Relationship Counselling: Self-in-Relation

• Relationship Counselling - Lecture 1 discusses the Self-in-Relation and the instinct to attach

Reflection Exercise

• Considers response to frustration and feeling incapable of completing a task

Social Animals

• Humans exists in a complex web of interpersonal bonds and social associations
• Relationships are valued, and humans are happiest when maintaining positive social ties
• The need to bond is programmed

The Evolutionary Context

• Early human survival depended on cooperation
• Cooperation included food gathering/defense, building social alliances, attracting mates, and rearing young

Natural Selection

• Natural selection doesn't guarantee superiority
• Natural selection means being well-suited and able to pass on genetic information
• Survival and reproduction allows for passing on the genetic foundation for future generations
• Current traits and characteristics are clues to ancestors' selection processes

Need to Belonging

• The strength of innate needs for social affiliation and belonging suggests these traits were critical for survival
• In research studies, people tend to form bonds quickly, show allegiance, show preference for group members, and resist dissolving social bonds

The Need for Connection

• Social attachments affect cognition and emotion
• Positive emotions are related to acceptance, happiness, satisfaction, and elation
• Negative emotions are related to rejection, jealousy, depression, and loneliness

Social Nature as Essence

• Social nature seems to define humanity
• "Love" is a popular theme in pop culture

Attachment Theory - John Bowlby

• John Bowlby (1907-1990) created attachment theory
• Strong emotional bonds are a basic component of human nature

Attachment Theory Foundations

• Clinical observations of disrupted parent-child relationships
• Ethological research - imprinting of baby ducks
• Psychological research on affectional response in monkeys

Attachment System

• Infant survival and well-being depends on close, continuous relationships with individuals providing consistent physical/psychological protection and nurturance
• Humans possess an innate propensity to form strong affectional bonds
• Attachment behaviors involve instinctive, goal-directed responses promoting proximity to primary caregivers
• Primary caregivers are also called the Attachment Figure

Caregiving Instinct

• Parents of crying babies feel a need to provide care that reduces distress
• Includes cradling, feeding, stroking, soothing, and physical contact to convey safety, security, and comfort

Responsiveness

• Responsiveness involves a caregiver's ability to monitor, recognize, and react to infant cues
• Caregivers should respond promptly, contingently, and appropriately

Importance of Responsiveness

• Responsiveness is associated with social competence, language skill, and cognitive function
• Dyadic Verbal Reciprocity: Verbal responsiveness from mother improves the social competence and language skills of the child

Dangers of Non-Responsiveness

• Non-responsiveness leads to negative physical and mental health outcomes
• Deficits can be physical growth deficits, speech and language deficits, cognitive and intellectual deficits, and socio-emotional deficits

Risky Family Environment

• Risky Family Environment causes non-responsiveness and is characterized by overt conflict and deficient nurturing

Child Attachment Normative Development

• Infants do not initially show preferences for a single caregiver.
• 3-7 months: Infants begin distinguishing caregivers from strangers, preferring some individuals.
• 7 months to 3 years: Children actively seek caregivers, exhibiting proximity maintenance, safe haven, and secure base behaviors and develop an internal working model
• By age 3: Expanding language and understanding allows children to perceive the world from the perspective of attachment figures

Other Aspects of Attachment Instinct

• Second-order relational information allows interpreting faces based on contour, shape, movement, and spatial relations
• At 7 months of age, discriminate facial expressions of happiness as well as empathic accuracy and distinguishing intensities of expressions
• Still Face Effect: reductions in visual attention, smiling, positive effects and an increase crying when no response from the caregiver
• Face Perceptual System: mediated by subcortical structures and causes newborns to orient toward any stimulus that is sufficiently 'face-like.'

Ainsworth (1970) - Individual Differences in Attachment

• Infants can sense caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness
• Ainsworth (1970) identified 3 attachment patterns through the Strange Situation procedure

Strange Situation Procedure (Ainsworth, 1970)

• Procedure involves efforts to gain or regain contact with mother
• Includes contact maintenance, avoidance, and resistance

Three General Attachment Styles

• Secure attachment: high proximity seeking, little resistance/avoidance, grounded in history of positive parent-child relationship
• Insecure resistant/anxious-ambivalent attachment: distressed when caregiver leaves, resists comfort upon return, has inconsistent caregiving history
• Insecure-avoidant attachment: low proximity seeking, high active avoidance, has history of rejection and unavailability

Attachment Process Model

• Model outlines the process of attachment in response to threats, security, anxiety, and avoidance

Attachment Styles - Internal Wording Models

• Includes internalized expectations/beliefs about others
• Internalized views of self as valued/self-reliant or unworthy/incompetent
• Internal working models influence future relationship outcomes

Reductionism

• Science is different from therapy
• Theory is different from therapy
• Strive to be evidence-based; however, scientists & therapists have different goals/methods
• The conditions of a laboratory are exclusive while the conditions of a therapy room are inclusive

Lecture 1 discusses the Self-in-Relation and the instinct to attach. Humans are social animals and relationships are highly valued. Early human survival depended on cooperation and building social alliances.