Attachment theory

This introduction will give us a clearer picture of the theory itself and its concepts.

JOHN BOWLBY

John Bowlby (1907-1990) was born in London into a middle-to-upper-class family. Although financially secure, he grew up in emotionally cold relationships, deprived of warmth and parental love.

Studying the development of children who grew up in boarding schools and reformatories, he must have remembered that he himself spent one hour a day with his mother, over afternoon tea and conversations unsuited for childhood. His father, a famous surgeon, was preoccupied with work, so busy that he saw young John only on weekends and holidays.

Another dramatic situation from his childhood happened when he was 7 years old, when he was sent to live in a boarding school; besides being separated from his family, he was now also separated from his nanny to whom he was very attached.

After graduating from medical school at the age of 26, Bowlby began his training as a psychoanalyst under the umbrella of Freud's classical model. His analyst was Joan Riviere, an influential psychoanalyst of a Freudian viewpoint, known for her translations of Freud's works. An even greater influence on his later work was Melanie Klein, who was his supervisor. However, from the moment of his collaboration with her, Bowlby increasingly moved away from classical psychoanalytic trends.

Why Is All This Important?

The foundations of Attachment Theory are based on the shortcomings of psychoanalysis.

Freud believed that a child becomes attached to its mother because she serves as an object for the satisfaction of instincts, that is, a baby becomes attached to its mother because it gets relief from her. So the mother is not a person, but an object that serves to quell instincts—to feed, put to sleep, calm... The only motivation for establishing a loving relationship between mother and child is reduced to a basic biological need.

Unlike Freud, Melanie Klein in her "Object Relations Theory" placed the most importance on a child's internal states—more specifically, fantasies and internal representations of parents that are a mixture of unconscious (aggressive and sexual) fantasies, and she did not give much importance to external factors that could have an influence on the child.

John Bowlby criticized both, pointing out that both theories paid very little attention to the role that environmental factors play in a child's development. He also criticized them for not paying enough attention to the role of the mother in a child's psychological and emotional development. This can be concluded from a time when, at a meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society, he exclaimed: "But bad mothers really do exist!"

The Ethological Approach

Assessing Freud's adherence to Lamarck's evolutionary theory, Bowlby turned to ethological literature and the works of Robert Hinde in search of answers. Ethology, in accordance with modern evolutionary theory, explains instinctive behavior in the service of species preservation.

Attachment mechanisms are instinctive behavioral patterns specific to a species, and they are in the service of survival. By instinctive mechanisms, he means those such as: sucking, clinging, following, crying, laughing. Each of these types of behavior contributes to the survival of the individual and their offspring in a specific way.

Thus, it proved useful to view Attachment Theory as part of a pre-programmed set of behavioral patterns, which in a usually expected environment are formed during the first months of life and have the effect of the child being more or less in the vicinity of their mother, protected from predators and for the purpose of species preservation.

I will give an example to create an even clearer picture of these mechanisms: For one reason or another, a child finds themselves in an unfamiliar environment, among strangers. They got caught up in a game and wandered off a bit. Depending on the intensity of the fear the child feels, they will start looking for their mother, calling out to her, or crying (exhibiting attachment behavior). Crying and calling are one of the means available to the child to signal their need for care. The mother, depending on her responsiveness, will recognize the tonality of the child's cry and react in a way that will calm and provide the child with support that there is no threatening danger that could be life-threatening. In this case, calmness is the only way to signal that the child's needs have been met.

This raises the question—is parenthood also biologically determined by evolutionary factors to protect one's offspring, which would be called caregiving behavior, but more on that another time. These reactions are not limited to the early years but extend throughout the entire life cycle, and are present in adolescents and adults, regardless of gender.

Secure Base

The central feature of Bowlby's understanding of parenthood is that parents should provide the child, metaphorically speaking, with a "secure base" from which the child can venture out into the external world and explore it.

The child must have the security that whenever something happens that they perceive as a threat or a danger to their integrity, they can always safely return to it and seek protection, comfort, or solace.

