Attachment Theory and Attachment Disorder

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. John Bowlby and the origins of attachment theory

3. Fundamentals of attachment theory
3.1 Definition of the term "attachment"
3.2 Characteristics of attachment behaviour
3.3 Inner working models
3.4 Sensitivity
3.5 Secure basis

4. The Strange Situation according to Mary Ainsworth
4.1 Patterns of attachment behaviour
4.1.1 Category B: Securely attached children
4.1.2 Category A: Insecure-avoidant attached children
4.1.3 Category C: Insecure-ambivalently attached children
4.1.4 Category D: Children with insecure disorganized/disoriented behavioral patterns
4.2 Attachment representation
4.2.1 Forms of attachment representation
4.3 Other factors for attachment security

5. Unfavorable attachment experiences and later psychopathology

6. Attachment disorder
6.1 Types of attachment disorders in childhood

7. Criticism of attachment theory
7.1 Origin and background of attachment quality
7.2 Continuity assumption
7.3 "Strange situation" (laboratory situation)
7.4 Attachment Hierarchy

8. Conclusion

Bibliography

Sources

1. Introduction

"Attachment can be defined as the emotional bond that a person or animal makes between themselves and a particular other, a bond that connects them spatially and that lasts in time." (Ainsworth et al. 1974, cited in Grossmann/Grossmann 2003, p. 243).

Humans are social beings and cannot live without interpersonal contact. Such bonds already develop during pregnancy and are decisively shaped here by the mother's feelings. The mother's attitude towards the child growing in the womb is decisive for later behaviour. The type and nature of the emotional-affective experiences in early childhood determine whether a child will develop a sense of basic trust or basic mistrust. The newborn can only perceive its caregiver through the senses of smell and touch (physical contact), i.e. through smelling, tasting and feeling. The emotional attention creates an atmosphere of security in the child. This atmosphere contains the generated self-confidence, the trust in fellow human beings and the environment. This is also necessary to muster the courage to take on new, unknown things. The basic trust is therefore a positive attitude towards oneself, based on earlier experiences - also in the womb - and it enables people to deal constructively with their environment and themselves. Not only environmental factors but also genetic influences play a major role in the personality development of the individual. A person's mental state is strongly dependent on how his or her interpersonal relationships are. If they are harmonious, there is a high probability that this person will be balanced and happy and able to cope with problems as they arise.

The emotional foundation comes from sufficient emotional attention. Through it, the social courage to face life is formed, which is of high importance for the child's mental, social and emotional development. If one cannot rely on one's attachment figures, social pessimism is generated, which can have an inhibiting effect on the child's emotional development. One subject of attachment research is the development and change of close relationships in the course of life. In my term paper, I would like to discuss the strong bond between child and caregiver and try to explain it in more detail using John Bowlby's attachment theory. Then I will discuss attachment disorders and the types of attachment disorders, and at the end I will try to critically examine the attachment theory.

2. John Bowlby and the origins of attachment theory

Attachment research is a relatively young field of research within psychology.

Attachment theory is primarily concerned with the attachment behaviour - and the resulting attachment quality - that an infant develops with its direct caregiver (mother or father). The first year of the infant's life is considered to be the fundamental period in which the quality of attachment develops. After this year, the infant's attachment behaviour can already be classified as secure, insecure or disorganised (see 3.1.).

Although attachment research has existed for several decades, it was rather neglected in its early days. Only in recent years has it attracted growing interest in psychoanalysis. Dornes attributes this development to a "feeling of disorientation in a world that has become confusing" (Dornes 2000, p. 37), which has made concepts and states such as attachment and security the focus of attention again. Thus, attachment theory seems to address a "central affect and concern of contemporary man" (ibid., p. 38).

John Bowlby (1907-1990) is considered the founder and one of the most important representatives of attachment theory. As a young man, he began to study medicine, but soon abandoned this in favour of an internship at a school for children with behavioural disorders. Here he made his first experiences in the observation of children and adolescents, which had a decisive influence on his further life. He observed that early childhood deprivation did not necessarily have to irrevocably shape a personality, but that a deviant personality development was possible despite the early childhood experience.

Bowlby then went to London, completed his medical studies there and trained as an adult psychiatrist under Melanie Klein, among others. In the following years, he worked as a psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic and established a training programme for child psychotherapy there together with Esther Bick.

