People tend to think of attachment as something negative. As something to run away from and stay away from. You’ve probably heard the phrase “release maternal attachments” or something similar. But what if I told you that attachment can be positive? What if you found out that good attachment is essential? In this article, you’ll find out why, and you’ll go deeper into the types of attachments and how they affect your life.
What is attachment?
Attachment can be defined as a deep and lasting emotional bond between two people. This relationship is characterised by a search for intimacy with the other person and a sense of security. In general, attachment refers to the way you interact with people with whom you form deep emotional bonds. The primary bond that people form in their lives is with their first caregivers. This is usually a bond formed with their mother or father. Attachment, therefore, can be defined as the bond formed between a child and their parent or primary caregiver.
It turns out that this issue does not go unnoticed in adulthood either. The way you manage your emotions or relate to yourself, your fears, your choice of partner or the way you express yourself are directly linked to the type of attachment you developed in childhood. Early experiences and feelings leave a very deep mark afterwards. It is in the first two years of life that attachment patterns between child and parents become important. Depending on what these first impressions of the environment look like, you create a way of seeing the world and interacting with it.
If this relationship is based on intimacy and care, there is a good chance that the person will develop in a healthy way as they grow older. However, if parents neglect this care, the child will develop health problems and may not survive. This is why people are biologically prepared to form this important bond with and care for others. Look at how important this is! As a child, you depend on someone who will later affect your life. Also think about your children, if you have any. What do you think? Is your care enough for them? Are you really doing everything you can to make sure that your relationship has a positive impact on his or her adult life?
John Bowlby’s attachment theory
Child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby was the first to formulate attachment theory, exploring the relationship and bond established between a child and his mother. He created it in the 1950s and 1960s and contributed greatly to work on the parent-carer relationship. He found that both the resilience of adolescents and their behaviour and subsequent emotional development were directly related to the type of bond that children form with their parents in their early years.
Young individuals are influenced by the bond formed during their first period of life. In this sense, the type of relationship that is established between an infant and its caregiver determines its behaviour and subsequent emotional development. The style of attachment established in childhood can be seen in adults’ fears or insecurities and the way they cope with them. Bowlby defined attachment as “any form of behaviour that results in a person achieving or maintaining intimacy with another prominent and preferred person”.
What is attachment theory?
Bowlby believed that attachment has four characteristics:
- intimacy maintenance: this is the desire to be close to so-called attachment figures, i.e. the people with whom the closest bond was established during childhood (mother, father, grandmother, grandfather or any other caregiver);
- safe haven: return to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of fear or danger;
- a secure base: the attachment figure acts as a secure base from which the child can explore the environment;
- Separation anxiety: This is the anxiety that arises when the object of attachment is absent.
Attachment theory – 3 key ideas
The researcher also developed three basic ideas about attachment theory. First, he suggested that when children are brought up with the belief that their primary caregiver will be available to them, they are less likely to experience fear. Secondly, he believed that this trust is formed during a critical period of development, especially in early childhood. The expectations that arise during this period tend to remain relatively unchanged for the rest of a person’s life. This is why attachment is so important. Finally, he suggested that the expectations that are formed are directly related to experience. This means that past events influence current expectations. For example, a child who has received appropriate care several times will expect the same behaviour in each subsequent situation.
Attachment theory explains that an infant’s attachment to a parent is based on maintaining closeness, the need for a safe haven in which comfort can be found when there is fear or danger. However, these needs are not always met. Not everyone has a caregiver they can rely on. Thus, depending on how all these needs are met, we can identify the attachment styles that Bowlby collaborator Mary Ainsworth worked on. Secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachment styles. Later, the disorganised style was added. You will soon learn more about what characterises each of them.