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Attachment Theory and the Importance of the Parent-Child Emotional Bond

There are few subjects in modern psychological theory that provoke as immediate a response as the struggle to understand child-parent relationships. The consensus and pervasiveness of “mother issues” dominates psychological self-help topics and parental anxiety about how we will “shape” our children drives the multi-billion dollar child-development media industry. There have been a plentitude of theories about what children need in order to thrive, feel confident, develop a strong sense of self esteem and form healthy relationships. Yet, while theories about the child-parent bond and its impact on child development have remained plentiful throughout the last century, until the past three decades nothing could be said with scientific authority about almost any dimension of the child-parent relationship and its effects, whether good or bad. 1 A clearer picture has emerged since John Bowlby developed his theory about attachment and Mary Ainsworth began to test its premise. Today, the principles behind attachment theory have spawned an enormous amount of research and provided great insight into the previously much discussed but little understood impact of the child-parent relationship, though it is not without its controversies and detractors.

Attachment can be summarized as the lifelong developmental system that emerges from the child-parent bond, in which people use increasingly complex physical, cognitive, and communicative strategies to form strong emotional bonds that will protect them from real or perceived threats. 2 The birth of modern attachment theory can be traced back to psychologist John Bowlby and the period in his life immediately following graduation from Cambridge University, when he worked in a home for maladjusted boys. Bowlby became fascinated with two young men, both of whom had suffered disruptions in their relationships with their mothers. One exhibited carelessness and seeming indifference to any type of emotional relationship; the other exhibited extreme neediness and anxiety and tended to follow Bowlby around the clinic. These and other impressions from Bowlby’s observations in the home were later published as, “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home Life;” 3 it was in this article and in a paper he read before the British Psycho-Analytic Society 4 that Bowlby first expressed his ideas that major disruptions in the child-mother relationship are precursors of later psychopathology. He noted that little attention had been paid to the actual child-parent bonding process and insisted that it was of crucial importance for psychology to turn its attention towards developing a scientific study of childhood and the child’s relationships with primary caregivers. It was as important for psychoanalysts to study the child-parent bond as it would be for, “…the nurseryman to make a scientific study of soil and atmosphere,” before considering the state of the actual plants. 5

Psychoanalysts were, of course, aware of the impact of childhood on later adult functioning. Prior to Bowlby, Sigmund Freud had been the first to popularize the theory that early child-parent relationships, and subsequent struggle to come to terms with the conflicting needs embodied in those relationships, have a decisive impact on later adult relationships and behavioral development. In developing his own theory of child-parent relationships, Bowlby recognized this, and he sought to preserve some of what he considered to be some of Freud’s most valuable insights about early, parental relationships; but, whereas Freud saw infants as needy, clingy, and dependent, seeking the mother as a source of drive reduction, Bowlby saw infants as competent, curious, and fully engaged with the environment. 6

It is in this context that Bowlby developed his ideas about secure base behavior, which is central to attachment theory. Indeed, within the framework of Bowlby’s theory, attachment to primary caregivers is most important as a barometer that enables the child to organize and regulate secure-base behavior, expectations and emotions. 7 Bowlby’s central premise in secure base behavior, which he details in the second volume of his trilogy, Attachment and Loss: Vol.2. Separation: Anxiety and Anger, 8 is that by having available, attentive, and supportive interactions with primary caregivers, the child is able to manage stress and engage in exploration and risk-taking activities. In other words, a primary caregiver who is safe, loving, protective, and available represents a “secure base” from which the infant feels safe to engage and actively manage and learn from his environment and, when necessary, can be a safe haven in retreat when feeling threatened, upset, or unsure. Without this secure base, the child is anxious, fearful, defensive, aggressive, and/or overly cautious. It is these initial experiences and impressions surrounding the safety and responsiveness of caregivers that lay the foundation for the rest of child’s life and have considerable impact on how the child approaches the environment and forms relationships with others.

At the time that Bowlby was developing his theory, the widely accepted theory of the child’s relationship to the mother was derived around feeding and sustenance. Freud’s theory that the pleasure experienced from having one’s hunger needs satisfied becomes positively associated with the mother’s presence 9 was accepted by both psychoanalysts and social theorists. But, Bowlby became interested and aware of two key animal studies that challenged this perspective and lent considerable support to his theory of the importance of the mother-caregiver as source of comfort and security, rather than a source of food. Konrad Lorenz’s infamous study of the Lorenz geese showed that infant geese became attached to parents without being fed by them. 10 Harry Harlow’s experiments with rhesus monkeys had shown that, when put under stress, the infant monkeys preferred their cloth-covered “mother” that was soft and comforting to their wire-mesh “mother” who provided them with food. 11 Each study suggested that food and hunger were less important for infants than was the care, comfort and security that attachment to primary caregivers would provide. Harlow, in particular, became aware of Bowlby’s work and lent his support to Bowlby’s attachment theory, even going so far as to invite Bowlby to visit him for two days at his lab at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1959. 12

