Attachment Theory PDF

Attachment Theory Attachment Theory 12 Bowlby’s views: According to Bowlby, attachment begins in infancy and lasts throughout a lifetime. A newborn baby immediately needs someone to take care of them. This person may be a parent, a sibling, or a nanny, but whoever it is, there will be a bond formed...

Attachment Theory Attachment Theory 12 Bowlby’s views: According to Bowlby, attachment begins in infancy and lasts throughout a lifetime. A newborn baby immediately needs someone to take care of them. This person may be a parent, a sibling, or a nanny, but whoever it is, there will be a bond formed between them. Bowlby believed that this primary caregiver is the one that will most shape the child’s personality and character. The primary caregiver is usually the mother (but need not always be), and strong bonds are formed within minutes of giving birth. It is important for the new parents and baby to be alone together right after the birth to establish a strong bond. If there are too many individuals in the room right after birth, the natural process of attachment can be disrupted and this can have long-term effects on the relationship between the child and parents. E an e ed d Attachment Theory effed The attachment formation needs caregiver’s presence in early stages; no amuse man latesta cares 6 i difference is made if motherly care is provided late and not in early stages. Attachment behaviour is more evident when distress is present. Attachment style may differ with different caregivers; it is a function of the quality of caregiving and NOT the temperament of a child. According to Bowlby, the strong innate tendency to attach to one adult female is seen – this is called monotropy. This attachment is qualitatively different from later attachments made. But it is shown that multiple attachments are the rule rather than the exception. Around 18 months, 87% infants have multiple attachments; 50% primarily attached to the mother, 18% to father and the rest to equally both. Attachment process itself is more important than who the attachment figure is. Attachment Theory Bowlby believed that attachment is innate and adaptive. We are all born with an inherited need to form attachments, and this is to help us survive. In his terms, the newborn infant is helpless and relies on its mother/caregiver for food, warmth, etc. And hence the attachment behaviour is essentially adaptive. Attachment behaviour peaks between 12-18 months but various phases are notable during development. 1. Pre-attachment phase (birth to 8 or 12 weeks), babies orient to their mothers, 2. Indiscriminate attachment (attachment in making – 8 to 12 weeks to 6 months): Allows strangers to handle, infants become attached to one or more persons in the environment. 3. Clear-cut attachment (6 through 24 months): Preferential attachment, separation anxiety, object permanence, stranger anxiety. At the later part, weakened stranger anxiety; other attachment figures may also present. 4. After 25 months, the mother figure is seen as independent. I Is Attachment Theory 1 Harlow’s experiments: These experiments established the importance jun of contact comfort as a basic need in developing mother-infant E bonding, irrespective of food. Harlow separated rhesus monkeys from their mothers during their first weeks of life. Harlow substituted a surrogate mother made from wire or cloth for the real mother. The infants preferred the cloth-covered surrogate mother, which provided contact comfort, to the wire covered surrogate, which provided no contact comfort. This preference was observed irrespective of feeding, i.e. The terry-cloth soft-surrogate mother was preferred even if it did not have a feeding nipple attached to it. Attachment Theory I Ainsworth’s experiments: Ainsworth constructed a Strange Situation Experiment with 2 separation and 2 reunion episodes. An infant is observed in the presence and absence of its mother and a stranger in the vicinity in seven different combinations. According to the infant’s behaviour it is classified as type A, B or C. *Situation 1: Both mother and infant enter the room. *Situation 2: A stranger joins them. *Situation 3: Mother leaves now; infant left with stranger. *Situation 4: Mother returns; stranger leaves. *Situation 5: Infant left alone; mother leaves now. *Situation 6: Stranger comes back and tries to comfort the child. *Situation 7: Mother comes back and comforts, stranger leaves. This classification below correlates highly with 1. Responsiveness and sensitivity of the mothers to the needs of their children and 2. Total amount and quality of stimulation (holding) provided by the mothers. situations Attachment Theory T.se *Type A: Anxious avoidant: 15%. Indifferent attitude to the mother leaving the room or entering the room; keeps playing indifferent to mother’s presence. Distress when alone, not when the mother is leaving. Stranger can comfort the child easily. Highly environment directed, low attachment behaviour. Greater in the