Key Concepts for “Attachment”

Presenter : Gill Graham Attachment/Bonding

I love to I love cuddling comfort my baby! you! I need you to help me be calm! Presentation Topics  History to the understanding of Attachment

 Attachment Categories

 Factors for different attachment relationships

 Adult Attachment Interview Attachment and links to later development  Attachment experience becomes internalised (Internal working model)

 Contain particular expectations and beliefs about own and other people's behaviour

 Whether or not they are loveable and worthy of love

 Whether or not others are available, interested and able to help/protect/ support them Attachment- Tenet 1

A child is born with a predisposition to become attached to his/her caregiver Harlow’s monkeys

Food or comfort?

Attachment

John Bowlby (1907- 1990)

Psychologist, Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst

“a strong affectional or emotional tie that binds a person to an intimate companion” Complimentary System

Attachment system - in times of distress infants will cope by going to the attachment figure for comfort and protection. Exploratory system - interacting with the world at large. Bowlby’s Model of Attachment

Threat / distress

Attachment system is switched on

Attachment behaviour

Infant is calmed by adult – distress/threat is resolved

Attachment system is switched off

Exploratory system is switched on Mary Ainsworth 1913-1999

 Developed the Strange Situation procedure

 Uganda Study - 1954

 Baltimore Lab 1963- 1967 Strange Situation Procedure Scoring of the SSP

 Proximity and Contact seeking behaviour

 Contact- Maintaining Behaviour

 Resistant Behaviour

 Avoidant Behaviour Classification of Attachment Mary Ainsworth 1913-1999

Secure (60%) Anxious/ Avoidant (20- 30%)

Ambivalent/ Disorganised Resistant (5- (10-18%) 15%) (Main et al) Attachment System – Tenet 2

The child will organise his/her behaviour and thinking in order to maintain the attachment relationship Ainsworth Patterns of Attachment

Secure Attachment An optimal situation where there is a healthy balance in the infants attachment and exploratory behaviours. Secure Attachment Pattern.

Emotional Regulation  Express all emotions (positive and negative) openly and direct  Stay engaged  Seeks and accepts help / comfort in relationships Secure Attachment Pattern

Internal working Model

Self Worthy of being helped

Others Consistently available and reliable to provide comfort and protection Adjustment to Parenting - Liz Muir (Watch Wait and Wonder)/Daniel Stern ( Motherhood Constellation)  Can I keep this baby alive?

 Can I love this baby and will he/she love me?

 Where is my support?

 How do I be a mother? Infant contributions that may complicate attachment process  E.g. Prematurity

 Sensory difficulties

 Regulatory issues

 Communication disorders

 Temperament Goodness of Fit Thomas and Chess- extrapalation from temperament theory.

The compatibility of the contributions of both the infants and the caregiver in their environment Avoidant / Anxious Pattern

Child expresses attachment needs

Response mostly rejecting / punishing / ignoring

Child finds alternative strategy

Inhibits DISPLAY of attachment behaviour Avoidant Pattern

Internal Working Model  Dominance of exploration over attachment.

 Downplay expression of attachment needs

 Difference between displayed and felt affect

Relationships seem distant Links to Caregiving - Avoidant

 Caregiving tended to downplay attachment needs

 Not maltreating but found it difficult to tolerate attachment needs

 Find it hard to give physical comfort Anxious/Ambivalent

Express attachment needs openly

Response inconsistently responsive

Remains anxious, find more effective strategy

Heighten display of attachment behaviour which increases chance of a response Ambivalent Pattern

 Dominance of attachment over exploration

 Demonstrative display of attachment needs (gambling effect) Tw o patterns  Passive behaviour – cries and waits  Resistant behaviour – achieves contact but fights Relationships conflictual Links to early care- Ambivalent

 Inconsistently available

 Involved but at a loss to how to respond

 Unpredictable responses/choose the wrong strategy e.g. play rather than comfort  Put child down before soothed “Insecure” but “Organised” Attachment Patterns

Children develop strategies to get attachment needs meet

- Regulate their emotions in a way that caregivers are able to tolerate. Attachment-Tenet 3

