The Dilemma Of Attachmentment

1777 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The importance of attachment with regard to a childs emotional development

Picture a mother comforting their child when they are hurt, sad, or in need of affection. This mother is not only comforting, but developing her child’s attachment. When a child has an attachment that is considered ideal, the parent has provided that child with a secure base from which they can then feel comfortable exploring independently while knowing that they are able to return to a safe place if needed. Unfortunately not all children are able to develop this secure attachment. When a parent or caregiver is abusive physically, mentally, or emotionally, a child may experience this abuse as being frightening or even life-threatening. This is where the dilemma of attachment comes into play because the child is put in a confusing state, while …show more content…

The behavior may come off as unusual or add, such as ambivalent behavior towards their caregiver. An example of this behavior may be a child initially running up to their caregiver, only to then immediately retreat and engage in odd behavior such as curling up in a ball or even being physically aggressive. In this situation, a child’s initial response is to seek out their parent or caregiver because that is who is supposed to be safe to them, however when they get near,the fear to be in their proximity emerges, thus demonstrating the child’s disorganized attachment. Infants can also be seen exhibiting disorganized attachment behavior that is both bizarre and contradictory. Liotti (2013) found that, when disorganized attached infants were reunited with their caregivers, they engaged in behavior such as banging their heads, hiding, or collapsing to the ground before final approach to their caregiver. (p.1136) Through the research associated with attachment theory, various studies have validated the existence and validity of disorganized attachment, and both its short and long term effects on …show more content…

Main was looking for predictors of disorganized attachment between a caregiver and child. Through her research she found that one of best predictors of disorganized attachment is trauma and loss in a caregivers life that is unresolved. Parents who are victims of unresolved trauma or loss may engage in behavior with their child that is disorienting. These parents can have lasting effects from that unresolved trauma that can at times create stress and conflict between them and their child. What is troubling with this occurrence is that it can become a generational pattern, because disorganized attached parents have the likelihood of raising disorganized attached children, resulting in a cycle of unhealthy attachments within family units. Firestone (2013) states that many studies have documented that between twenty and forty percent of people have disorganized attachment to some degree. These studies have also highlighted the fact that over eighty percent of children who have disorganized attachment have been abused in some form.(Firestone, 2013) These are quite large percentages of population that struggle with the effects of disorganized

Show More
Related

  • The Strange Situation as a Measure of Attachment Type

    470 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Strange Situation places infants into one of three categories, however Main and Solomon (1986) argued that a fourth attachment type, called disorganized and disorientated, was displayed in a small number of children. Their behaviour was a confusing mixture of approach and avoidance, and they generally were unable to form a strategy to cope with the Strange Situation. There are also marked intercultural differences in the ways infants react, as shown by Van Ijzendioorm and Kroonenburg (1998), who carried out 32 studies worldwide. Overall, Type B (secure attachment) is prevalent, but there is a higher proportion of type A in western

    Read More

  • Attachment Theory: Systematic Analysis Of The Family Of Origin

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    The first topic that came up in the interview relates to idea of attachment theory. Attachment theory explains the human’s way of relating to a caregiver and receives an attachment figures relating to the parent, and children. In addition, the concept explains the confidence and ability for a child to free explore their environment with a place to seek support, protection, and comfort in times of distress (Levy, Ellison, Scott, and Bernecker, 2010, p. 193). Within attachment theory explains different types of attachment styles that children experience during early childhood. These attachment styles affect the relationships they continue to build in adulthood. The best attachment style happens when the parent is attuned to the child during his or her early childhood called secure attachment (Reyes, 2010, p. 174). In order for complete secure attachment, the child needs to feel safe, seen, and soothed. Any relationship that deviates from this model represents the anxious or insecure attachment. This means that parents or caregivers are inconsistently responsive to the children. Children who have these parents are usually confused and insecure. Some children experience a dismissive attachment where they

    Read More

  • Health and Social Care

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    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,...

