Contemporary attachment theory

and research

Professor David Shemmings PhD

Deputy Head (Medway campus)
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
University of Kent UK

Which of the following behaviours do you

think are indicative of security?

Child is careful and gentle with toys and pets

Child is more interested in people than
things
Child laughs and smiles easily with a lot of
different people
Child quickly gets used to people or things
that initially made her/him shy or frightened
Child prefers toys that are modelled after
living things

Which of the following behaviours do you

think are indicative of security?

Child readily shares with carer or lets her/him hold

things if she asks
When child is near carer and sees something s/he
wants to play with, s/he doesnt fuss or try to drag
her/him over to it
Child is willing to talk to new people, show them toys,
or show them what s/he can do, if the carer asks
them to
Child enjoys relaxing in carers lap
Child clearly shows a pattern of using the carer as a
base from which to explore
Child recognises when carer is upset and becomes
quiet and upset her/himself

disorganised attachment

Unresolved paradox: parent frightens the

child - thus attachment behaviour is activated
- but the parent is the source of the distress
No organised behavioural strategy for
regulating emotions, achieving proximity or
gaining protection
Happens when child is afraid of or for parent

attachment and abuse

taken from Child abuse and Neglect by David Howe, 2005

Most maltreatment results from the actions

and behaviours of parents/caregivers
A feature of maltreatment is that when the
childs attachment system is activated, so is
the parents/caregivers
This leads to highly dysregulated caregiving
responses


Minds that maltreat and minds that are

maltreated

So what can we do?

assessing and intervening

For Dismissing people it is to let the emotion

in to their stories: cavalier, minimise, and
reject attempts to introduce emotion
For Preoccupied people it is to create structure
to contain the overwhelming emotion:
demanding, hostile and dependent
People with insecure IWMs are likely to reject
the offer of an alternative IWM

AFFECT REGULATION:
Deactivation Strategies with Parents

Maximising distance to avoid interdependence

Negative and positive affect (seen as a danger signal) is
deactivated
Excessive self-reliance/control
Repression of painful memories
Suppression of distressing thoughts
Cognitive and behavioural distancing from source of distress
Attribute hostility to partners
Affect dampening via escapism
Difficulty in reducing tension
Self-inflation used to suppress personal deficiencies
Seeing others as different
Defensive Projection of own unwanted traits

AFFECT REGULATION:
Hyperactivation Strategies with Parents

Problem with exploration

Anxious attention on attachment figures
Difficulty in detaching from psychological pain
Ruminate on negative emotion and thoughts
Negative affect difficult to alter by positive affect has
reverse effect)
Minimise distance by clinging/controlling
Emotion-focused coping
Undifferentiated emotional architecture affect spreads to
other emotions incoherence of mind
Exaggeration of personal weakness and viewing of others
as similar (to increase potential for connectedness)
Defensive exclusion of by Projective Identification

Securely attached parents on the other hand ...

Are able to act as a safe haven and a secure base for their
child/ren
Hold optimistic expectations about parenting ability
Can access painful psychological memories but these are not
contagiously spread
Will express emotions openly to their children (when
appropriate)
Will seek support from others as a way of handling their
emotional experiences
Deal with conflict using compromising strategies
Can acknowledge physical signs of anger and express it in a
non-hostile manner
Engage in problem-focused coping strategies

What is Reflective Function?

Ideas taken from Fonagy and Target, Attachment and Human Development, Sept, 2005, pp. 333-343

It is the ability to sense that other people have

minds different from our own this is called
mentalisation and mind-mindedness by Steven
Baron-Cohen (and the intentional stance by the
philosopher Daniel Dennett)
An understanding of other minds is difficult without
having been understood oneself as a person with a
mind this is because the human brain is
experience-expectant, one of the key experiences
being to understand and be understood by other
people

What is Reflective Function?