Bowlby’s attachment theory gained footing and plausibility with Mary Ainsworth’s research with infants in Baltimore during the mid 1960’s. Ainsworth was a psychologist who had worked with Bowlby early in her career and was strongly influenced by his ideas and questions about the child-caregiver relationship. Working at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Ainsworth developed a method for assessing infant attachment. In her book, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, 13 Ainsworth describes her now widely used protocol, the Strange Situation, and outlines the patterns of secure and insecure attachment in infants. Ainsworth initially identified three patterns of attachment: Secure, Anxious Avoidant, and Anxious Ambivalent. Later, Mary Main and Judith Solomon would introduce a fourth category: Disorganized. 14 Both the anxious ambivalent and disorganized infants seek attachment and closeness with the primary caregiver(s), but experience anxiety at her disappearance and are difficult to soothe upon return. The anxious avoidant infants seemingly are less concerned with seeking attachment and some appear to be relaxed and unmoved by the disappearance of their primary caregiver(s) and not particularly interested in initiating contact with them upon their return. But, in a landmark study by Spangler and Grossman, the authors found that insecure avoidant infants, despite appearing relaxed and unruffled during separations from caregivers, demonstrate a significant increase in heart-rate and cortisol levels. 15 In other words, while the insecure avoidant infants appear to not need or desire close proximity or attachment to caregivers, their neuro-physiological response to separation from caregivers suggests that there is a tremendous amount of stress surrounding attachment and their seeming independence is a protective or compensatory front.

Attachment and developmental theorists have described a series of stages in the first twelve to twenty-four months of life in which the infant forms their patterns of attachment from their experiences with primary caregivers. 16 17 18 19 Caregivers to whom infants form attachment bonds can include anyone in the infant’s immediate proximity, but several factors have been identified as important for predicting which people the infant will form attachment relationships with, including: 20 21 22

  • The amount of time the infant spends in the care of the person
  • The quality and responsiveness of the care provided by the person
  • The person’s emotional investment in the infant
  • The presence of the person in the infant’s life across time

It is interesting to note from an evolutionary standpoint that the primary caregiver need not be the biological mother or a maternal figure, but rather can be any person or figure that provides care and affection to the infant.

During the first three months, infants will use a variety of behaviors that include sucking, rooting, grasping, smiling, gazing, cuddling, crying and visual tracking. These behaviors appear to be closely involved with the attempts to both maintain closeness and proximity to primary caregivers, as well as to bring the caregiver to the infant. Through repeated patterns of interaction with caregivers, the infants begin to develop expectations of behavior and interpersonal communication; they learn how their needs will or will not be met, as well as who are the key figures in their life towards whom they will reach out to form lasting emotional bonds.

From three to nine months, the child will begin to express themselves and respond preferentially to a few familiar figures. They will smile more at caregivers than at strangers, and will show excitement when their primary caregivers arrive and appear upset when she or he leaves. Babies will begin to seek close, active physical proximity to these primary caregivers, using crying, crawling and grasping behavior to attempt to keep them close. They will also begin carefully experimenting with exploration away from caregivers, while maintaining close contact through watching, smiling, showing objects or crawling back.

From nine to twelve months, babies will have formed an internal representation of their caregivers; this internal representation is a set of complex expectations, defenses and reaction patterns based upon anticipated caregiver responses to their actions. From twelve to twenty-four months they will continue to develop new strategies for initiating or maintaining closeness to their now well-identified objects of attachment. Attachment relationships will continue to develop beyond the first two years of life, but the crucial time-period is the first twelve to twenty-four months when early attachment relationships overlap with significant neurological development in the brain. 23 24

Treatment and interventions for insecurely attached children or for the adults who carry their attachment legacy is beyond the scope of this introductory overview. Yet, the attachment concept that seems so obvious – that a child needs to have a loving, protective, attentive and available relationship with primary caregiver – is one that is still not given the attention and social support it needs. Work schedules, social demands, economic necessities and adult relationships often claim valuable time from the child-parent relationship. Time, commitment, and simple awareness of the crucial nature of those first twenty-four months of life will go a long way towards providing the secure base from which all infants must launch themselves into the rest of their lives. Robert Karen states it eloquently in the concluding paragraph of his superb book on attachment, Becoming Attached:

”…the work of Bowlby and Ainsworth and the many others they inspired has helped fill an unseen void that wended its way through much of social and medical science. It’s a void that still exists in many respects, and it’s a concept that still meets resistance: It doesn’t always fit comfortably with the lives we have built for ourselves. Modern society has taken many of us a long way from a life centered on the pleasures and pains of being connected to others. Our focus is often on other things – achievement, power, acquisition, romance, excitement. But the need for proximity, for felt security, for love; the need to be held, to be understood, to work through our losses; these basic themes of attachment are to some degree built into us biologically. We have mixed feelings about them. But they are there." 25

And it is from these loving beginnings that the flower of life is allowed to bloom.


Notes

1 Robert Karen, Becoming Attached (New York: Warner Books, 1994), 2-3.

2Barbara M. Newman and Phillip R. Newman, Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach (Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006), 149.

