Attachment Theory

John Wilks

www.cyma.org.uk

 The importance of early
childhood studies: !
Winnicott, John Bowlby, Daniel
Stern and Mary Ainsworth!
 Concepts of attachment Theory!
•  Infant is a social being from the beginning!
•  Born with a propensity to socialisation. Programmed to
engage with primary caregiver!
•  Proximity seeking behaviour (attachment) a universal
biological need and persists throughout life!
•  Early bonding crucial to later social relationships!
•  If need not met in infancy affects adult’s capacity to form
affectionate bonds?!
 Attachment - more than bonding!
Bonding - the way an adult develops an emotional connection to a child eg
cuddling, smiling, playing, feeding, listening, talking!

These things are necessary to develop a positive attachment, but they are not
sufficient !

Attachment requires a relationship between the child and the carer – it is not
something the carer does to or for the child – it is reciprocal!

4!
 Attachment involves..!
•  A complex, ongoing process.!
•  A two-way experience!
•  It requires both a closeness and a responsiveness!
 Skinner (Ladies Home Journal, 1945)!

When we decided to have another child, my wife and I felt that it was
time to apply a little labor-saving invention and design to the
problems of the nursery. We began by going over the disheartening
schedule of the young mother, step by step. We asked only one
question: Is this practice important for the physical and psychological
health of the baby?!
"The result was an inexpensive apparatus in which our baby
daughter has now been living for eleven!
months. Her remarkable good health and happiness and my wife’s welcome leisure have exceeded
our most optimistic predictions, and we are convinced that a new deal for both mother and baby is at
hand.!
"We tackled first the problem of warmth. The usual solution is to wrap the baby in half-a-
dozen layers of cloth-shirt, nightdress, sheet, and blankets. This is never completely successful. Why
not, we thought, dispense with clothing altogether — except for the diaper … and warm the space in
which the baby lives? … Our solution is a closed compartment about as spacious as a standard crib .
The walls are well insulated, and one side, which can be raised like a window, is a large pane of safety
glass. The heating is electrical, and special precautions have been taken to insure accurate control.!
•  “Attachment theory puts the search for
security above all other psychological
motivators, and posits the attachment
bond as the starting point for survival, a
precondition for all meaningful
interactions” - Holmes!
 Types of attachment!
•  Secure!
•  Avoidant!
•  Ambivalent!
•  Disorientated or Disorganised!
 Attachment and Emotional Development!
( Meredith Small) The comparative details forced me to step back and
take an objective view of my own culture and of myself…I had to admit
that babies in other cultures lead very different lives than those I was
used to seeing at the mall or at friend’s houses. If babies are carried in
slings all day, sleep with their mothers, breastfeed at will and are highly
integrated into family and community, they do not cry very often and
there is no such thing as colic. This pattern of intense adult-infant
connection contrasts sharply with the!

style of parenting in the United States where the ideology of independence and self-reliance guides
every parenting decision. American babies usually sleep in their own beds, in their own rooms and
straight through the night; babies are left to wail because they are expected to self-comfort as soon as
possible, feeding is scheduled, fretting babies are ignored…!
Category Child Behavior Parental behavior

Secure Use PC as secure base Good interactional synchrony: sensitive

Some stranger wariness responsiveness
Mild-Moderate distress at separation Positive emotions
Comforted by PC return Enjoys close contact

Insecure Clingy Inconsistent

Resistant/ Very distressed at separation Misinterpret signals
Anxious Lot of stranger wariness PC bases behavior on their own moods
Reunion: Crying, hitting kicking
Insecure Unresponsive to parent Rejecting
Avoidant Not distressed at separation Resentful
Little or no wariness of stranger Angry
Reunion: Ignore, avoid, don’t seek comfort Limits positive affection
 Defining Attachment!
“A relatively long enduring tie in which the partner is!
important as a unique individual and is inter-changeable
with non-other” (Ainsworth, 1989)!
“A close emotional selective relationship between two
persons characterised by mutual affection and a desire to
maintain proximity.” (Cohen, 1974)!
“The strong affectional ties that bind a person to an!
intimate companion.” (Bowlby, 1969)!
 How Is Attachment Measured?
Ainsworth (1971) created a method of studying attachment, called the Strange Situation. !
This consisted of a series of standardised events; Ainsworth saw the most important feature of a
mother’s behaviour as sensitivity.!
A sensitive mother would be constantly accessible responding to baby’s needs as they arrived;
while an insensitive mother interacts with the baby on her own terms often ignoring baby’s
signals.!
 Disorganized/Disoriented !
Attachment!
•  No coherent strategy for
handling separations or reunions
•  Baby looks dazed and confused
•  5-10% of North American
children
 Attachment is vital to child development!

•  We develop a ‘sense of self’ through our relationships with other

people!

•  The immediate caregivers of babies and children play the most

important role in helping them develop a sense of self!

•  The quality of those relationships has a profound effect on

children’s socio-emotional development, personality formation and
social competence!

15!
 Brain research and attachment:!
•  How a brain develops hinges on a complex interplay between the genes
you’re born with and the experiences you have. !

•  Early experiences have a decisive impact of the how the brain develops.!

•  The connections used regularly become reinforced and protected and

become part of the brain’s permanent “wiring”.!
 Warning signs of insecure attachment!
•  A infant in your care that does not thrive in the same way the other babies
do. She may not be gaining weight or reaching milestones!

•  The baby is unresponsive to everybody!

•  The infant responding the same to everyone—caregiver and stranger!

•  The child may become passive and non-complaining!

•  The child may seem disorganized in his thought patterns!

 Sue Gerhardt

Why Love Matters

 John Wilks

www.cyma.org.uk