Attachment Development: Adolescence & Adulthood Flashcards
A feature of secure attachment is coregulation, how does this concept work?
The attachment figue regulates an infants currently unregulated feelings. The infant internalises the caregivers regulation to form a psychological self and independently regulate their own feelings. This is easier done from infancy.
What does a child learn through coregulation?
When a child has coregulatory experiences over and over again, they learn that their emotions can be brought to someone else, are valid, safe and capable of being comforted. The child internalises the coregulatory experience so when they have to self-regulate they can tap into this experience and reliably work through their feelings.
When unregulated emotions are regulated by the caregiver, what does this lead to?
This leads to the self-regulation of emotions by the child. The process of the caregiver being with the child is what causes this outcome.
When unregulated emtoions are not regulated by the caregiver, what does this lead to?
The child is not safe and cannot rely on any tools provided to them by their caregiver, meaning they have difficulty in regulating their emotions.
In terms of needs, the coregulation pattern determines how we behave when a need arrises, when the coregulation pattern is repeated, what is the outcome?
We learn a way of behaving that concerns a need. An internal ‘map’ or ‘state of mind’ is developed for this need and when the need emerges our behaviour is organised by this map.
In procedural learning, what are the three internal working models (or maps) that we develop based on procedure?
We learn these things thorugh experience rather than being conscious. The attachment model becomes the basis of our internal working model, or the internal maps that we use in relation to three dimensions:
Self (my own value, worth, safety of feelings)
Other (can we expect positive or negative things from other people)
Self-other (how the self is experienced in relation to other people)
In attachment models, what is the predictive relationship between childhood and adulthood attachment, how can insecure attachment relationships be changed?
The attachment classificaiton in infancy will be the same in adulthood. However, these children in adults can reach “earned secure” which is achieved through increased reflective functioning - done through threapy or a new relational experience that is more secure.
What is the significance of IWM’s in adult attachment?
They act as a filter through which relational/emtoional information is processed and interpreted; and a guide to behaviour/response around emotional/relational needs).
How are IWM’s organised within a person?
They are highly involved in the organisation of affective information and organise behaviour in relationships to balance intimacy and autonomy. More secure relationships coordinate the balance between intimacy and autonomy better than insecure.
How do IWM’s become integrated into adulthood?
They work together to create a more resolute and integrated “State of Mind”.
What is state of mind, and what is its role?
How an individual integrates thoughts and feelings about relationships, as well as the processes that support or exclude relationship-based information from the individuals thinking.
It blends conscious and non-conscious features.
SOM has an emotional quality; influences state regulation and motivation
SOM is cued by activation of need and history in repsonse to a need.
Depending on how state of mind is integrated it will determine how an adult approaches their needs, the affective response to this need is scultpted from childhood, how does SOM influence affective and need responses, how is SOM repaired?
The affective repsonse influences state regulation and motivation.
SOM is cued by activation of need and history in response to a need.
If a need that was not previously met is met with positivety and reconcilliation repeatedly through experience then an insecure SOM can repaired.
What is Peter Fonagy’s hypothesis on mentalisation in secure attachments?
Secure attachment provides a mechanism to understanding minds; our own, other people’s and the interplay of the two.
What is the process of mentalisation?
The understanding of minds. People use an understanding of mental states- intentions, feelings, thoughts, desires, and beliefs- to make sense of and to anticipate each other’s actions.
How does secure attachment provide stronger mentalisation processes?
Through this attachement style children learn that their mind and others are important, as the syncronisity between the caregiver and that child is strong. This creates stronger reflective funcitoning.