The Exploratory Behavior System is present simultaneously with the Attachment System. Bowlby claims that this system develops in the function of collecting information from the environment. It is activated by the development of curiosity that new stimuli evoke in the child, and it is interrupted when the stimuli become sufficiently familiar to the child. A child is evolutionarily predisposed to explore the environment within the framework of a secure attachment to their mother. Emotions, which are sometimes very intense, accompany all these activities, whether they involve attachment, separation, loss, exploration, or fear. These feelings are positive if the emotional bond with the caregiver is good and consistent; the feelings are negative if the caregiver is unavailable or the child faces danger. The result is that closeness positively encourages attachment behaviors, while separations painfully punish with the loss of closeness. A parent will not provide a secure base for their developing child if they do not have an intuitive understanding and appreciation of their attachment behavior and if they do not treat it as an intrinsic and valuable part of human nature. This is why Bowlby avoided the term "dependency."

Salient Features and Patterns of Attachment

Attachment theory was formulated to explain certain forms of behavior, characteristic not only of babies and young children, but also of adolescents and adults, which were previously conceptualized through the notions of dependency and over-dependency. It considers the tendency to form intimate emotional bonds with certain people to be an essential component of human nature and emphasizes:

a) the primary status and biological function of intimate emotional bonds between individuals b) the strong influence that the way a child's parents, especially the mother (or her substitute), interact with the child has on the child's development c) that current knowledge about infant development requires a theory of developmental pathways to replace a theory that refers to specific stages of development

As a rule, an individual who is weaker and less experienced seeks care from someone they consider stronger and/or wiser. A child or adult in this role stays close to the caregiver, with the degree of closeness or availability depending on the circumstances; hence the term attachment behavior.

Caregiving, the main role of the parent and complementary to attachment behavior, is viewed in the same light as seeking care—namely, as a basic component of human nature. Environmental exploration, including play and various activities with peers, is seen as a third basic component and the antithesis of attachment behavior. When an individual (regardless of age) feels safe, they will likely explore and move away from their attachment figure. When they are upset, anxious, tired, or not feeling well, they have a need to establish closeness.

The three basic patterns of attachment first described by Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues (1971) can now be reliably identified, along with the conditions that encourage them:

1. Secure attachment pattern – Here, the individual is sure that the parent will be available, responsive, and helpful if they face unpleasant or frightening situations. With such a guarantee, they feel bold when exploring the world. It develops because the mother was sufficiently responsive and attuned to the child and its emotional needs.
2. Anxious-ambivalent attachment pattern – The individual is unsure whether the parent will be available, responsive, or helpful when they turn to them. Because of this uncertainty, the child is prone to separation anxiety and is afraid to explore the world. This pattern, in which the conflict is obvious, is encouraged by a parent who provides help in only certain situations, but not in others, even threatening to leave, thereby establishing control over the child.
3. Anxious-avoidant attachment pattern – Here, the individual does not believe that when they seek care, help will be provided; on the contrary, they believe they will always be rejected. When a person with this pronounced attachment pattern tries to live their life without the love and support of others, they try to be emotionally self-sufficient, which some clinicians might characterize as a dose of narcissistic personality disorder.

Although in most cases the observed behavioral pattern largely matches one of the three known types, there are also exceptions. M. Ainsworth observed mothers and children in a series of short episodes and concluded that some children appeared disorganized and disoriented. One child, for example, looks confused, another freezes, a third performs some stereotypical action, and a fourth starts a movement and then stops it for no reason. These children exhibit a Disorganized version of one of the three pattern types, usually "anxious-ambivalent." Some cases have been seen in children who have been physically abused and/or severely neglected by their parents. Others occur in dyads where the mother suffers from a severe form of bipolar disorder and acts inconsistently towards her child. Some other cases have been seen in mothers who themselves suffered some form of physical or sexual abuse.

Examples of these reactions are: The child crawls toward the mother but suddenly turns away or goes toward the mother but with their head turned away.

(This is the first part of the text. I will describe the continuation in the second part)

Author: Nemanja Kurlagić – psychotherapist using the O.L.I. method