Early Attachment and

Implications in Adulthood
on Parenting Styles
Housekeeping
 Learning outcomes

By the end of this training you should be able to:

• Give a definition of child abuse which includes

physical, sexual, emotional and psychological
abuse, either through the actions, or failure to
act, of others.
• Have an understanding of the impact of
different kinds of abuse on a child’s safety and
global development.
• Apply theories to specific cases, to inform
their approach to the assessment of risk to
children.
 Ground rules

To value and listen to contributions

To question differences constructively

To address and challenge oppressive behaviour or language

To support a principle of confidentiality about personal issues and

feelings
‘Yesterday’s children, healthy or hurt,
become today’s mothers and fathers
(Crittenden, 2008)
 What is Attachment?
Four needs that humans have in order to
survive and develop
• Safety - when in danger
• Comfort - when distressed
• Proximity - when isolated
• Predictability - when in chaos
Attachment is an innate motivating force
• Seeking and maintaining contact with significant
others is innate.
• This occurs throughout the life span.
• Attachment is governed by three important
principles:
• Alarm activates an attachment behavioral system
that seeks out soothing from attachment figure.
• Only physical contact with the attachment figure
will terminate it.
• When the system has been activated for a long
time without soothing and termination, angry
behavior appears.
• If soothing and protection is not eventually found,
the system can then become suppressed.
Why is Attachment so Important?
• Attachment is essential for the foundation of a
healthy personality and is necessary for:
the attainment of full intellectual potential
the ability to think logically
development of a conscience
ability to cope with stress and frustration
self-reliance
development of relationships
ability to handle fear and worry
• Secure
• Tend to believe that others are reliable and see
themselves as lovable and worthy of care.
• Avoidant
• Fearful- Tend to recognize their need for others
but avoid others and frame them as untrustworthy.
• Dismissing- Tend to deny their need for
attachment and frame others as untrustworthy.
• Anxious/preoccupied
• Tend to cling to attachment figures or aggressively
demand reassurance, often fearing that they are
somehow deficient or unlovable.
• None of us can choose our genes, family or
country we are born into
• Life is full of dangers that we cannot predict,
from which we need every possible strategy
to survive since our parents are not always
there to protect us.
• Anxiety engendered by danger gives us
impetus to adapt to threat (Crittenden, 2008).
• Babies are completely consumed by sensations and
unless they get an immediate response they think
their world is falling apart

• As needs are met babies build on their learning

experience so by 4 months they start to learn to
contain and start to look beyond their initial caregiver
and become interested in toys.

• This is an important developmental stage in self

regulation.
• Attachment is an innate motivating force
• Secure dependency complements
autonomy
• Attachment offers a safe haven
• Attachment offers a secure base
• Accessibility and Responsiveness builds
bonds
• Fear and uncertainty activate attachment
needs
• The process of separation distress is
predictable
• Finite number of insecure forms of
engagement can be identified.

• Attachment involves working models of self

and others

• Isolation and loss are inherently

traumatizing
 Disorganised Attachment
• Attachment Theory argues that a threatened or frightened child
will turn to the attachment figure for comfort, security or
reassurance when distressed. But if the attachment figure is
itself the source of the threat, the child is presented with an
insolvable dilemma.

• Hesse et al. (2003) describes the ‘fright without solution’ which

occurs when the parent/caregiver – normally the child’s ‘haven
of safety’ – simultaneously becomes a source of danger.

• Their experience is that to be dependent or vulnerable is

dangerous.
• Caregiving and love used
synonymously is misleading
• A loved child who is unsafe is in
physical and psychological peril (John
Bowlby)
• Love alone is not enough
 Internal Working Model

Thought to begin around 12 months and then continue

to develop throughout the lifespan into complex mental
representations of how ‘self’ and ‘other’ interrelate
 Internal Working Model
• A child has two unconscious working models (or
mental maps). They govern
• The way they view themselves
• The way we view the worlds
• Development of the working models is determined by
the attachment relationship with the primary carer
• Models can be
• Positive
• Negative
• Multiple / Conflicting
 Impact of Conflicting Working
Models
• Bowlby maintained these were at the root of
Psychopathologies.

• e.g. I’m afraid Dad will leave and I hope Dad will
leave

• Bowlby posited that conflicting working models were

at the root of intergenerational Transmission of
Neurosis.
 Cultural differences

• 60-40 split between securely and insecurely attached

children
• The three basic attachment patterns found in every
culture in which studies have been conducted so far
(Van Ijzendoor & Sagi, 1999)
• US and Northern Europe 25% avoidant and 15%
ambivalent
• Move south towards North Africa and Southern
Europe and it is an almost complete reversal
Paul Ekman’s work on how facial expressions
universally display powerful clues to our emotional
state and at least six primary emotions:
• Sadness
• Happiness
• Anger
• Fear
• Surprise
• Disgust
All cultures tend to use the same combinations of facial
muscles when experiencing these emotions (Ekman,
2007)
 Adult Attachment

• From our childhood experiences we develop internal

working models that are concerned with
dependability of others and the worth or lovableness
of self.
• These working models are easily maintained across
time into adulthood as they are reinforced over and
over again.
• In the literature these schemas are referred to as
attachment styles.
 Adult Attachment
• Preoccupied: What begins with attempts to keep
track of or hold onto an unreliable caretaker during
infancy leads to an attempt to hold onto partners, but
this is done in ways that frequently backfire and
produce more hurt feelings, anger and insecurity.

