attachment seminar

8/7/2019 ATTACHMENT seminar

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ATTACHMENT

-By DR. SOURAV DAS


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FREUD Formulations On The Two

Principles Of MentalFunctioning Earlypsychoanalytictheoryfar removed from both

Object Relations Theory and Attachment Theory.

Freuds early views(1911): Primary Process and

Secondary Process. Primary Process( Id)- mental functioning dominated

by needs and their hallucinatory wish fulfillment.

E.g.- dreams, fantasies.

Secondary Process(Ego)- more reliable means ofgratifying wishes, an adaptation to reality (a laterform of thought).

E.g.- logic, reasoning, calculated goal directedness.


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FREUDS OBJECTS IN RELATION TO THE

STRUCTURAL THEORY OF THE MIND

Freud believed, infantsat birth are notaware ofanyobjects outside themselves.

Only aware of hungerand its gratification:primary process (Id based).

There is a gradual but deliberate transitioninmental functioning to an adaptation to realityduring early intrapsychic development (birthofthe Ego).

For an infant, the objectcomesinto existence atthe dawnofthe secondaryprocess (Ego based).

21yrs later, Freud(1926) recognized that the firstobject-the mother-becomes identified with theinfants needfor security.


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OBJECT RELATION THEORY The later Neo-Freudiantheoristsbegan to explore the

structure and function of objects and their meaning forinfants.

Foremost among them was Melanie Klein, whoarticulated the idea that the objectis a constructedoutcome ofintense anxietyengendered by theinherentconflicts related to an infants aggressive andsexual drives.

She disagreed with Freud and stated that ego existsfrombirth and engages in object relations from birth.

She argued that formationofobjectsbegin at birth,first as primitive, affectively charged, unmodulatedpartobjects ofthe mothers breast, & later as anintegrated, whole, modulatedobjectroughly

corresponding to the mother.


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MELANIE KLEIN-OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY

She also described the concepts of Good breastand Bad breast in what she called theparanoid-schizoid position from birth to upto 6monthsofage;

And the depressive position where the infantbegins to realize boththe objects as a partofasingle mother, a unified whole.

However,aware ofrole of environment, she

nevertheless conceded that unconsciousprocesses are strongly influencedby the infantsactual experiencesatthe handsofthe mother.


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OTHER PROPONENTS

The Object Relations Theory, like

Protestantism, had many variations, the other

proponents were Margaret Mahler(normal

autistic phase, normal symbiotic phase, and

separation individuation), Otto Kernberg(

lack of differentiation between self and object

representations, leading to development ofpsychopathology- the borderline and

narcissistic personality disorder) etc. .


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BIRTH OF ATTACHMENT THEORY John Bowlby,an Objectrelations-trained

psychoanalyst, and a supervisee of Melanie Klein,distanced himself from Klein in the mid20th

centuryby disavowing drive theoryandincorporatingthe insightsof ethology.

He agreed with Kleinthat infants are oriented toenvironment from birth, but because drives donot exist, an infantsperceptionof environment

under normal circumstances is not distorted. The infant communicates with the caregiver using

a geneticallyprogrammed behavioralsystem.

He called his creation, AttachmentTheory.


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Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby's Canadian student, later

empirically testedhis theory and documented-

a) individual differences in infants qualityof

attachmenttothe motherand

b) individual differences inmaternal care givingtoattachment quality.

Mary Mainexamined the intrapsychiccomponents ofattachmentin additionto its

behavioral correlate, heralded the empirical study

of psychoanalytic aspect of Bowlbys theory,

namely, the internal workingmodel.


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COURSE AFTER BOWLBY

By the 1960s, Object Relation Theory and

Attachment Theory took divergingpaths, in

spite of their common origins.

ObjectRelation Theoryremained in the

Consultingrooms,nurtured by the

Psychiatrists and the Clinical Psychologists, and

used case studiesas retrospective evidence tosupport theoretical speculation, following

footstepsofSigmund Freud.


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The Attachmenttheorists, on the other

hand, moved into the laboratory, practiced by the

Developmental and Experimental Psychologists,

and employed the more scientifically rigorous, but

arguably less ecologically valid experimental

methods like prospective longitudinalresearchdesigns with comparison groups and large sample

sizes.


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The drift was so much so, that they came from different

academic backgrounds(Clinical vs Developmental

psychology), published their findings in different vs empirical),attended different conferences(psychoanalytic vs child

development), and took different career paths(clinician vs

academician), so much so, that the proponents of the two

theories seldom engaged in a dialogue with each other.

Only in the last 2 decades this mutual isolation has began

to change, and researchers from both theoretical perspectivesare beginning to conduct empirically based studies to

measure the theoretical overlap between key constructs like

object representation and internal working model.


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THEORY OF ATTACHMENT

Attachment definition:

Emotionaltone between childrenand their

caregivers and is evidenced by an infants

seeking and clinging to the caregiving person,

usually the mother.

Acc. To Bowlby, it is the centralmotivational

force in future life & personality.

Phases Of Attachment:


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PHASES OF ATTACHMENTPREATTACHMENT STAGE

BIRTH

3MON

THS

Babies follow theirmother with

their eyesover180 degree range

and turntoward theirvoice.

ATTACHMENT IN

THE MAKING

3m

6m

Infant becomes attached to one

or more persons in the

environment.

CLEAR CUT

ATTACHMENT

6m

24m

Children cry and show other

signs of distress when separated

from the caregivers.FOURTH PHASE >24m Able to tolerate separation from

mother without distress when

gets reassurance of mothers

return.