In 1951, Bowlby was commissioned to write a report on behalf of the World Health Organisation (WHO) "on the situation of the many homeless and orphaned children in the post-war period" (Brisch 1999, p. 32). Due to the consequences of the war, the children had been separated from their parents and in some cases showed pronounced personality disorders, for which no satisfactory explanations were initially found. Bowlby published the results of the study in a popular version as a book under the name "Maternal Care and Mental Health" and thus quickly became a well-known and professionally respected man. The book sold 500,000 copies in English alone and was translated into 10 languages. In this monograph, Bowlby describes the "adverse consequences that result when children grow up without their mothers in institutions where their emotional and cognitive needs are inadequately met" (Dornes 2000, p.41). The results from this report encouraged him to pursue and differentiate his theory further (cf. Brisch 1999, p. 32 f.).

Bowlby was equally critical of the physical explanation attempts of behaviourism, for which every observable relationship can be classified in a stimulus-response scheme, as well as the empirically, unverifiable assumptions of psychoanalysis (cf. Schleiffer 2007, p. 17). Regarding the lack of answers, John Bowlby developed the attachment theory, "a concept of the personal deep emotional relationship of the infant to (initially) its mother or primary caregiver" (Stahlmann 2007, p. 50). By linking "developmental psychological, clinical psychoanalytical and evolutionary biological knowledge", Bowlby succeeded in elaborating the importance of a child's attachment to its mother (or primary caregiver) (Stahlmann 2007, p.50). Bowlby integrated into his theory the findings of René Spitz that the sole satisfaction of physical needs in the care of children in hospital is not sufficient for their survival and well-being, and the results of the well-known experiment by Harry F. Harlow, whose rhesus monkeys showed the importance of emotional need satisfaction by preferring the soft mother dummy to the metal care dummy in experiments (cf. Rittelmeyer 2005, p. 49ff.). However, John Bowlby is not the only one to be associated with attachment theory. Other scientists have also dealt with the importance of attachment relationships - including Mary Ainsworth. Initially, she was a student of John Bowlby in London, until she became his long-time colleague and worked for suitable empirical implementations of the ideas of his theory (cf. Wilkening/Freund/Martin 2009, p.68). She also contributed significantly to its expansion by considering individual differences and the concept of secure base. That is why her findings are also included in this work. Different concepts such as "secure base" or "sensitivity" are closely linked to attachment theory. These terms will be explained in more detail in this paper, as well as the inner working model, in order to better understand the attachment theory developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

3. Fundamentals of attachment theory

In order to get a more concrete idea of attachment theory, the essential core points of this concept are presented below. After a brief definition of the term "attachment", the basics of attachment theory and the associated terminology are discussed.

3.1 Definition of the term "attachment"

Alongside food intake and sexuality, the desire to form attachments is regarded as a primary, innate basic need of a human being. The founder of attachment theory, John Bowlby, writes the following:

"Ethology regards the tendency to form strong emotional bonds with specific individuals as a fundamental component of human nature, which is already present in the germ of the newborn and which persists into adulthood and old age" (Spangler/ Zimmermann 2002, p. 20f.).

According to John Bowlby, attachment is "any form of behaviour that results from seeking or maintaining closeness to another person who seems to be able to cope better with the world" (Bowlby 1988, p. 26f. translated mutatis mutandis). Thus, attachment means a person's tendency to seek and maintain close relationships, borne of deep and intense feelings, with other specific persons who subjectively give him or her a sense of psychological and/or physiological security.

Interrelated to attachment behaviour are a child's complementary needs for exploration and autonomous behaviour. In practice, this means that secure attachments with caregivers are an essential prerequisite for children to be able to detach from them and undertake independent explorations (cf. Spangler/Zimmermann 2002, p. 21).

3.2 Characteristics of attachment behaviour

In order to emphasise the special features of his attachment theory and to distance it from the dependency theory of psychoanalysis, Bowlby assigns various characteristics to attachment behaviour. I have not mentioned and explained these characteristics before, but I would like to summarise them briefly here.

As a rule, attachment behaviour is directed towards one or a few persons and there is a clearly defined order of priority among them (attachment hierarchy). Attachments usually extend over a longer period of time. Early attachments often persist into adulthood. However, they can also change or be replaced. Processes related to attachment, such as separation or reunion, are often associated with intense feelings of sadness, anger or joy. Attachments can develop in a wide variety of environments and are relatively independent of reward or punishment. Attachment behaviour changes throughout a person's life. At the beginning of life with a simple response system to a complex behavioural system in increasing age, which includes concrete working models of oneself and also of the attachment person(s). Attachment behaviour systems are activated by certain environmental conditions, such as hunger, fear or fatigue, and can be terminated again through contact with the mother and/or interaction with her (cf. Grossmann/Grossmann 2003, p. 23ff.).

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