Attachment theory Flashcards
Bowlby
- attachment begins in infancy
- the primary care giver is the one that will most shape the child’s personality (usually the mother)
- bonding starts at birth
- attachment formation needs caregivers presence in early stages
- monotropy- innate tendency to attach to an adult female
- multiple attachments are common
- attachment is innate
- attachment peaks between 12-18 months
Monotropy
-Bowlby- innate tendency to attach to one adult female
Preattachment
- birth to 12 weeks
- babies orient to their mothers
Indiscriminate attachment
8/12 weeks to 6 months
-allows strangers to handle, infants become attached to one or more persons in the environment
Clear-cut attachment
6-24 months
- preferential attachment, separation anxiety, object permanence, stranger anxiety
- at later part there is weakened stranger anxiety and other attachment figures may be present
- after 25 months the mother figure is seen as independent
Harlow’s experiments
- Rhesus monkeys
- babies separated from their Mum
- ‘surrogate mother’ madde from wire or cloth given
- infants preferred the cloth covered surrogate as it was comforting
- they chose comfort over food
Ainsworth’s experiments
- strange situation experiment
- 2x separation adn 2x reunion episodes
- infant observed in the presence and absence of its mother and a stranger in 7 different combinations
- child is Type A, Type B or Type C (sometimes Type D)
Strange situation experiments
-Ainsworth
Situation 1: both mother and infant enter the room
Situation 2: stranger joins them
Situation 3: Mother leaves now; infant is left with stranger
Situation 4: Mother returns and the stranger leaves
Situation 5: Infant left alone; mother leaves now
Situation 6: stranger comes back and tries to comfort the child
Situation 7: Mother comes back and comforts, stranger leaves
Type A
- Ainsworth Strange situation
- Anxious Avoidant: 15%
- indifferent when Mum is leaving or entering but distressed when left.
- Stranger can comfort easily
- highly environment directed, low attachment behaviour
- perpetrators of bullying have this pattern
- greater in the West
Type B
- Ainsworth Strange situation
- Secure: 70%
- plays independently when mother is in the vicinity (secure base effect)
- distressed when mother is leaving
- seeks contact on return of the mother and easily comforted
- not comforted by stranger
Type C
Ainsworth Strange situation
- Anxious resistant-15%
- fussy and cries a lot, not secure in presence of mother
- very distressed when mother is leaving but not easily comforted when she returns
- ambivalent when she returns
- resists stranger’s efforts to pacify
- common in victims of bullying
- occurs more in Israeli and Japanese families
Type D
Ainsworth Strange situation
- Disorganised type
- occurs in maltreated or maternally deprived children
- child has an insecure, dazed look and acts as if frightened by the mother
Attachment style
- anxious-avoidant, secure, anxious resistant, disorganised
- it is a function of the quality of the caregiver not the temperament of a child
Main
- devised a semi-structured adult attachment interview with 15 items
- AAI
- infantile attachment predicts adult attachment
- secure autonomous, dismissing, entangled, unresolved disorganised
Secure autonomous
- those who had secure attachment provide spontaneous and coherent answers with the ability to talk freely about negative experiences in childhood
- Secure- Type B
Dismissing
- -dismissing of experiences
- had avoidant (insecure) pattern and minimise their experiences
- do not use colourful metaphors during discourse
- Type A
- anxious avoidant
Entangled
- those who had insecure but ambivalent (enmeshed) attachment use multiple emotionally laden responses and ramble excessively
- Type C- resistant
Unresolved disorganised
- broken continuity and interrupted the logical thoughts
- seen in those who had insecure disorganised attachment pattern- Type D
Spitz
- anaclitic depression or hospitalism
- when a child is hospitalised they are separated from their primary caregiver and experience anaclitic (object loss) depression
- can be counterproductive to a child’s development
- recovery is good if te maternal deprivation is kept minimum
- surrogate mothering helps the infant when having the anaclitic depression to some extent
Mahler
- described the development of a sense of identity in young children, independent of their mothers
- Separation-individuation theory
- normal autism
- symbiosis
