residential nurseries (Robertson 1962). Later, more systematically collected behavioral observations and descriptions that fully confirmed the Robertson material were collected by Christopher Heinicke (Heinicke and Westheimer 1966).

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  A Secure Base

  • John Bowlby(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  7 The Role of Attachment in Personality Development DOI: 10.4324/9780203440841-7

  Evidence regarding the role of attachment in personality development has been accumulating apace during the 1980s. Earlier findings have been replicated on samples of diverse origin; methods of observation have been refined and new methods introduced; and the role of easy two-way communication between parent and child in making for healthy emotional development has been emphasized. Since I believe this new work to have far-reaching clinical implications, my aim in this lecture has been to present a review of these findings in a form suited to those working as psychotherapists in the mental health field.

  For the convenience of the reader I begin by restating in summary form some of the features most distinctive of attachment theory.

  Some Distinctive Features of Attachment Theory

  It will be remembered that attachment theory was formulated to explain certain patterns of behaviour, characteristic not only of infants and young children but also adolescents and adults, that were formerly conceptualized in terms of dependency and over-dependency. In its original formulation observations of how young children respond when placed in a strange place with strange people, and the effects such experiences have on a child’s subsequent relations with his parents, were especially influential. In all subsequent work theory has continued to be tied closely to detailed observations and interview data of how individuals respond in particular situations. Historically the theory was developed out of the object-relations tradition in psychoanalysis; but it has drawn also on concepts from evolution theory, ethology, control theory, and cognitive psychology. One result is the reformulation of psychoanalytic metapsychology in ways compatible with modern biology and psychology and in conformity with the commonly accepted criteria of natural science (see Lecture 4).

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  Attachment Theory

  Working Towards Learned Security

  • Rhona M. Fear(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Part I Attachment Theory as the Underlying Basis of the Theory of Learned Security Passage contains an image

  CHAPTER ONE Origins of attachment theory

  Introduction

  Attachment theory, as first developed by John Bowlby, is at the very heart of this book. It is to John Bowlby that I owe the nascent ideas that led me to develop an integration of three psychoanalytic theories (described in Chapter Eleven ) which, when employed in concert, I believe to be more effective in enabling the healing process of my clients to take place than if one employs a single theoretical model. I undertook to write this book in order to share with a wider audience of practising psychotherapists and counsellors this integrative approach to psychotherapy. I hope that it may encourage further debate that will lead to further development.

  This book is an attempt to present the underlying ideology that has been born over many years as a practising psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Above all, the theory of learned security represents a summation of the way in which I think psychotherapy can best function as an effective instrument, carefully crafted by the therapist and used with skill to assist her client to develop a clearer sense of “auto-biographical competence” (Holmes, 2010, p. 49) and a stronger and more sustainable sense of self by the time he ends long-term therapy. These two aims—autobiographical competence and the ability to feel secure within oneself—are, to my mind, the most important gains of long-term therapy. They are frequently not the stated, conscious aims of the client, who might often actually present with more pressing concerns about external environmental factors which are troubling him.

  It is my contention that it is one of the foremost aims of many therapists, though perhaps not always consciously recognised, to help the client move from a fractured, conflictual approach to relationships to a more satisfying way of relating. The conflictual mode of relating is almost always evidenced in the very first few sessions of therapy, embroiled in the issues with which the client presents. In my experience of over twenty-seven years in practice, the presenting problem is nearly always due to difficulties in relationships, whether these relationships concern a core partnership, interactions with a child or another family member, or, alternatively, with individuals at work or within the social milieu. Thus, I believe that one needs to tackle the way in which the client relates to others, and, of course, this will be revealed in the “here and now” of the transference and countertransference, and by the growth of the real relationship which underpins the working alliance.

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