West. Perpetrators of bullying mostly have this pattern. *Type B: Secure: 70%. Plays independently when the mother is in the vicinity (secure base effect). Distress when the mother is leaving; seeks contact on the return of the mother and gets quickly comforted by the mother, not a stranger. *Type C: Anxious resistant: 15%. Fussy and cries a lot and cannot use the mother as a secure base to explore around. Very high levels of distress are seen when the mother is leaving. But not comforted easily even on her return; appears ambivalent about her return. Active resistance to stranger’s efforts to pacify. Highly caregiver directed low play behaviour. Greater in Japanese and Israeli families. Furthermore, this pattern is also common among victims of bullying. *In some cases a fourth type D – disorganised type – is also seen. This is seen in maltreated or maternally deprived children. The child has an insecure, dazed look and acts as if it is frightened of the mother. This pattern may be a precursor to later personality difficulties or dissociative experiences. Mother may have an experience of being abused as a child. II IEEE Attachment Theory im Main devised a semi-structured adult attachment interview with 15 items (AAI). This is based on the fact that infantile attachment pattern can be predicted reasonably accurately using discourse analysis of adults when recollecting their childhood. Accordingly 4 patterns are noted. *Secure autonomous: Those who had secure attachment provide spontaneous and coherent answers with the ability to talk freely about negative experiences in childhood a type B Ainsworth. *Dismissing of experiences: Those who had an avoidant (insecure) pattern often minimise their experiences, do not elaborate on them and do not use colourful metaphors during the discourse– type A (avoidant) *Entangled: Those who had insecure but ambivalent (enmeshed) attachment use multiple emotionally laden responses and ramble excessively, – type C resistant. *Unresolved disorganised: Broken continuity and interrupted the logical flow of thoughts is seen in those who had insecure disorganised attachment pattern– type D. Attachment Theory III The secure attachment appears to be a protective factor for the development of childhood disorders, and insecure attachment is best conceptualized as a risk factor for a number of childhood disorders. It has been demonstrated in various studies that insecure attachment during early childhood is associated with the development of behavioural problems especially oppositional defiant disorder at school age. Insecure attachment in combination with other vulnerability factors such as family dysfunction, difficult child temperament, and poor parental management can give rise to later childhood disorders Spitz – anaclitic depression or hospitalism: When children are hospitalised for physical problems, a short period of separation from primary caregiver ensues; this loss of loved one is called anaclitic (object loss) depression. It is counterproductive to child’s development. But recovery is good if the maternal deprivation is kept minimum i.e. Less than 3 months. Rare if prolonged. Surrogate mothering helps the infant when having the anaclitic depression to some extent. Margaret Mahler described the development of a sense of identity in young children, independent of their mothers. This is called separation –individuation theory, and the proposed stages are supposed to be universal in all children. Margaret Mahler’s Stages PRI at it 1. Normal autism (0 to 2 m): Child spends most time in sleep as if the intrauterine aloofness continues. 2. Symbiosis (2 to 5m): Inner and outer world studied via senses but perceives mother and self as one unit. 3. Separation – individuation phase: a) Differentiation sub-phase: (5 to 10m) slowly appreciates the difference between mother and self. b) Practicing sub-phase: (10 to18m) A gradual increase in interest on the environment; practices exploration. C) Rapprochement sub-phase: (18 to 24m) Alternating drives to be autonomous and dependent; Able to explore alone but requires comfort and reassurance on return. D) Object constancy sub-phase: (2 to 5yrs) Understand that the mother will not be lost if temporarily away; hence able to function independently. c Attachment Theory Rutter distinguished deprivation from privation. *Deprivation: Attachment is formed but lost temporarily. If it is for a short time then protest –then despair –then detachment phases (similar to grief) are seen. This is more common in 8m to 3 yr. Old. Boys show more deprivation features than girls. It is more noticeable if aggressive caregiving e.g. Physical abuse was present before separation. In prolonged deprivation, separation anxiety sets in. Increased clingy behaviour, psychosomatic complaints, and aggression are seen in the child. *Privation refers to the non-formation of attachment; this is very rare and canE lead to what Rutter termed as ‘affectionless psychopathy’ and developmental retardation. Attention seeking, lack of