9, 10 Attachment

Question 1

Define attachment.

Answer 1

A relatively enduring emotional bond with another person that forms in response to exposure, interaction, and familiarity.

Characteristics: person-specific, persistent, proximity-seeking, separation protest. (*= not w/ abusive parents.)

Question 2

Mentalizing

Answer 2

Promotes self-expression, empathy.
Ability to see oneself from the outside and others from the inside.
Perceive, reflect on and understand intention/behavior of self and others.

Question 3

Core functions of attachment

Answer 3

Protection/survival: safe haven, secure base.
Regulation of emotional distress/physiological arousal.
Develop sense of self: role of mirroring.
Foundation for mentalizing.

Question 4

Bowlby - attachment loss.

Answer 4

Humans designed by natural selection to resist prolonged separation/giving up primary attachment figures.

Question 5

Edward Tronick Still-Face Experiment

Answer 5

Mentalizing. Mirroring.

Question 6

Attachment Research

Answer 6

Relationships of attachment = context for development.
Preverbal experience = core of developing self.
Stance of self toward experience - predicts attachment security better than the facts of personal hx.

Question 7

Bowlby on Attachment Loss

Answer 7

Creates anxiety and despair; we are designed to resist prolonged separation/giving up of primary attachment figures.

Question 8

Under-recognized Loss

Answer 8

Child - abortion, Spouse - divorce, Perinatal losses, Infertility, Homeland/culture, Loss of physical abilities

Question 9

Primary predictors of depression in adults

Answer 9

Heredity, Severe situational stress, Early attachment trauma

Question 10

Bowlby’s Hypotheses on Attachment Styles

Answer 10

Behavioral patterns of seeking care and expressing emotions from from mother’s response to child.
Preferred patterns develop because child felt security.

Question 11

The Strange Situation

Answer 11

Mary Ainsworth Experiment

Question 12

Main & Solomon

Answer 12

Fourth attachment style - Disorganized (“Disoriented”)

Question 13

Low anxiety, Low attachment

Answer 13

Avoidant

Question 14

High anxiety, Low attachment

Answer 14

Disorganized

Question 15

Low anxiety, High attachment

Answer 15

Secure

Question 16

High anxiety, High attachment

Answer 16

Anxious-Ambivalent

Question 17

Anxious ambivalent

Answer 17

inconsistently available caregiver, role reversals, threatened abandonment.
Child lacks trust in attachment figures, fears being alone, jealous/possessive adult.
AAI Findings: Preoccupied with details of past, overwhelmed.

Question 18

Avoidant

Answer 18

Cold/neglectful/insensitive caregivers, abusive/rigid.
Child suppressed anger at parent, shut down.
Adult avoids intimacy, overachieve.
AAI Findings: Idealizes early relationships, describes painful experiences in detached or contradictory manner, over-regulates feelings.

Question 19

Disorganized

Answer 19

Caregivers generate fear, abusive/dissociated, unintegrated caregiving.
Child overwhelming emotional states, dissociates mentally from parent.
Adult rapidly shifts mental states, lack of security, self-hate, emptiness.
AAI Finding: Confused or incomplete statements, lapses.

Question 20

Internalized “working models” of relating

Answer 20

Reflect’s child’s internal representations of the relationship, quality of child-caregiver interactions, capacity to mentalize.

Question 21

Single most important factor in fostering mentalizing…

Answer 21

Secure attachment.

Question 22

Insecure attachment/Indiscriminate attachment behavior

Answer 22

Infants reared in institutional settings, disrupted affective communication between parent and infant

Question 23

Reorganization

Answer 23

18mo-6yo children reorganize attachment behaviors into controlling attachment behaviors TOWARD the parent, to maintain attention of caregiver

Question 24

Mary Main

Answer 24

Individual’s model of attachment is observable in patterns of their narrative presentations.

Question 25

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)

Answer 25

Mary Main. 1984.
Means of studying the inner world of adult caregivers and their kids through narrative analysis.
Child also observed through Strange Situation Procedure.
RESULT: Children and parent had same style of attachment.

Question 26

Strange Situation

Answer 26

Mary Main.

Question 27

Mate Selection

Answer 27

We unconsciously seek out those who resonate with our early attachment figures/patterns.

Question 28

Transferance

Answer 28

Patient reaction to clinician

Question 29

Countertransference

Answer 29

Clinician reaction to patient