Attachment involves “the strongest emotional bond” that human beings feel towards similar others, producing pleasure when carrying out interactions and seeking the person’s closeness in moments of anxiety and insecurity. It represents the strongest emotional side that we establish human beings with our peers: First of all, it is the mother, it probably lasts a lifetime. Subsequently, the relationship with siblings, friends, boyfriends, etc. It responds to one of the most basic and fundamental needs that human beings experience: the need to feel protected, safe and helped.
Attachment along with the search for a network social relationships and the need to maintain sexual activity Linked to desire and falling in love, they represent the most important needs, felt subjectively, that favor and encourage the survival, not only of the individual but of the species. Throughout life, diverse and different emotional bonds are maintained. It is instinctive that human beings seek these emotional ties for optimal development of the subject’s personality.
Attachment theories
Behavioral theories
Impulse reduction model: Vital importance is given to the role of feeding in the interaction established between mother and child. Dependent behaviors are due to a secondary impulse learned as a consequence of a repeated association between the presence of the mother and the satisfaction of satisfying hunger: The child becomes attached to whoever feeds him. It has been proven that children become attached to beings that at no time have intervened in their diet.
Operant conditioning model
Children look, smile and seek maternal proximity due to the response they receive from them-REINFORCEMENT. Observations indicate that abused children continue to seek physical contact with their parents. These models do not explain why and in what way the bonds established since childhood last throughout the life cycle even when the attachment figure is absent, and therefore, cannot satisfy primary impulses or provide any type of social reinforcement. Behaviorists would say that the attachment relationship would gradually become extinct and obviously experience tells us that this is not the case.
Hypotheses proposed by psychoanalysts
Model (in general terms) that defends that the quality of the mother-child interaction produces: a crucial effect on the subsequent development of the subject’s personality, and the emotional security necessary for the exploration of the environment and a cognitive domain.
Sigmund Freud. : “Inhibition, symptom and anxiety” essay in which he does not show any predisposition to accept the existence of primary follow-up responses that would be capable of establishing a link between the mother and the baby. The child becomes attached to the mother because she feeds him and also stimulates her erogenous zones (secondary impulse theory). Later he states that the phylogenetic bases have such primacy that it does not matter if the child has been breastfed or has been bottle-fed and has not enjoyed the tenderness of maternal care.
Anna Freud: From his first theoretical expositions a defense of the “secondary impulse theory” emerges, but from his studies an approach to “primary instinctive behaviors” is seen: Only in the second year of life does the attachment that arises from the child to the mother reaches its full development Children become attached even to mothers who are continually in a bad mood and sometimes behave cruelly towards them. The child’s attachment potential is felt present and when she feels the lack of one object, she will quickly fixate on any other.
Melanie Klein: states that the relationship “goes beyond the mere satisfaction of physiological needs”, but in her latest publications (1975) she is indecisive: she emphasizes the primacy of the breast and orality. expresses that the child from the beginning is aware that there is “something else” (theory of a primary desire to return to the mother’s womb. It highlights the importance of the non-oral component of the relationship that originates in the primary desire just mentioned. .
Spitz: who adheres to Freud’s thesis about the theory of secondary impulse, defends that authentic object relations arise from the need for food. Most of them are dissatisfied with the secondary impulse theory, but they do not feel capable of replacing it with another thesis. It has been members of the Hungarian school of psychoanalysis and ethologists who have defended the existence of primary monitoring responses to the mother.
Bowlby’s ethological theory: His theory is today the most accepted approach when explaining attachment relationships. Inspired by Imprinting Studies, it is a phenomenon thanks to which the offspring manage to be fed and, at the same time, be protected from possible predators. Critical period: limited time in life in which the organism is biologically prepared to acquire certain behaviors, all provided that it receives appropriate stimulation from the environment.
The importance of this concept lies in the fact that many psychologists have tried to find out if the “acquisition of complex social and cognitive behaviors of human beings take place in a very specific period of time.” Bowlby argues that “the baby’s innate tendencies cause adults to be nearby to help them survive.” Adults are prepared by evolution to respond to the baby’s signals, providing them with the necessary care and giving them the opportunity for social interaction. It is considered that the scientific application of the ethological model to child development begins in 1969, the date on which Bowlby published the first of his three books dedicated to the subject. This British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst observed the emotional problems of children who were raised in institutions and found that they had great difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships. His interest led him to give a “theological explanation of how and why the bond between mother and child is established.”
Bowlby’s theory reiterates the fundamental principle of classical ethology that defends that the establishment of a strong mother/child bond is vital for the survival of the baby. This attachment bond develops easily during a critical or sensitive period. After this time it may become impossible to form a truly intimate and emotional relationship.
Factors that affect the development of attachment
Studies show us that securely attached babies tend to have kind, receptive mothers who do not bother or mistreat their children. However, insecure children are children of mothers who lack all or some of these qualities.
Maternal deprivation and institutionalization: Spitz Institutionalized children who had been abandoned by their mothers: 3 months and 1 year: showed extreme sensitivity to infections, as well as a marked delay in development (put in cubbyholes, without stimulation and a caregiver for 7 or 8 children). (very prolonged maternal separation)
Analitic depression: they isolate themselves, lose weight, cry and suffer insomnia. (Irreversible depression).
Bowlby nor Spitz They stated that all institutions were harmful, nor that babies separated from their mothers suffered irreparable harm. The damage is significant, but not irreversible. These babies, who have lived in harsh conditions in the institutions of their countries of origin, come to our society with a great delay in relation to children of their age. But, if the socio-affective-cultural level of the family that adopts is high enough to be able to offer these children the emotional and cognitive stimuli that they have lacked, it is very possible that the delay will disappear and that they will become equal to children his age. The acceptance of adopted children by the rest of the extended family is essential when it comes to a speedy recovery and adaptation to the new family environment. The conditions of upbringing in shelters play a crucial role.
Breeding quality:
- Secure attachment: Parents sensitive to demands and needs (crying), who tried to adapt their behavior to that of their child.
- Insecure attachment: Avoidant, resistant, or disorganized/disoriented. Mothers who avoided physical contact and behaved routinely in baby care interactions.
Child characteristics: There are studies that link complicated births, premature children, illnesses in the first months and even the child’s temperament with problems in establishing emotional bonding. A child’s difficult temperament can cause anxiety that makes emotional bonding difficult. If parents have emotional, social and cognitive resources to handle it, these problems are avoided.
Parental attachment
When an adult has their first child, they have a large number of attachment experiences: with their parents, siblings, boyfriends,…
Main and Col: “Adult attachment interview.” Feelings of attachment that parents had in childhood and how they perceived relationships.
Self-employed: Secure attachment. They value and recognize the influence of attachment relationships. They talk about them objectively.
Misunderstood: Avoidant attachment. They despise attachment relationships and idealize their parents without providing examples to support them.
Worried: Resistant attachment. Emotional, they cannot speak objectively about their attachment relationships. Preoccupied with the past.
Pending resolution. They have not reconciled their past attachment relationships with the present. Sometimes, they are still coming to terms with the loss of their parents and the experiences related to it. Studies tell us that these types of attachment in adults are closely related to the type of attachment they establish with their children.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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