guilt, antisocial behaviour and indiscriminate attachment patterns are noted. This is reversible but only to some extent. Attachment IEEE Attachment Theory Ethology is the systematic biological study of animal behaviour. Greek ethos – custom or habit. It was coined by Heinroth. Imprinting is a special primitive form of learning wherein during the early period of development (called critical or sensitive phase) a young animal is highly sensitive to a certain stimulus that provokes a specific behaviour pattern. Lorenz described the imprinting in goslings where a moving object in the early period of development provokes the following behaviour of that moving object. This is useful as almost always mother is the first moving object for goslings and hence they learn to follow the mother; but when Lorenz disrupted this by presenting himself as the moving object, the goslings imprinted by Lorenz followed him and refused to follow mother goose. Imprinting is particularly resistant to change. Innate releasing mechanism (IRM) refers to the sensory mechanism selectively responsive to a specific external stimulus and responsible for triggering the stereotyped motor response. Fixed action pattern (FAP) is an inherent pattern of behaviour initiated by specific stimuli. It consists of species-specific, stereotyped movements e.g. Following behaviour in goslings. L E 7 1 IS 3 2 1H Attachment Theory Object relations theory According to object relations theory – the ego exists only in relation to other objects, which may be external or internal. ‘Object’ refers to both living persons and non-living concepts. The basis of object relations theory is that the primary motivational drive of an individual is to seek relationships. Melanie Klein was a major proponent of what came to be known as object relation theory later. Other prominent theorists include Fairbairn, Kernberg, Guntrip, Winnicott and Balint. Kleinian theory: *Play interpretation was the major technique employed. *Maintained that oedipal development occurred earlier than what Freud envisaged. o *According to Klein, an infant possessed instinctual knowledge of the body. *Weaning is symbolically equivalent to castration. *Kleinian defenses – SIPDOG i.e. Splitting, Introjection, Projective identification, Denial, Omnipotence and Grandiosity. Is ME_ T Kleinin whic fa.it I sisties defence I tele Ce man Attachment Theory Melanie Klein described two positions, paranoid-schizoid position and depressive position. The paranoid-schizoid position is associated with the use of splitting and projection as a defense mechanisms. This position concerns an inability to perceive a whole object and splits all objects into their good and bad parts. But in the depressive position, m ambiguity/ambivalence and can realise the infant learns to cope with that an individual can have both good and bad qualities. In the paranoid-schizoid position, the anxiety is about the survival of the self but in depressive position the anxiety is about the loss of the object. Description of Kleinian Theory of Infant’s (‘Object-‘) Relationship With The Mother 1-Soon after birth, fear of annihilation is present. This cannot be tolerated by the child and projects this destructive impulse to external objects. 2-THEN, projection of both bad and good impulses occurs followed by splitting of the external world into good and bad. Cannot unify these elements into one. Bad objects include non-gratifying bad breasts (parts). This leads to persecutory anxiety, and the child is said to be in paranoid –schizoid position. 3-THEN the child realizes that both good and bad things emanate from the unified single object (whole). At same time weaning occurs – perceived as a loss. Subsequent guilt develops for having destructive impulses against the mother. Depressive position – fear of loss of the love of object. 4-Reparation phase – creativity emanates as an attempt to repair damage done by ‘destructive impulse’. Continues lifelong. In the absence of reparation, a maladaptive defense called manic defense can emerge characterized by denial of reality (refusal to take guilt), omnipotence and grandiosity. E He steins P.IE Attachment Theory Object Relations Theory: Winnicott’s concepts: *Children’s psychological development occurs in a zone between reality and fantasy called transitional zone. Play is an important aspect of development of a child. *Transitional object refers to a soft toy, towel or any such objects that help in transition from ideal objects of fantasy to real objects which are not as reliable as those in fantasy. These serve as buffers against the loss, get invested with primary object’s qualities e.g. Mother’s contact but remain under the control of the child. *Good-enough mothering concept refers to the fact that a mother need not be perfect – but good enough to provide growth sustaining environment (holding). *Parental control and impositions can lead to the development of a false selfdifferent from the real self (theory of multiple self-organizations). I