Ideas taken from Fonagy and Target, Attachment and Human Development, Sept, 2005, pp. 333-343

Reflective Function is mentalisation in the

context of attachment
The term parental sensitivity is now used
in attachment research to indicate the extent
to which mothers and fathers demonstrate
RF and Mind-mindedness with their children

Assess RF in the following









Shes cute; Hes pig-headed

She clings to me, but shes fine
She wakes up in the night screaming, screaming,
but nothing really bothers her
Shes just bad, bad, bad and theres nothing can
be done about it
Hes sad
Shes angry
(Seen in many vehicles: Naughty child on board)

Assess RF in the following

He had a tantrum in the shop because he

was tired and hungry and Id been
dragging him around all day and he was
sick of it

I was really sad and frightened by the fight
I had with my husband. I wasnt myself at
all and this was so upsetting to my baby

Higher RF

It is the capacity to link this awareness of her childs

or her own internal state to behaviour or to other
internal states that is the hallmark of RF (p.278):
 He had a tantrum in the shop (behaviour) because he
was tired and hungry (physical state) and Id been
dragging him around all day and he was sick of it
(mental state)
 I was just so sad and frightened (mental state) by
the fight I had with my husband. I wasnt myself at all
(behaviour) and this was so disorienting to my baby
(implies effect upon babys mental state)

So how should WE be?

Practitioners acting as a secure base

Increasing the sensitivity, availability and
responsiveness of carers
Increasing trust, attunement and
understanding between parents and
(especially younger) children
Increasing resilience and emotional
scaffolding: self-esteem, self-reflexivity,
social relatedness and self-efficacy

So how should WE be?

Always try to be:

Available, loving, caring

Interested, responsive
Sensitive, accessible
Co-operative, trustworthy

So how should WE be?

Aim never to be:

Unavailable, unloving
Uninterested, unresponsive
Neglectful, hostile
Rejecting, inaccessible
Ignoring, untrustworthy

So how should WE be?

Increase sensitivity, availability and
responsiveness

Increase resilience, particularly those
based on self-esteem, self reflexivity
and self-efficacy

Emphasis with - particularly younger
children

assessing and intervening

This all activates the workers own

attachment behaviour
They can feel foolish, rejected and put
upon - and then behave in ways which
mirror the IWM of the person they are
trying to help often with drastic
consequences
It needs time and a relationship

Japan - Sapporo

Highly industrialised, urbanized, non-Western

culture has retained methods of child care
that share many features in common with
rural non-industrial societies
The majority of Western mothers view young
infants as highly dependant, and focus on
promoting autonomy and independence

Japan - Sapporo

In contrast, Japanese mothers consider the

young infant to be a relatively independent
creature, who must be socialised into
interdependence with others
The first is with herself and they are rarely
separate. It is unusual for infants to be cared
for by others, especially those outside the
family

Northern Germany - Bielefeld

Sharp contrast with the practices in Japan

High demand for early independence and the
development of coping strategies that do not
rely on assistance from others
To carry an infant who is capable of
locomotion or respond to cries by offering
contact is considered to spoil the child.
(Grossman et al 1985)

Northern Germany - Bielefeld

In comparison to Ainsworths Baltimore

sample, infants in Bielefeld, Germany, were
picked up twice as often but held on average
for only half as long, and Bielefeld mothers
were less tender, careful and affectionate
while holding the infant
Although holding the infant was most
effective in terminating distress, the majority
of mothers were likely to try distracting
techniques before resorting to picking up
when their infants were crying

attachment theory and research

have produced findings which relate in major

ways to:
1.
2.
3.
4.

information processing and attentional systems

memory encoding and retrieval
emotion regulation
problem-solving strategies

this is because our early caregiving environment

produces the brains wiring diagrams and
pathways it actually constructs the way our mind
works

attachment theory and research

have both moved way beyond the mere

identification of attachment styles
there is also a major debate over the extent
to which individuals operate with ONE style
with the SAME and with DIFFERENT people
attention is now more focussed on how each
of the attachment organisations actually
operate and what they look like

attachment and abuse

taken from Child abuse and Neglect by David Howe, 2005

Infants are not geared up to model the world

cognitively and reflect on it
It recognises, processes and remembers
emotional states and the affective content of
other peoples facial expressions, voice tone
and body language
It does this until three years old

relevance to the helping professions

understanding what happens when service

users attachment systems are activated
understanding what happens with service
users when our own attachment systems are
activated
paying attention specifically to how
attachment activation affects individuals
within each of the four domains that
attachment processes operate

Contemporary relevance of attachment

theory and research

As our understanding of the interface of brain

development and early psychosocial experience
increases, we see the role of the attachment
relationship as far more than being there to protect
the human infant. It also fulfils an evolutionary role
in ensuring that the brain structures that come to
subserve social cognition are appropriately
organised and prepared to equip the individual for
collaborative existence with conspecifics for which
his or her brain was designed

(Fonagy & Target, 2005, in Attachment and Human Development, pp. 333-343)