I observed an interaction between a 35-year-old mother and her 5-year-old daughter. I focused on how easily the mother was able to drop her off at the preschool, how willing her daughter was to explore with and without her, and how they greeted one another upon the mother’s return. The mother was holding her daughter in her arms as they entered the classroom. She set her daughter down, and they both went to the bathroom to follow the classroom routine of washing their hands before starting any activities. When the two were finished, the daughter took her mother’s hand and led her to the crafts table to write one of her classmates a letter. The mother stayed at the table to cut out paper hearts for her daughter, as she wandered off across the …show more content…
This psychologist constructed three different types of attachment that a caregiver and child can exhibit, those being, secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant (Anderson, 2015). Secure attachment is defined as the caregiver’s promptness to attend to their child’s needs and to be a dependable “safe base” so that the child can wader about their environment worry-free (Anderson, 2015). When the caregiver is no longer present, the child displays emotions of being upset and condenses their exploration, but they eventually calm down because they are certain of their caregiver’s return (Anderson, 2015). Ainsworth’s insecure-avoidant attachment is when the caregiver does not readily attend to their child, and the child independently explores their environment with no regard to their caregiver (Anderson, 2015). The child is very standoffish and shows little to no emotion when the caregiver departs and returns (Anderson, 2015). Insecure-resistant attachment is when the child experiences a great deal of distress when the caregiver leaves, but refuses interaction with them when they return. Here, the child rarely moves around in their environment because they are in extreme distress upon their caregiver’s departure (Anderson, 2015). “One common misconception about attachment is that there is only one figure that can stand as the caregiver, and the chosen one is the mother” (Anderson, 2015). A child can have multiple attachments, but they are not necessarily equal because one is usually the primary, as others are secondary (Anderson,
Attachment theory could be considered one of the most important aspects of how we develop starting out as an infant. In the article “Can Attachment Theory Explain All Our Relationships” By: Bethany Saltman, she explains to us her personal experience and struggles raising her daughter, and her experience as a child and her own attachment. There are three types of attachment types, secure, avoidant, and resistant and the trouble with today is that only 60% of people are considered “secure”. There also subgroups that are called disorganization. Attachment will often pass generation to generation, so it is likely that if someone has an insecure attachment because of the way they were raised they will struggle to create a secure attachment for their own children. Although it can be reversed and changed with the
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,
Criticisms of attachment theory have come mainly from the feminist schools of thought since the theory has been used to argue that no woman with a young child should work outside the home or spend time away from her baby (Goodsell and Meldrum, 2010). Children’s experience and development also depend on what happens after early years, whether bad or good later in life may change a child’s emotional development, e.g. lack of basic needs, diet, education, stimulation such as play might affect a child’s development (Rutter, 1981) Difference in cultures have to be taken into consideration as well. A study by Schaffer and Emmerson (1964) provided contradictory evidence from Bowlby’s attachment theory. They noted attachment was more prominent at eight months, and afterwards children became attached to more than one person. By one year six months only 13%of infants had one attachment. This study by Schafer and Emmerson (1964) concluded care giver can be male or female and mothering can be a shared responsibility. Social workers should therefore understand that parents are not totally responsible for the way the children develop. They did give them their genes and therefore do have some influence. Attachment theory also fails to consider the fact that the father and siblings, and other close relatives can also
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
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,...
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
Anthony Sowell was born on August 19, 1959, in the middle of Cleveland’s industry boom, but in the 1970s it quickly started to fail. Sowell was raised in poverty stricken East Cleveland by his single mother, Claudia Garrison. Sowell was one of seven siblings, being raised by Garrison along with one of Sowell’s sister’s seven children. One of Sowell’s nieces who goes unnamed accounts her and her twin sister being forced to strip by Garrison and would whip with an extension cord until then bled. Sowell and his brother who went by the name “Junior” on multiple accounts watched the abuse happen. Sowell states in testimony that he got abused as a child and that this played a part in his reckless behavior. Per his niece, he was never abused but was one of the abusers. At the age of 10, she started to develop more than other girls and Sowell took notice. He on one account on when it all started forced her to undress and he began raping her, at the age ten she
John Bowlby’s attachment theory established that an infant’s earliest relationship with their primary caregiver or mother shaped their later development and characterized their human life, “from the cradle to the grave” (Bowlby, 1979, p. 129). The attachment style that an infant develops with their parent later reflects on their self-esteem, well-being and the romantic relationships that they form. Bowlby’s attachment theory had extensive research done by Mary Ainsworth, who studied the mother-infant interactions specifically regarding the theme of an infant’s exploration of their surrounding and the separation from their mother in an experiment called the strange situation. Ainsworth defined the four attachment styles: secure, insecure/resistant, insecure/avoidant and disorganized/disoriented, later leading to research studies done to observe this behavior and how it affects a child in their adolescence and adulthood.
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)
Weinfield, N., Sroufe, L., Egeland, B., & Carlson, E. (2008). Individual differences in infant-caregiver attachment: Conceptual and empirical aspects of security. In J. Cassidy, P. Shaver (Eds.). Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research, and clinical application (2nd ed.) (pp. 78-101). New York, NY US: Guilford Press.
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.
An infant’s initial contact with the world and their exploration of life is directly through the parent/ primary caregiver. As the child grows, learns, and develops, a certain attachment relationship forms between them and the principle adult present in this process. Moreover, this attachment holds huge implications concerning the child’s future relationships and social successes. Children trust that their parental figure will be there; as a result, children whom form proper attachments internalize an image of their world as stable, safe, and secure. These children will grow independent while at the same time maintaining a connection with their caregivers. (Day, 2006). However, when a child f...
David Berkowitz, otherwise known as the “Son of Sam”, was notorious for his crimes committed between 1976 and 1977 that ended the lives of six innocent victims and wounded several others in New York (“David Berkowitz Biography”, n.d.). At first, police did not make a connection between the murders because there was nothing unusual about them; all the victims were shot with a 40 caliber gun, not fairly unusual during this time or place especially since the killings were over an extended period of time. Police finally made the connection when Berkowitz began to live behind notes that were meant to tantalize authorities since they had yet to catch him (“David Berkowitz| Son of Sam Killer,” 2015). Often times, the psychological structure of a human
Secure attachment is when the children who are securely attached generally become visibly upset when their caregivers leave and are happy when their parents return. When they are frightened, these children will seek any comfort from the parent or the caregiver. Contact initiated by a parent is readily accepted by securely attached children and they greet the return of a parent with positive behavior. While these children can be comforted to some extent by other people in the absence of a parent or caregiver, they clearly prefer parents to strangers. Parents of securely attached children tend to play more with their children. Additionally, these parents react more quickly to their children's needs and are generally more responsive to their children than the
“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.