Attachment Theory

WHAT IS ATTACHMENT THEORY

Attachment Theory is a theory of child development developed by British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby that essentially states that the relationships we form early on in childhood have a profound effect on our development all throughout the lifespan, "from the cradle to the grave," as Bowlby says. ​According to attachment theory inherent within each one of us is the desire to connect, to have a secure emotional bond (an attachment) with those closest to us (i.e. our parents/grandparents/caregivers, children, spouse/partner/lover, friends, etc.).

 

ATTACHMENT FIGURES

We are born biologically predisposed to form close relationships with our caregivers from which we can elicit safety and security. Those we form attachments to are referred to as our “attachment figures.” Our attachment figures in childhood are our parents, grandparents, or even our siblings. For many kids in the foster care system or in adoptive care an attachment figure includes foster and adoptive parents, and even case workers. John Bowlby believed that an attachment is marked by four factors: secure base, safe haven, proximity maintenance and separation distress. An attachment figure acts as a secure base for the child to launch out into the world and explore. An attachment figure also acts as a safe haven to return to when hurt, scared or in need when the world causes uncertainty or harm. In an attachment we experience separation distress when we are away from those we rely on for care and support, longing for their closeness. Furthermore, in an attachment we desire to be close and aim to stay in close proximity, leading to proximity maintenance.

 

ATTACHMENT STYLES

Attachment figures are characterized by availability and responsiveness. As a child, when we are in distress, we need to know that our attachment figures are available for us when we need them, responsive enough to notice our need, and to meet that need in a sensitive way. When our attachment figures are available and responsive, it creates a sense of internal relational safety and security, and we develop what is referred to as a secure attachment. If our attachment figures are unavailable to us or unresponsive to our needs, it leads to an insecure attachment, more specifically either an anxious attachment, avoidant attachment or disorganized attachment. These four types of attachments are collectively known as attachment styles, each having a predictable pattern of behavior. For children, it tends to follow the following sequence based on the level of anxiety we feel and the level of avoidance we respond with: secure —> anxious (or anxious-ambivalent) —> avoidant (or anxious-avoidant) —> disorganized. In adults the sequence is as follows:

secure —> preoccupied —> fearful avoidant —> dismissing avoidant. 

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ATTACHMENT STYLE BEHAVIOR

All throughout the lifespan, when we are in distress, we reach out and ask for help. As infants we do this by way of crying and acting fussy. As small children, we reach out and ask for help by lifting up our arms, believing our parent or caregiver will come by, pick us up and hold us. As older children, we reach out and ask for help by coming over to our parents, and depending on how we have learned to talk about our feelings, either state how we feel and say what happened, or we uncontrollably tell our parents what just happened in a chaotic way, leaving our parents having to piece together the sequence of events. (Most of us parents experience the latter). As teenagers, it is natural and normal to begin sharing our distress with our friends, asking our friends what they would do, and we become a little less dependent on our parents. We still do seek out our parents help, but only on occasion and in dire need will we ask our parents for advice. If our parents, caregivers or friends, more often than not, listen to our concerns and can attune to us through facial expression, tone of voice, body language and eye contact in a way that is on our level, and can meet our physical, emotional and psychological needs, we learn that we are good and worthy of care and concern, others are trustworthy to provide care and concern, and the world is overall a safe enough place to explore and be curious. This typifies a secure attachment style, marked by low anxiety and low avoidance.

 

If and when our attachment behaviors fail to achieve care and comfort from our attachment figures, the following typical process occurs: angry protest, anxious clinging, depression, despair, and eventually detachment. According to Bowlby, anger is viewed as being an attempt to connect with an attachment figure who appears and is felt as inaccessible, protest at inaccessibility in secure relationships is recognized and accepted, and depression is natural in response to a loss of connection (Johnson, 2003). 

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As children, when we reach out in distress for help, and our caregivers are unavailable or unresponsive, we begin to feel "anxious," not knowing whether our caregiver will respond sensitively to our needs or not. When our caregivers habitually respond inconsistently in their responsiveness, we then become anxious and clingy, requiring large amounts of reassurance to know "I am okay." We want connection and relationship but are ambivalent to the connection, simply because we are unsure what we will be met with if we reach out. An anxious attachment style is characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance. 

