The Concept of Attachment - Essay Example

Attachment Theory Attachment Theory focuses on the relationships and bonds between individuals. It particularly centers its focus on the bonds and relationships that have long-term impacts between parents and children and that between romantic partners. Attachment is an emotional connection to an individual. The first psychologist to go public with the concept of attachment was John Bowlby (McLeod, 2012). He described attachment as long-lasting psychological connectedness between people. The psychologist believed that the first bonds formed between children and their caregivers have massive impact that continues throughout an individual’s life. John Bowlby suggested that attachment keeps an infant close to the mother. It is this closeness that permits the child to accept suckling and other protection mechanisms that the mother provides to increase its chances of survival (Personality Research Organization, 2011). As mentioned above, it was John Bowlby that highlighted the significance of young children establishing attachment with their significant adult. According to Bowlby, attachment is a special psychological and emotional relationship that inculcates an exchange of care, comfort and pleasure. The relationship between a child and an infant a caregiver (parent or a significant adult) created a sense of comfort, care and pleasure. The roots of Bowlby’s research stemmed from Fraud’s theories about love. He researched and shared significant psychoanalytic view that earliest experiences of a child in his early years of development have imperative effects on the child’s development and growth in later years. As such, the theory claims that everyone’s daily interaction and behavior towards other people are phenomena that were established in childhood through early attachments to the caregivers (McLeod, 2012). In addition, Bowlby researched and placed forth a claim that the attachment between one and the world around him underwent evolutionary effect. Evolutionary component of the Attachment Theory enables human beings to survive in the ever dynamic world. According to the researcher, the propensity to create strong emotional bonds to particular people or person is a basic component of every human being. In the view of Bowlby, Attachment Theory displays four distinct characteristics of attachment. Foremost, there is the characteristic of Proximity Maintenance. This refers to the need to be always close to the people one is attached to. A child always misses the closeness of the significant adults they are attached to. The second characteristic is Safe Haven. This characteristic of the theory makes children return to their attachment figures for safety and comfort in the event that they fear or are faced with threats. Children always run to the people they have emotional attachment to in times of danger and grief. There is the concept of Secure Base (McLeod, 2012). As the child explores the surrounding environment and gets to learn people and issues, the attachment figure acts as the base of his security. All issues that present danger and potential harm are reported to the significant adult in a child’s life. Lastly, Attachment Theory has the characteristic of Separation Distress. In the event that the attachment figure or significant adult is absent and far from the child, a feeling of anxiety and distress sets in the child (McLeod, 2012). Bowlby’s Attachment Theory was officially published in the trilogy Attachment and Loss in 1969-82 (Personality Research Organization, 2011). However, there were preliminary papers on the progress of the psychologist’s research efforts right from 1958. The preliminary reports included the researcher’s expanded field of study to the theory including evolution by natural selection, control systems theory, cognitive psychology, and field of ethnology, evolutionary biology and object relations theory (psychoanalysis). The final publication that was released in 1969 outlined John Bowlby’s research on issues of evolution, psychology and ethology that provided explanatory and descriptive framework for understanding interpersonal interconnectedness between human beings (Personality Research Organization, 2011). The propositions put forth by Bowlby have been significant in understanding the relationships between people and the environment. He noted that children raised with confidence that the significant adult will always be there for them pose less likelihood of experiencing fear than those brought up without such convictions. Caregivers have hence understood the significance of being there for their little ones at all times to boost their confidence in later lives. Secondly, Bowbly proposed that the confidence in people is forged during a critical stage of development (Personality Research Organization, 2011). The stages are the years of a child’s infancy, early and late childhood and adolescence. The expectations that one forms during these critical developmental stages stick forever and control one’s entire life. This realization makes people, especially caregivers and significant adults in a child’s life to take good care of a child all the way to adolescence. People appreciate that individual behaviors and characters do not form suddenly, but are subject to a continuous transformation of the mind and emotions. As such, caregivers provide the best environs for their children’s full development and acquisition of proper values for success (Personality Research Organization, 2011). Furthermore, Bowbly proposes that the expectations in an individual’s life are tied to actual experiences. Caregivers, therefore, have a duty to give their children and adolescents the best possible experience. Foremost, it is imperative that the caregiver and significant adult in a child’s life respond to his needs. This is not limited to responding to physical needs of the child. Most importantly, a child’s emotional needs need to be taken care of before anything else (Personality Research Organization, 2011). Being the safe haven, the secure base and only cause of separation distress, significant adults need to listen to the needs of the child and tackle them promptly. This is a significant measure in developing a society of successful, confident and productive individuals. A child’s transition from one stage of life to another comes with changes to the form and view on attachment to the significant adult. The most notable change of these views is evident in the transition from childhood to adulthood through adolescence. Continued social experience, cognitive growth and age advance the complexity and development of internal working models of attachment in all individuals. Behaviors related to attachment change considerably and lose some characteristics that are related to toddler-infant to take on an age-related tendency (Personality Research Organization, 2011). For the pre-school period, attachment relationships are subject to negotiations and bargains. For instance, a four year old may not have a problem with the absence of a caregiver as long as the two have worked out and agreed on shared plan for the separation and reunion. The scheme changes as a child grows older. At the age of six, the attachment relationship between a child and a parent focuses on goal-corrected partnership. Each partner in this attachment relationship is always willing to compromise something in order to maintain a gratifying relationship between them. The goal of the attachment relationship changes further by mild childhood. From the need of proximity of the significant adult, the child develops the need of availability of the significant figure. The child develops no problem with the physical separation