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How important are attachment and bonds in early childhood
Studies have shown that attachment styles set in infancy impact adult relationships
Theories of development of attachment
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Disorganized attachment is increasing more and more interests in the field of attachment, and many researchers have done many studies on the disorganized and caregiving system. From those studies, we can know some caregiving behaviors are associated with the children’s disorganized behaviors. As known, secure attachment is very optimal for children feel very confident about that they could get their caregiver’s comfort and attention when they need them, so they could explore the environment around them. Therefore, we need to know that what disorganized attachment behaviors are and the types of caregiving behaviors that will cause disorganized attachment so that we could know to avoid those behaviors and help the children to build secure attachment. The influence of early attachment relationship is very significant, and it is associated with children development of emotion, behaviors, and socialization. As insecure attachment, disorganized attachment has many negative outcomes. Many researches proved its linkage with externalizing behavior problems such as aggression, impulsivity, and oppositional defiance. Moreover, the children with disorganized attachment also face to the difficulty of emotion socialization. Lyons-Ruth and Jacobvitz concluded that disorganized attachment of infants is most common the maltreatment and other high risk cases, however, it till comprise 15% in the normative cases (as cited in Solomon, 2011). As a result, it is very important for us to know the conception of disorganized attachment, the caregiving behaviors associated with disorganized attachment, so we could know how to help the children build secure attachment. Literature Review and Discussion In collaboration with Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby classifi... ... middle of paper ... ...of disorganized attachment: Validation of a new measure, Attachment & Human Development, 11, 419-443. doi: 10.1080/1461673090313228 Prior, V., & Glaser, D. (2006). Understanding attachment and attachment disorders : Theory, evidence and practice.pp.71-82. London, GBR: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Retrieved from http://0-site.ebrary.com.hkbulib.hkbu.edu.hk/lib/hkbu/docDetail.action?docID=10182487 Wilkins, D.(2012) Disorganised attachment indicates child maltreatment: How is this link useful for child protection social workers?, Journal of Social Work Practice:Psychotherapeutic Approaches in Health, Welfare and the Community, 26(1), 15-30, doi:10.1080/02650533.2011.598228 Zilberstein, K., & Messer, E. A. (2010). Building a secure base: Treatment of a child with disorganized attachment. Clinical Social Work Journal, 38(1), 85-97. doi:10.1007/s10615-0097-1
...s one with the knowledge necessary to incorporate methods for evoking change and empathize. It becomes easier to understand how certain maladaptive behaviors are developed as certain characteristics are learned patterns and not solely based on one’s personality. There are very many areas of attachment that need to be studied. As the population of minorities, working mothers, single parent homes, and children in the foster care system rise the ability to assess their ability to attach as well as develop new attachments is crucial. The works by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Main have provided me with new interest in the attachment styles of children to their caregivers. It has allowed me to adjust the way in which I interact with my own daughter and other children in my presence to help establish new and beneficial adult attachments so that they can grow and feel empowered.
Hazan, C., Gur-Yaish, N., & Campa, M. (2003). What does it mean to be attached? In W. S. Rholes & J. A. Simpson (Eds.) Adult Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications, (pp. 55 – 85). New York: Guilford.
A secure base is how the caregiver responds to the child’s needs, whether positively or negatively. When the child grows up with a positive secure base he/she is able to move into the exploratory system (Stalker & Hazelton, 2008). At this stage, the child should feel confident in their base feeling secure to venture into the environment. Even further, there is a fear/wariness system involved in the attachment theory (Stalker & Hazelton, 2008). This system is how the child responds to situations when their secure base is around. Lastly, is the internal working model, which is how the child views the world in addition to their relationships (Stalker & Hazelton, 2008). Carol Stalker and Rosemary Hazelton (2008) believed that attachment theory is appropriate for all clients especially those who experience maltreatment. Attachment theory supports the idea that psychological problems or disruptions are in congruence with early caregiving relationships; and based on the primary caregivers’ rapport with the child; he or she will develop a positive or negative pattern of attachment that will be present through adulthood if not rehabilitated (Stalker & Hazelton, 2008). Therefore, the primary goal of the attachment theory is to provide the child with a secure base to appropriately attain a sense of security to pattern proper social and emotional interpersonal relationships into adulthood (Stalker & Hazelton,
Attachments are formed with parents; this contributes to give a sense of who we are and who we will become in later life. However where these attachments are broken the child needs to have a secure attachment established with an alternative adult care giver,...
Admittedly, many psychologists define attachment as an enduring, affectionate bond that one person forms between himself and another person throughout life. Mary Ainsworth provided the most famous research: strange situation, offering explanations of individual differences in attachment. However, in this Adult Attachment Style questionnaire that I took, I found many factors relevant to attachment as defined in the textbook. For example, in the textbook, it defines attachment based on Ainsworth research, the strange situation by observing attachment forms between mother and infants. They are described in four attachment styles: securely attached, insecure avoidant, insecure resistant, and insecure disorganized.