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In an avoidant attachment style we experience rejection from our caregivers, and we learn to minimize closeness. We focus on completing tasks. We withdraw and isolate. We distract ourselves with non-relational activities, and we limit or avoid altogether times we do attempt to reach out. In an avoidant attachment style, a person experiences high avoidance in order to experience low anxiety. A measure of an avoidant attachment style in adult relationships (Hazan and Shaver, 1987) but can also be true for children could state, "I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being." 

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When our parents or caregivers are too scary or they are the source of fear or pain, a disorganized attachment style may develop. In a disorganized attachment style a child does not know what to expect or what to do. Examples include a parent who says that they love their child but hits them, a parent/caregiver/trusted adult who fails to protect the child, or because of what the child has been witnessed to, such as domestic violence (Golding, 2008). To the child, it feels as though there does not seem to be a rhyme or reason as to why you, the parent, respond to me, and "I" (the child) cannot organize a pattern to your responses - thus, a dis-organized style of attachment. The parent is the both the source of fear and the solution to the fear at the same time (Johnson, 2003). 

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INTERNAL WORKING MODEL

According to attachment theory our attachments to our attachment figures create within us a working model for how we view ourselves, other people and the world around us. Our experiences with those closest to us shape how we see ourselves as either good or bad and having worth and value or little to no value, how we see others as either trustworthy or untrustworthy, and how we see the world around us as either safe or unsafe. When our caregivers are available and responsive to our needs, we learn to see ourselves as someone worth providing care for. We also come to see others as trustworthy to provide care and concern, knowing that if we needed help, you - my caregiver - will provide care. Likewise we come to experience the world around us safe enough to explore​.​​​ As we grow up, those attachment styles carry with us until we develop a connection with someone to teach us differently.

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"GOOD ENOUGH PARENTING": SENSITIVE vs. INSENSITIVE CAREGIVING

In the 1950's British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott coined the term "good enough mother in his book Playing and Reality. Winnicott's notion of "good enough mother" was this understanding that mothers when their infants are born start with a complete fulfilling of their infants needs, sacrificing sleep and time in order to devote all her attention to her child. As the child grows the mother allows the child to experience small amounts of frustration, not immediately rushing to the aid of her child. She cares and is empathetic but may allow the child to cry for a moment before providing care. She is not "perfect," per se, but rather, she is "good enough."

 

The idea is that in parenting or caregiving, parents are not able to always attune to their child's needs all the time and in all the ways. It is too high of an expectation for parents to be all the things all the time in every setting with every child. Parents do not have to be perfect. Parents simply need to be "good enough." When our children are born, we are highly devoted to providing care to our child, as our child is not able to care for themselves and is fully reliant on us as parents to care for them. As our children get older, that devoted care is still there, but we gradually allow the child to feel the frustration and tension longer and longer as they work out for themselves the solutions to their problems. We remain available when needed. We remain responsive when asked for help. Yet, we allow our children to fall, to fail, to experience pain, to experience disappointment, and to experience tension. If this does not happen, our child will grow up believing that the world will (or at least should) conform to their every need and whim. This is notion behind "good enough" parenting. 

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Children need to experience frustration and tension in order to work through problems and hard things. As parents, this is sometimes difficult for us. We feel the secondhand embarrassment, or the pain of falling off the bike, or the distress the child feels when afraid of sleeping in their own bedroom. The emotion that arises inside of us feels too great at times, and we can have the tendency to either completely ignore our child and tell our child to suck it up or stop crying, or we hover over our child and rescue our child from any and all problems or distress. When we talk about insensitive caregiving, this is what we are referring to. Parenting is a hard balance between pushing or nudging our child towards growth without breaking the child.

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Sensitive parenting or caregiving balances both the need for connection with the child with also the need for correction in our child in a way that respects the child, respects the parent and respects the relationship. Parents do not have to be perfect...just good enough. 

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Resources 

1.  https://psychology.psy.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins%20DP1992.pdf

2. Johnson, S. M., & Whiffen, V. E. (Eds.). (2003). Attachment processes in couple and family therapy. The Guilford Press.

3. Kim S. Golding. (2008). Nurturing Attachments: Supporting Children who are Fostered or Adopted. Jessica Kingsley Publishers

4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/suffer-the-children/201605/what-is-good-enough-mother

 

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