3 John Bowlby, “Forty-four Thieves: Their Characters and Home Life,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 25, (1944): 107-127.

4 John Bowlby, “The Influence of Early Environment in the Development of Neurosis and Neurotic Character,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 1: 154-178.

5 Ibid., 155.

6 Everett Waters and others, “Bowlby’s Secure Base Theory and the Social/Personality Psychology of Attachment Styles: Work(s) in Progress,” Attachment and Human Development 4, (2002): 232-235.

7 Ibid., 233.

8 John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Vol. 2: Separation: Anxiety and Anger (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

9 Sigmund Freud, “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 23, ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1957).

10 Konrad Lorenz, “Der Kumpan in der Umvelt des Vogels,” in Instinctive Behavior. Edited by Claire Schiller (New York: International Universities Press, 1935).

11 Harry Harlow, “The Nature of Love,” American Psychologist, 13, (1958).

12 Karen, Becoming Attached, 125.

13 Mary D. Ainsworth and others, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation (Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1978).

14 Mary Main and Judith Soloman, “Discovery of an Insecure-Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment Pattern,” in Affective Development in Infancy, edited by T. Berry Brazelton and Michael Yogman (Westport: Ablex Publishing, 1986), 95-124.

15 Gottfried Spangler and Karin Grossman, “Biobehavioral Organization in Securely and Insecurely Attached Infants,” Child Development 64, (1993): 1439-1450.

16 Newman & Newman, Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach, 148-157.

17 Mary D. Ainsworth, “The Development of Infant-Mother Attachment,” in Review of Child Development Research, vol. 3, ed. Bettye M. Caldwell & Henry N. Ricciuti (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).

18 Mary D. Ainsworth, “Patterns of Infant-Mother Attachments: Antecedents and Effects on Development,” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 61, (1985): 771-791.

19 Alan Sroufe and others, The Development of the Person (New York: Guilford Press, 2002).

20 Newman & Newman, Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach, 152.

21 Jude Cassidy, “The Nature of the Child’s Ties,” in Handbook of Attachment, ed. Jude Cassidy and Phillip Shaver (New York: Guilford Press, 1999): 3-20.

22 Nancy Weinfield and others, “The Nature of Individual Differences in Infant-Caregiver Attachment,” in Handbook of Attachment, 68-88.

23 Daniel Siegel, The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience (New York: Guildford Press, 1999).

24 Allan Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of Self (Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1994).

25 Karen, Becoming Attached, 440.

References:

Ainsworth, Mary D. “The Development of Infant-Mother Attachment.” In Review of Child Development Research 3, edited by Bettye M. Caldwell & Henry N. Ricciuti. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

Ainsworth, Mary D. “Patterns of Infant-Mother Attachments: Antecedents and Effects on Development.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicinev 61, (1985): 771-791.

Ainsworth, Mary D., Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters, and Sally Wall. Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1978.

Bowlby, John. “The Influence of Early Environment in the Development of Neurosis and Neurotic Character.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 1, (1940): 154-178.

Bowlby, John. “Forty-four Thieves: Their Characters and Home Life.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 25, (1944): 107-127.

Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic Books, 1969.

Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss, Vol. 2: Separation: Anxiety and Anger. New York: Basic Books, 1973.

Cassidy, Jude. “The Nature of the Child's Ties.” In Handbook of Attachment. Edited by Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, 3-20. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.

Freud, Sigmund. Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 23. Edited by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1957.

Harlow, Harry F. “The Nature of Love.” American Psychologist 13. (1958): 673-685.

Karen, Robert. Becoming Attached. New York: Warner Books, 1994.

Lorenz, Konrad E. “Der Kumpan in der Umvelt des Vogels.” In Instinctive Behavior. Edited by Claire H. Schiller. New York: International Universities Press, 1935.

Main, Mary and Judith Solomon. “Discovery of an Insecure-Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment Pattern.” In Affective Development in Infancy. Edited by T. Berry Brazelton and Michael Yogman, 95-124. Westport: Ablex Publishing, 1986.

Newman, Barbara M., and Phillip R. Newman. Development through Life: A Psychosocial Approach. Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006.

Shore, Allan. N. Affect Regulation and the Origin of Self. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1994.

Siegel, Daniel J. The Developing Mind: Toward A Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.

Spangler, Gottfried, and Karin E. Grossman. “Biobehavioral Organization in Securely and Insecurely Attached Infants.” Child Development 64 (1993): 1439-1450.

Sroufe, Alan, Byron Egeland, Elizabeth Carlson, and W. Andrew Collins. The Development of the Person. New York: Guilford Press, 2005.

Waters, Everett, Judith Crowell, Melanie Elliott, David Corcoran, and Dominique Treboux. Attachment and Human Development 4 (2002): 230-242.

Weinfield, Nancy S., Alan Sroufe, Byron Egeland, and Elizabeth Carlson. “The Nature of Individual Differences in Infant-Caregiver Attachment.” In Handbook of Attachment. Edited by Jude Cassidy and Phillip R. Shaver, 68-88. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.