Attachment, the product of nature and nurture, is critical to human development. Children learn about important aspects of their physical, emotional and social world through experience. The value of this experience is directly proportional to the quality of the attachment children are forming with their caregivers. Through the positive experience of emotional connectedness, children learn to build and maintain loving, trusting and secure relationships with others. If the caregivers are available to them, sensitive to their signals, consistently responsive to their needs, infants develop secure style of attachment. If the caregivers are indifferent or neglectful, inaccessible, unresponsive and unreliable, infants are prone to developing anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment style (Pearce, 2009). Difficulties in forming childhood relationships significantly increase likelihood of interpersonal conflicts in adulthood. Anxiety disorder, PTSD, dissociative identify disorder, borderline, narcissistic personality disorder are dysfunctions that are linked to attachment insecurities. Interpersonal adult conflicts, such as divorce, family abuse, child neglect, sexual abuse, substance abuse are responses to emotional dysregulation caused by deep wounds in
Hamilton 's 2000 research suggests that attachment classification at 12 months predicts attachment in late adolescence. Hamilton (2000) designed a study to asses weather infants attachment would remain stable over time. Hamilton (2000) recruited 205 American families during the mothers third trimester of pregnancy. The study included both conventional and non conventional families to asses weather this effected attachment stability (Hamilton, 2000). Infants attachment style was measured at 12 months using Ainsworth 's (something) Strange situation task. Results from the strange situation task classified 153 infants as secure, 30 infants as avoidant, and 19 as resistant, there was no classification difference between conventional and non conventional families (Hamilton, 2000). About 16 years later families were contacted by mail for a follow up study, However due to varying circumstances only 30 participants out of the original sample size were available (Hamilton, 2000). Attachment in adolescents was measured using the AAI task which was developed by George, Kaplan and Main in 1984 (Roisman, Holland, Furtuna, Fraley, Clausell & Clarke 2007). Its a semi-structured interview with 20 question that take about an hour (Roisman et al., 2007).The results showed that 77% of participants retained the same classification from infancy to adolescences (Hamilton, 2000) . The results also suggested there was no difference of attachment stability between conventional or non-conventional families (Hamilton, 2000) . Hamilton’s (2002) study supports previous research in the area of attachment
Mary Main was Ainssowrth student. She therefore introduced another fourth category of attachment styles with her attachment studies with adults. During her longitudinal research project alongside her colleague Goldwyn on middle class children’s attachment styles, they found that about 79% of the time attachment styles remained constant from 18 months to 6 years of age (in Brandell & Ringel, 2007,). However in their observations about 5%) that did not fit into Ainsworth’s classification of attachment styles, which they called ‘disorganized/disoriented attachment’ (Main & Solomon, 1986, 1990). These children were fearful and engaged in repetitive or aggressive behaviors. Their behaviors at reunion were unpredictable. They displayed contradictory behavior patterns such as approaching and then suddenly avoiding or exhibiting misdirected behavior patterns such as crying when the stranger leaves or stereotypical behaviors such as rocking, hair pulling or freezing. The mothers of these children were either depressed or had unresolved grief due to early loss of own parents (Main & Solomon, 1986). In this type of attachment, there is no or very little organized strategy to cope with stress and to form an attachment relationship with the caregiver, because here, the attachment figure is the direct cause of distress or fear. An abusive, abandoned and frightening caregiver is the source of fear and the protector at the same time. The infant shows signs of distress and displays avoidant and inconsistent reactions in the presence of the caregiver (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2007; Stams et al, 2002).
Historically, reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is considered to be a rare disorder (American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), 2011). Clinical disorders of attachment did not appear in the DSM until the third edition, published in 1980 (Zeanah et al., 2004). In the fourth edition of the DSM (text revision), reactive attachment disorder was described from two different perspectives: inhibited form and disinhibited form. It was suggested that the different forms of...
Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P.R. (1999). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. New York: The Guilford Press.
Infant attachment is the first relationship a child experiences and is crucial to the child’s survival (BOOK). A mother’s response to her child will yield either a secure bond or insecurity with the infant. Parents who respond “more sensitively and responsively to the child’s distress” establish a secure bond faster than “parents of insecure children”. (Attachment and Emotion, page 475) The quality of the attachment has “profound implications for the child’s feelings of security and capacity to form trusting relationships” (Book). Simply stated, a positive early attachment will likely yield positive physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development for the child. (BOOK)
Attachment patterns of a child are developed by the use of strange situation protocol where the attachment of a child is assessed between 12 months and 20 months of the child development. This procedure is not clinical and is used only to supplement the clinical diagnosis procedure called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), which will be discussed at a later stage of this essay. In the strange situation protocol, a child, and the caregiver are put in an environment with varying conditions and the attachment behaviour of the child is observed. Through this protocol there are there organized attachment categories, which are observed in a child, which include secure attachment, avoidant/attachment and resistant/
Attachment theory is the idea that a child needs to form a close relationship with at least one primary caregiver. The theory proved that attachment is necessary to ensure successful social and emotional development in an infant. It is critical for this to occur in the child’s early infant years. However, failed to prove that this nurturing can only be given by a mother (Birns, 1999, p. 13). Many aspects of this theory grew out of psychoanalyst, John Bowlby’s research. There are several other factors that needed to be taken into account before the social worker reached a conclusion; such as issues surrounding poverty, social class and temperament. These factors, as well as an explanation of insecure attachment will be further explored in this paper.
“Attachment is as essential for the child’s psychological well-being as food is for physical health,” claimed Bowlby, B (2001, p.54). Bowlby claimed in this statement that attachment is a necessary thing that a child needs in order to develop healthily. There is evidence from other theorists who support Bowlby’s theory of attachment, such as Harlow, whose approach is based upon a caregiver’s sensitivity and attachment. Ainsworth is another theorist whose research supports Bowlby’s theory of attachment. In her strange situation study, she tested for the attachment types and what effects they had on a child’s behaviour.
One of the major pieces of research used to explain the deviant behaviour of people who have been in the care system is attachment theory. Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby in 1951 for the World Health Organisation and originally titled “Maternal Deprivation” (Bretherton, 1992). Bowlby defines attachment as, “A deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across tim...