- separation-individuation phase
Normal autism
- 0-2 months
- child spends most the time asleep
Symbiosis
- 2-5 months
- inner and outer world studied via senses
- perceives mother and self as one unit
Separation-individuation phase
- DPRO
- differentiation- 5-10 months- realises mother and self are not the same
- practicing- 10-18months- becomes more interested in the environment, explores
- rapprochement- 18-24 months- able to explore alone but requires comfort and reassurance on return
- object constancy- 2-5 years- understand that the mother will not be lost if temporarily away- able to function independently
Differentiation
- 5-10 months
- sub phase of separation-individuation
- appreciates difference between mother and self
Practicing
10-18 months
- sub-phase of separation-individuation theory
- gradual increase in interest on the environment, practices exploration
Rapprochement
18-24 months
sub-phase of separation-individuation
-alternating drives to be autonomous and dependent
-able to explore alone but requires comfort and reassurance on return
Object permanence
2-5 years
sub-phase of separation-individuation
-understand that the mother will not be lost if temporariliy away; hence able to function independently
Rutter
-deprivation vs privation
Deprivation
- Rutter
- attachment is formed but lost temporarily
- if for a short time then protest-despair-attachment phases are seen
- more common in 8m-3 years
- boys show more deprivation features
- more prominant if care is aggressive
- in prolonged deprivation, separation anxiety sets in-increased clinginess, psychosomatic complaints, vacillation and aggression are seen
Privation
- Rutter
- refers to the non-formation of attachment
- very rare
- leads to affectionless psychopathy and developmental retardation
- attention seeking, lack of guilt, antisocial behaviour and indiscriminate attachment patterns are noted
- only slightly reversible
Imprinting
- primitive form of learning during early development (critical or sensitive phase)
- Lorenz described in goslings
- very resistant to change
- highly sensitive to a certain stimulus that provokes a specific behaviour pattern
Innate releasing mechanism
IRM
- sensory mechanism selectively responsive to a specific external stimulus and responsible for triggering the stereotyped motor response- fixed action pattern
- dog sees a cat running away
Fixed action pattern
- inherent pattern of behaviour initiated by specific stimuli
- consists of species-specific, stereotyped movements
- e.g following behaviour in goslings, dog chases cat
Object relations theory
- Melanie Klein main player
- ego exists only in relation to other objects, which may be external or internal
- also Winnicot, Fairbairn, Kernberg, Guntrip, Balint
Kleinian theory
- uses play interpretation
- oedipal development occurs earlier than what Freud envisaged
- infant has instinctual knowledge of the body
- weaning is symbolically equivalent to castration
- defence mechanisms
Kleinian defences
SIPDOG Splitting Introjection Projective identification Denial Omnipotence Grandiosity
Winnicott’s concepts
- Transitional zone: psychological development occurs in a zone between reality and fantasy and play is important
- Transitional object:object the serves as a buffer for loss- soft toy, replaces mother’s contact
- Good enough mother: a mother need not be perfect but good enough to provide growth sustaining environment (holding)
- Parental control and impositions can lead to the development of a false self-different from the real self (theory of multiple self-organizations)
Paranoid schizoid position
- Klein
- projection of both bad and good impulses occurs followed by splitting of the external world into good and bad
- cannot understand that good and bad parts are both part of the mother (e.g good and bad breast)
Depressive position
-Klein
-fear of a loss of the love of object
child realises that both good and bad things emanate from the unified single object (mother)
Fear of Annihilation
- Klein
- soon after birth the child develops the fear of annihilation
- they cannot tolerate this and project this destructive impulse to external objects
- leads to paranoid schizoid position
Reparation phase
- Klein
- creativity is an attempt to repair damage done by destructive impulse
- continues lifelong
- in absence of reparation, a maladaptive defence called manic defense can emerge characterised by denial of relaity (refusal to take guilt), omnipotence and grandiosity