    Read More

  • The Attachment Theory and Factors Damaging to Attachment

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Attachment Theory And Attachment Theory

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    The therapeutic process is an opportunity for both healing and restoration as well as discovering new ways of being. Although exposed to a variety of psychological theories, I narrowed my theoretical orientation to a relational psychodynamic approach, drawing on attachment theory and Intersubjective Systems Theory (IST). IST describes how the subjective experiences, both embodied and affective, of an individual becomes the manner of organization, or way of being, in which the person operates in the world relationally. It is through this process of transference and countertransference, the unconscious ways of being can become explicit and through the collaborative effort of therapist and client, new ways of organizing the relational world can

    Read More

  • Poverty, Neglect, and Trauma from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

    2098 Words  | 5 Pages

    ...o grow up in home where there is neglect, abuse and trauma often miss out on a normal development with attachment and trust. Without that attachment and trust, neglected children are at risk and vulnerable to suffer consequences and risk physically, emotionally, psychologically, educationally, interpersonally that can have a damaging effect on the child’s life and development and can develop into PTSD. However, under certain circumstances, given an opportunity to attach to healthy adults in a positive way, children can overcome even brutal childhoods and injuries. Lastly, it shows how an adult or parent who is willing to attach, trust, help and work with a child, can radically change the course of that child’s life by acting as an advisor, detecting and solving problems, and being there even in the middle of conflict and eventually helping the child succeed in life.

    Read More

  • Infant Attachment Essay

    2096 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Attachment Theory

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    Attachment is described as the close emotional bond between two people and Attachment Theory (AT) generally concentrates on the early bonds in a person’s development as well as the effects that these bonds have on later socio-emotional development. While emphasis on attachment as an antecedent for future behavior and personality has decreased somewhat in recent years, it is interesting to note that the DSM IV-TR includes a “reactive attachment disorder” which it states is caused when extreme circumstances prevent proper attachment development.

    Read More

  • Examples Of A Child Observation

    1307 Words  | 3 Pages

    For example, when the child first arrived he made no contact with those that were in the area. The only eye contact that he made was with his grandmother. The secure attachment theory supports that children are least likely to make contact with strangers when caregivers are around. One example of no contact is, the child not making eye contact with those who were among his presence while he stayed extremely close to his grandmother. Children that are securely attached seem to become somewhat defensive when they are in different environments. They tend to push away from strangers to stay within the presence of their caregivers. They become very anxious of when they feel as if the caregiver could possibly be away from their presence. An example of “anxiousness” is when the observed child got comfortable to venture off, he hesitated leaving his grandmother; it took him a while to get comfortable with the strange surroundings and people. After the child was comfortable, he relaxed and became less anxious. When the observed child started to become comfortable within his surroundings, he slowly but cautiously shied away while turning around and hesitating before he ventured away too far. After the child ventured off, he became even more aware of his surroundings. The child had a pattern of looking for his grandmother to make sure that she was still

    Read More

  • Infant Attachment

    1419 Words  | 3 Pages

    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)

    Read More

  • Bowlby on Attachment Behavior

    2157 Words  | 5 Pages

    Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganised/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti & E. M. Cummings (eds.), Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research and Intervention (121-160). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Read More

  • Child Development: Ealry Infant Attachment

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Through the well-studied idea of maternal-infant attachment there has been important insight into a child’s development. Mary Ainsworth found through her “Strange Situation” experiment that there are three distinct types of attachment that infants form; anxious avoidant, secure, and anxious resistant (O’Gorman, 2013). Later a fourth attachment style known as, disorganized attachment, was identified (CITE). Secure attachment is linked to maternal sensitivity just as insecure attachment is linked to maternal rejection or unpredictable maternal response to an infant’s desires and needs (Kinsvatter, Desmond, Yanikoski, & Stahl, 2013). Infants are “at risk” of developing an insecure attachment to their mother when they are placed in alternative care before nine months of age (Stifter, Coulehan, & Fish, 1993). This is concerning in that we see there are negative effec...

    Read More

  • Essay On Attachment Theory

    1794 Words  | 4 Pages

    For example, Magai & Passman (1997) discovered a strong relationship between secure attachments and emotional well-being of middle aged adults, which extends to individuals later in life. Understanding the role of attachment and its psychosocial impact during later life is an important area that needs further research. In regards to TMT, close relationships offer security, protection, and give meaning to life (Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003).

    Read More

  • The Attachment Theory

    1811 Words  | 4 Pages

    Attachment is an emotional bond that is from one person to another. The attachment theory is a psychological, an evolutionary and an ethological theory that is concerned with relationships between humans, specifically between mother and infant. A young infant has to develop a relationship with at least one of their primary caregivers for them to develop socially and emotionally. Social competence is the condition that possesses the social, emotional and intellectual skills and behaviours, the infant needs these to success as a member of society. Many studies have been focused on the Western society, but there are many arguments to whether or not this can be applicable to other cultures, such as the poorer countries.

    Read More

  • Attachment Patterns Essay

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    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/

    Read More

More about The Dilemma Of Attachmentment

Open Document