from the caregivers as long as there is maintained contact or possibility of reunion when need arises. In addition, this period between 7 and 11 years sees the development of behaviors of self-reliance, following decline and decreased clinging to the caregiver (Personality Research Organization, 2011). There is a shift to mutual co-regulation of secure base where the child negotiates with the significant adult on the means of supervision and methods of maintaining communication as the child progresses towards greater extent of independence. Another major shift in the attachment pattern is the view of the caregiver. In early childhood, the center of a child’s social world is the parental figure. Even if the child spends some time in alternative care, his center of social life remains his parental figure. The trend lessens gradually, especially as the child begins formal schooling. At early childhood, children have limited ability to think based on the experiences they get in the care of their parents and caregivers. At adolescence, children begin developing single general model of thinking. Relationships with peers begin to create an impact that is different from the relationship between the child and the parental figure. Although peer relationships become imperative to a child’s development in middle age, peers do not become part of attachment figures. Children direct their attachment behaviors at their peers if their attachment figures are unavailable (Personality Research Organization, 2011). For the adolescents, parents remain the attachment figures. Peers become their medium of exploring the world, mere objects of excursion. In 1970, researcher Mary Ainsworth provided a larger perspective of Attachment Theory postulated by John Bwlby. In her ground-breaking study publication titled Strange Situation, the psychological scientist disclosed the profound effects of attachment on individual behavior. She observed the behavior of children aged between the ages of 12 and 18 months responding to a scenario in which they were briefly left alone and later reunited with their mothers (Personality Research Organization, 2011). Basing her argument on the results of the experiment, Ainsworth concluded that attachment can be classified into three distinct classes. She mentioned these as ambivalent-insecure attachment, avoidant-insecure attachment and secure attachment. Later researches by Main and Solomon added a fourth form of attachment to Ainsworth’s original three; disorganized-insecure attachment. The findings of Mary Ainsworth in her research help people to understand their role in a child’s development better. From the first class of attachment (secure attachment), it is necessary for parents to know that they make their children feel secure and confident by responding to their emotions. Secure attachment is developed when a child gets attention from a parental figure when estranged and endangered (McLeod, 2012). This gives the children the freedom to explore the world around them as they are sure of a secure base in case of fear and danger. Securely attached children get easily soothed by the presence of their caregivers. Ainsworth’s research findings are helpful to parents and parental figures to understand that their children will only be soothed and comforted by their presence if they respond to the children’s signals and are sensitive to their needs (McLeod, 2012). An insecure avoidant attachment is the situation where children do not orientate to their attachment figures as they investigate the environment. They express independence from the attachment figures both emotionally and physically children with insecure avoidant attachment do not seek contract with their attachment figures when distressed. This happens when the children have caregivers who reject their needs and are insensitive. Situations that lead to this kind of relation is specifically prevalent in moments when parents do not help their children in difficult tasks and are never available for their children during emotional distress (Personality Research Organization, 2011). As such, Ainsworth’s findings and publication helps parents understand their role in making children closer to them. Performing excursions and explorations of the world without the lead of parental figures can be detrimental and pose immense risks to a child’s life and well-being. Ambivalent-insecure attachment refers to a situation where children develop resistant behaviors towards their attachment figures. It provides another insight to behavior of the child and provides helpful measures to help parents prevent rejection by their own children. For this case, a child shows some signs of clinging and dependence on the attachment figure. The child recoils and rejects the attachment figure if the caregiver shows any signs of active involvement in the child’s activity. The child, therefore, fails to develop feelings of security from the significant adult (Personality Research Organization, 2011). They also exhibit difficulty moving away from the significant adults to explore new environs. When distressed, the children become difficult to sooth. Presence of the attachment figures does not make such a child comfortable. This results from inconsistent degree of response to the needs of the children from their primary caregivers. Even though the Attachment Theory helps understand the relationship between human beings, it has a limitation based on the focus of the theory. It is only limited to the interaction between a child and the primary caregiver; preferably a mother (Personality Research Organization, 2011). This disregards the fact that several attachment in life do not necessarily characterized by this interaction. Children have attachments to other people other than their mothers and primary caregivers. The only difference between these other attachments and that with a primary caregiver is their mode of revelation by the child. For instance, a child may cry and follow their mothers as they leave their abodes. The attachment to a sibling or other loved individuals’ leaving may be met by fussiness and inability to sleep. All these are significant attachments that could have been worth investigation by the Attachment Theory for more comprehensive understanding of behavior (Personality Research Organization, 2011). In addition, the attachment behavior only points out blatant behavioral changes of a child during separation from a significant adult. It does not consider other psychological changes that may have possibly occurred in the child during separation and reunion with the attachment figure. Further, Attachment Theory concentrates on the behaviors that a child sows during stressful situation rather than non-stressful situation. For a more reliable outcome of the theory, it would be best to consider the child’s reactions and behaviors during normal times too. A natural interaction between the child and the primary caregiver when there I no concept of separation and reunion would provide a good control condition for the researchers (McLeod, 2012). In fact, investigations of the interaction between the child and the mother during their neutral times would provide a better representation of the attachment model than the situations of separations and reunions. Finally, the research by Ainsworth assumed that the primary caregivers of all children are mothers. This is false given the role fathers, siblings and other family members play in caring for children. Works Cited McLeod, Soul. Attachment Theory. 8 Dec 2012. 7 Nov 2013 . Personality Research Organization. The Attachment System Throughout the Life Course: Review and Criticisms of Attachment Theory. 9 September 2011. 7 Nov 2013 . Read More