Lecture_10_Attachment Styles: Effects on Development & Behavior

Question 1

identify the basic attachment styles and what fosters their formation

describe how attachment styles affect development and future behavior

describe key findings of Main’s Adult Attachment Interview research

apply knowledge of attachment styles to case scenarios involving personal and professional relationships

Question 2

identify the basic attachment styles and what fosters their formation

Four Basic Styles of Attachment & What Fosters Their Formation:

• Who came up with “The Strange Situation” and what is it about?
• What are three patterns/styles of attachment originally identified by this researcher? What are their characterisitcs?
• Who added the 4th style? What is it?
• How are these organized, graphically?
• What are the etiologies and characteristics of the different attachment styles?

Answer 2

• Who came up with “The Strange Situation” and what is it about?
  
  • Mary Ainsworth (1978); observed children 12-18 months in various situations. 8 different episodes in which child was observed in a toy room interacting w/mother, stranger, left alone, re-introduced to mother.
• What are three patterns/styles of attachment originally identified by this researcher? What are their characterisitcs?
  
  • secure
  • insecure
    
    • anxious-ambivalent (ambivalent-insecure)
    • avoidant (avoidant-insecure)
• Who added the 4th style? What is it?
  
  • ​Main & Solomon (1986) — disorganized: (disorganized-insecure); also referred to as “disoriented”
• ​How are these organized, graphically?
• ​What are the etiologies and characteristics of the different attachment styles?
  
  • ​see attached image

Question 3

describe how attachment styles affect development and future behavior:

• What is the clinical value of attachment styles in children?
• What are the issues that can lead to problems w/mentalizing?
• Why is mentalizing important?
• What is predictive of later behavioral problems in a child? What can this result from?
• How do infants try to fix themselves?
• According to Bowlby, what is psychopathology?
• What is the prevalence of attachment trauma & psychiatric problems?

Answer 3

• What is the clinical value of attachment styles in children?
  
  • internalized “working models” of relating reflect:
    
    • child’s internal representations of the relationship
    • quality of caregiver-child interactions
    • child’s expectations of caregivers’ responsiveness to attachment needs
    • child’s attempt to regulate affect and keep her/himself feeling safe
    • child’s capacity to mentalize
    • Still Face Experiment: Edward Tronick: What did we learn from it? ==> Concept of mirroring –Mirroring à ‘feeling felt’ a sense of self –Mirroring promotes self-expression, empathy, capacity to mentalize –What’s Mentalize mean? –The ability to see oneself “from the outside and see others from the inside.”
• What are the issues that can lead to problems w/mentalizing?
  
  • single most important factor in fostering mentalizing is a secure attachment
• Why is mentalizing important?
  
  • ability to mentalize enables one to consider behavior from multiple perspectives
  • failure to mentalize leaves one stuck in rigid, reactive, repetitive patterns of interaction
  • problems in mentalizing are prominent in personality disorders
• What is predictive of later behavioral problems in a child? What can this result from?
  
  • insecure attachment & indiscriminate attachment behavior are predictive of later behavioral problems in a child.
  • can be result of:
    
    • infants being reared in institutional settings
    • disrupted affective communication between parent and infant
    • particularly disorienting/confusing behaviors on the part of the parent
• How do infants/kids try to fix themselves?
  
  • reorganization
    
    • between 18 months and 6 years, many disorganized infants reorganize their attachment behaviors into controlling attachment behaviors toward the parent
    • these are designed to maintain the attention and involvement of the caregiver
      
      • the child seeks to control through punitive, hostile, or humiliating behaviors, OR
      • through solicitous, directing, and caregiving behaviors
• According to Bowlby, what is psychopathology?
  
  • “a succession of experiences that divert the direction of pathways away from resilience and competent functioning”
• What is the prevalence of attachment trauma & psychiatric problems?
  
  • at least 50% of psychiatric inpatients have a childhood history of severe chronic physical and/or sexual abuse
  • 80% of abused children have disorganized/disoriented attachment patterns
  • attachment failure leaves individuals vulnterable to anxiety and depressive disorders

Question 4

Describe key findings of Main’s Adult Attachment Interview research:

• Who came up with the Adult Attachment Interview? When?
• What is the big idea here?
• What is it, specifically?
• What were the results?
• What were the conclusions?

Answer 4

• Who came up with the Adult Attachment Interview? When?
  
  • Mary Main (1984)
• What is the big idea here?
  
  • an individual’s working model of attachment is observable in characteristic patterns of their narrative presentations
  • Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)
    
    • a means of studying the inner world of adult caregivers (and their children) through narrative analysis
• What is it, specifically?
  
  • One-hour semi-structured interview asking participants to describe childhood attachment relationships and experiences
  • In addition, the 1-year-old child of these parents was observed accoridng to the Strange Situation Procedure
• What were the results?
  
  • The way an adult was able to talk about early attachment experiences correlated with the attachment styles identified by Mary Ainsworth
  • Children of AAI mothers, when assessed in the Strange Situation, had the same style of attachment as the parent
    
    • we pass attachment styles down (important to think about when we become parents)
• What were the conclusions?
  
  • adult security is reflected in the ability to talk abou tpast attachment experiences in a coherent and collaborative way
  • mothers who are aware/reflective of their own attachment processes are more likely to be sensitive to child’s needs.
  • attachment styles of parents tend to be passed on to their children unless there are significant other influences/variables
  • attachment trauma can be especially destructive, important for HCPs to recognize this. Be aware of your own attachment processes and you’re more likely to have a positive experience as a HCP and parent.

Question 5

Apply knowledge of attachment styles to case scenarios involving personal and professional relationships:

• How do attachment styles affect mate selection?
• How do attachment styles affect interactions within the clinical setting?
• What are the implications for tranference/countertransference?

Answer 5

• How do attachment styles affect mate selection?
  
  • people enter into relationships as adults with interactional expectaitions
  • we tend to unconsciously seek out those who resonate with our early attachment figures and patterns of relating (attachment styles) however unsatisfactory they may have been
  • Ex. w/ Secure/Secure:
    
    • each partner functions as a secure base for the other
    • partners empathic to other’s needs
    • can move back and forth between dependent “child” and comforting “adult”
    • can openly express needs for comfort/contact, and also receive this.
  • Ex. w/Anxious/Avoidant:
    
    • becoe trapped in a vicious cycle
    • the ore the anxious partner demands love, the more the avoidant partner withdraws and/or attacks the other for expression of dependency needs
    • highly conflicted due to anxious partner’s fear of abandonment & avoidant partner’s fear of intimacy
• How do attachment styles affect interactions within the clinical setting?
  
  • with children: observing the parent-child interaction
    
    • office visits are a ready-made “strange situation”
  • with adults: patient-doctor relationship
    
    • the p/d relationship exists within a hierarchy of power, especially in crisis
    • to the extent this hierarchy replicates the early parent-child caretaking relationship, early attachment patterns will be mobilized
    • the particular sytle of each party (Pt./Dr.) will find its way into the p/d relationship
• What are the implications for tranference/countertransference?
  • implications for transference & countertransference
    
    • attachment driven behaviors are a major motivational force in pts seeking help and establishing a helpful relationship w/physician
      
      • they will also play a major role in how a physician molds a relationship w/any particular pt, how the relationship will evolve & function, and how well it will function
    • transference and countertransference are unconscious attempts to kep alive “original rules” governing attachment
      
      • these can be helpful or hurtful
      • they will always be present