• Dismissing: What begins with an attempt to regulate

attachment behavior in relation to a primary caregiver
who does not provide, contact, comfort or soothes
distress, becomes defensive self-reliance, cool and
distant relations with partners, and cool or hostile
relationships with peers.
 Adult Attachment

Unresolved/Disorganized/Fearful: What begins with

conflicted, disorganized, disoriented behavior in
relation to a frightening or frightened caregiver, may
translate into desperate, ineffective attempts to
regulate attachment anxiety through approach and
avoidance.
Attachment Patterns in Adulthood: Not Types,
But Regions in a Two-Dimensional Space
LOW AVOIDANCE

SECURE PREOCCUPIED

LOW ANXIETY HIGH ANXIETY

DISMISSING- FEARFUL-
AVOIDANT AVOIDANT

HIGH AVOIDANCE

Adapted from Fraley & Shaver (RGP, 2000)

DISTANCING BALANCED PREOCCUPIED
STRATEGIES STRATEGIES STRATEGIES
Thinking Feeling
Thinking and will keep
will keep feeling me safe
me safe are safe

Organised to
adapt Organised to
Organised to avoid Owns feelings maximise safety
danger Predicts and Exaggerates
Dismisses feelings accepts feelings
Exaggerates how uncertainty Exaggerates how
predictable things Retains unpredictable
are relevant things are
Distances the past information Gets stuck in the
Discards from the past past
information about and from Preoccupied with
trauma trauma trauma
Minimises Acknowledges Engrossed in
problems problems problems
• Balanced- also called secure or
Type ‘B’
• Distancing - also called defended,
disengaged, dismissive,
avoidant, compulsive or Type ‘A’
• Preoccupied also called coercive,
enmeshed, entangled, anxious-
ambivalent, obsessive, or
Type ‘C’
Attachment (Shaver
(Shaver &
& Mikulincer,
Mikulincer, A&HD,
A&HD, 2002)
2002)
Signs of
system in + threat? No
Activation of
No other behavioral
adults -
systems
Yes
Yes
Attachment-system activation

Attachment
Security-
+ Is attachment figure security,
based
- available? Yes
Yes distress
strategies
alleviation
No
Insecurity, compounding distress

Is proximity
seeking a viable No
No Deactivating strategies
option?
Yes
Hyperactivating strategies
• To explain why a parent might respond
angrily to young babies look at Kelly’s Theory
that we create constructs (beliefs and
assumptions) according to the way we have
been treated.

• Someone who in early life felt persecuted

might view their child’s cry as intentional “my
baby hates me and wants to punish me”
 Commitment in Relationships
• Attachment bonds are strong, regardless of specific
characteristics of the attachment figure. Infants and
adults will turn toward abusive attachment figures for
comforting and protection.
• Morgan (Morgan & Shaver, 1999) found women who
were pre-occupied were more committed to their
relationships and experienced more rewards than
women who were more secure/less anxious.
• Anxious people are more likely to follow their hearts
rather than heads.
 Insecure Attachment & Psychopathology
• Insecure attachment is not the same as psychopathology, rather
it is thought that insecurity creates the risk of psychological and
interpersonal problems.
• Dismissing: leads to deficits in social competence, conduct
disorders, may have higher rates of schizophrenia.
• Disorganized: higher rates of dissociation, PTSD, attention and
emotion dysregulation problems, and borderline personality
disorder.
• Pre-occupied: high rates affective disorders, particularly anxiety
and substance abuse.
 Earned Security
“I had a weak father, domineering mother,
contemptuous teachers, sadistic sergeants,
destructive male friendships, emasculating girlfriends,
a wonderful wife, and three terrific children. Where
did I go right?”

– Jules Feiffer, illustrator and satirist

 Earned Security
• A subset of persons rated secure on the AAI in spite
of experiences in childhood that would ordinarily lead
us to predict an insecure status.
• Research suggests that these individuals had
positive relationship with a relative, close friend,
partner or therapist which allowed them to develop
out of an insecure status into secure.
• These individuals are almost indistinguishable from
“continuous secure” except they have higher
depression rates.
 Emotions
• Emotion is the music of the attachment
dance.
• Affect will automatically arise when an
attachment figure is perceived as
inaccessible or unresponsive.
Attachment Self-Protective
Strategies
• Still face experiment - Dr Edward
Tronick
• the Strange Situation Procedure