The child will often maintain such relationships at great cost to his or her own functioning Attachment- Tenet 4

Distortions in the child's feeling and thinking occur most often in response to the parents inability to meet comfort, security and emotional needs. When should we worry? (Disorganised Attachment) Attachment system is switched on

Cg is frightening, frightened, emotionally unavailable

Experiences “fear without relationship solution” “all alone” Attachment Disorganisation

The child is dependent on self to regulate excessive distress - when developmentally unable to do so. Frightening Caregivers Frightening caregiving will activate simultaneous and competing tendencies

 Fear stimulus will activate the attachment system to seek support

 Fear stimulus will also activate the infants fear system to flee the attachment figure Frightened Caregivers Frightened parents may frighten the infant

Mothers dissociation or panic leaves the infant with little sense of a caregiver when distressed

Becomes frightening for the infant Caregiving Situation

Caregiver can be - coercive / controlling ; absence of soothing

- Profound withdrawal / unresponsiveness

- active, but focus on own needs

- only responds if infant’s needs coincide with her own SPECIFIC INDICATORS UP TO 2-

3 years(Main & Solomon, 1986)  Show fear / apprehension towards parent  When close to parent becomes dazed/ flustered instead of comforted  Stereotyped / repetitive behaviour with no function other than possibly reducing anxiety  Autistic type behaviour – freezing, stilling  Contradictory behaviour – approach / flee conflict SPECIFIC INDICATORS OLDER THAN 2-3 YEARS  Fear not apparant  Patterns of relating become: ◦ Hostile ◦ Caretaking – role reversal

This strategy is aimed at maintaining engagement with the parent on the PARENT’S TERMS. No longer oriented towards seeking comfort / protection Parental Unresolved Loss and Trauma

 Evidence comes from the Adult Attachment Interview ( AAI)

 60 min semistructured interview

 Probes parental own attachment experiences. The Berkeley Adult Attachment Interview  Devised by Carol George,Nancy Kaplan, Mary Main

 Analysed by Mary Main, Ruth Goldwyn

 Identified states of mind that fitted with Strange Situation Procedure. AAI/SSP Correlations  Free, Autonomous or Secure  Secure  Dismissing  Avoidant  Preoccupied  Ambivalent  Unresolved loss  Disorganised Free or SECURE AAI

 Subject admits importance of attachment relationships and the need to depend on others. Transcript coherent. Balanced view point, with subject accepting their own part in any relationship difficulties.

 “ I had a pretty rough time with mum when I was about 14 but really I was a handful and I can see she struggled to manage me on her own” Dismissing AAI

 Typically brief (though not always)  Not coherent  Dismissing of attachment related experiences  Childhood experiences normalised or even given upbeat spin.

 “Because I feel it was a very happy childhood, I cannot remember, because otherwise I would have remembered” Preoccupied AAI  Often spoke of early attachments  enmeshed with infantile feelings  memories expressed angrily  forget the interviewer  no sense of own role in relationship difficulties.

“ I thought here I am getting married and she's not bloody prepared to give. I thought every mother would sort of want to give her best-but not her!” Transgenerational Transmission  Benoit and Parker 1994  Longitudinal study of 96 infants, mothers and grandmothers.  The Strange Situation Procedure was used to assess the attachment style of the infants at 12 months, and the  AAI to assess the attachment of the adults.  The mothers AAI classifications predicted the infant attachment in 81% of cases, and the Grandmothers AAI classification in 75% cases.  Log linear analysis predicts a simple parent to child transmission BIBLIOGRAPHY

: Handbook of Infant Mental Health. (1993 & 2000). Ed. Charles Zeanah. Cassidy & Mohr (2001) Unresolvable Fear, Trauma, and Psychopathology: Theory. Research, and Clinical Considerations Related to Disorganised Attachment across the Life Span. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice V8 N3. Holmes, J. (1999). 6th ed. John Bowlby and attachment theory. London : Routledge Stern, D. (1990). The motherhood constellation. NY : Basic Books Stern. D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. NY : Basic Books Thank you for watching!

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