Bowlby's Attachment Theory In Parent Child Development

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Behaviour patterns learnt in childhood relationships are unconsciously acted out in relationships as an adult. Therefore in parent-child relationships the parents often re-enact with their children the type of relationship they had with their own parents (Lewis, 1996). Bowlby’s attachment theory states that parenting behaviour, thoughts and feelings are influenced and shaped by previous experiences with their own parents (Bianco & Calvo, 2015). Through transference and projection these conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings from childhood determine how parents treat to their own children (Berlin, 2002). When there has been unresolved issues in childhood, the parents re-enact these behaviours with their own children. Chetik (1976) believes that when a parent seeks therapy for their child it’s usually because they are aware that they may have unconsciously contributed to the current issue. Out of guilt, they seek some form of parent-child work to address their child’s and their own issues. Once the parents ' issues have been identified, worked through, and resolved, the child becomes free of the parents ' past issues, and the parent and child can develop a healthy relationship (Lewis, 1996). This process occurs during …show more content…

As the therapist contains the parent 's affect and the parent learns to identify the supressed events that trigger maladaptive parenting behaviours, parents are taught to recognize the event as related to past relationships, allowing space to react differently in the present relationship with their child begins to affectively connect with the child (Dayton & Malone, 2015). Coates (2012) state that once the parent understands how the child triggers their unresolved traumatic memories from the past, they are able to work through their unresolved trauma and then put an end to the intergenerational transfer of unresolved trauma to the next

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