How Does Attachment Theory Help Psychotherapists in Their Practice - Dissertation Example

Although there are still methods to be tried, ideas to be explored, and loose ends to be tied, the literature already indicates that attachment style is an important construct for researchers and clinicians interested in individual differences in emotion regulation.  Secure adults, most of whom have enjoyed favorable treatment by attachment figures, are able to experience, express, and acknowledge emotions with minimal distortion, and without becoming overwhelmed by feelings. They are able not only to regulate emotions autonomously but also to seek emotional and social support when desired.

The attachment system refers to the organization of a diverse set of developmentally predictable behaviors that maintains proximity to the caregiver. It is more evident when the child is distressed, in danger, or hurt. Once an attachment develops, it undergoes transformations and re-integrations with subsequent developmental attributes of the person throughout the lifespan of a human being (Bowlby, 1946, 207-228). According to attachment theory, infants during their first year of life develop an attachment with primary caregivers By the end of the first year of age, attachment figures typically are the center of most infants’ social worlds.

The process of forming emotional bonds with attachment figures is proposed in attachment theory to be fundamentally universal (Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton, 1974, 99-136).In 1944, Bowlby, an English child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst published a paper describing his experiences with young thieves at the London Child Guidance Clinic. The paper, entitled “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home Life,” was his attempt to demonstrate the influence of children’s environments, especially experiences of loss and separation, on the genesis of problematic behavior.

His Attachment Theory was a major theoretical development, later used in psychoanalysis and subsequently in psychotherapy.