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JOHN BOWLBY:From Attachment And

Exploration To The Internal Working Model

Created his own theory of psychologicaldevelopment borrowing from the studies ofethologists Harlow and Zimmerman(1959)and Lorenz(1935) resulting in an explicitly

evolutionarytheoryof infants developmentof attachment to his or her mother.

He maintained, infants are geneticallyprogrammed with certain behaviorsto insuretheir survival.

Five instinctualclasses ofattachmentbehavior-

crying, smiling, sucking, followingand clinging.


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Crying and smiling function to elicitmaternal

caregiving, whereas sucking, following and clinging

function to seek proximityand maintaincontact,

thereby protectingthe childfrom predators and

other environmental dangers.

These behaviors suggest innate sociabilitytoothers beginat birth.

These 5 classes of behavior eventually become

integrated as a behavioral system and are directed

toward one person, the mother or primary

caregiver.


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The infants also make a direct impact on theirmothers immediately after birth, whichdramatically increases in efficiency with thecoordination of these 5 classes of behavior.

Initiallyreflexive and instinctual, these classes ofbehavior gradually become organized templatesusing previous interpersonal experiences to

forecastmaternalbehaviorin response to thecoordinated infant behavioral system.

This organisation becomes activated in responseto primary caregiver, usually between 9-24

months of age. Afteraninfant becomesattached,itisnearly

impossible toreprogramthe system..(similar toLorenz s Imprinting model with geeselings).


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Increased locomotion of the infant activates a

second behavioral system- exploration. The exploratory system also carries survival

promoting value by helping infants to develop

cognitive skills and obtain worldly experiences

necessary to survive for later independent

existence.

When attachment system becomes activated,

exploratory system becomes deactivated and

vice versa.


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The degree to whichthe parentprovides asecure base from whichthe infantcan explorethe environmentandto whichhe can return intimes ofperceived danger determines howsecurely attachedthe infantbehaves towardsthe caregiver.

Episodic memories of the caregiver responses areconsolidated into semantic memory, ageneralized, abstract memory that permitsexpectations to form, which actually forms thefoundation of the internal working model, thefirst mental representation.


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The internal workingmodel, rather than gratifyingan infants needs during the mothers absence,

represents a setofexpectations thathelp infantto predictthe mothers behavior.

Storing in memory how the mother behavesduring moments when the attachment is activated

will assist infants in adapting their behavior tomaximize feelings of security and insure survival.

As the infant develops, the goals of attachmentsystem evolve into a goal-corrected partnership,

in which infant and caregiver negotiate with eachother the caregivers availability to the infant.

The partnership is elastic, but attachmentsecurity nevertheless remains a lifelong concern

fromthe cradle tothe grave.


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Bowlby also discussed defensive processes withinthe infant-the defensive exclusion.

Extended separations from the caregiver requirethat the infant exclude attachment relevantinformation from the awareness.

Thus, unlike Freud, Bowlbysunconsciouswas nota cauldronofseething excitations, but rather arepositoryfor any painful aspects ofinterpersonal experiencein external reality like

rejection, loss, separation or death. Bolwbys theory implied that infants are accurate

interpretersof externalreality, and only laterdistort their perceptions of it, which in turn

produces psychopathology.


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BONDING

The term bonding, is often erraneously used

synonymouslywith attachment.

Bonding concerns the mothers feelingstowards her infant, and differs from

attachment in that its notassociatedwith the

sense ofsecuritythat comes with attachment.


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BOWLBY AND THE ETHOLOGISTS

Bowlby was profoundlyinfluenced throughoutthe course of his work by ethologists, mostinfluential among them being-

Harry Harlow: who demonstrated the emotional

and behavioral effects of isolating monkeys frombirth and keeping them from formingattachments.

Konrad Lorenz: (The geeseling experiment)the

phenomenon ofimprinting, and how certainstimuli can elicit innate behavior patterns duringthe first few hours of an animals behavioraldevelopment.


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MARY AINSWORTH

Mary Ainsworth, a Canadian student ofBowlbys, conducted naturalistic observational

studies of attachment patterns of infants with

their mothers and noticed individual

differences in the ways in which the infants

organised their attachment relationships.

For that purpose, she performed a laboratory

procedure, which she called The StrangeSituation.


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THE STRANGE SITUATION

In the experiment, the infant and the motherparticipate in a series of 8 three minute episodes thatenact-

1. Presence of mother and an observer,

2. Presence of mother,3. Presence of mother and a stranger,

4. Separation from mother and presence of stranger,

5. Reunion with mother,

6. Second separation from mother,

7. Reunion with stranger,

8. Second reunion with mother.


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PATTERNS OF ATTACHMENT

ORGANISATION

On the basis of individual differences in the

infants organisation of attachment behaviors

in response to these anxiety provoking

episodes Ainsworth classified the infants into3 categories:

A. Anxious - avoidant,

B. Secure,C. Anxious- resistant.


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DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF ATTACHMENT

ORGANISATIONA. ANXIOUS -AVOIDANT

B. SECURE C. ANXIOUS-RESISTANT

SELDOM CRY

WH

ENSEPARATED

FROM THEIR

MOTHER

AND AVOIDHER UPON

REUNION

CRY WHEN

SEPARATED,

VIGOROUSLY

SEEK

PROXIMITY

AND PHYSICALCONTACT

UPON

REUNION

DISPLAY INTENSE

DISTRESS WHEN

SEPARATED, AND BEHAVE

ANGRILY AND ARE

INCONSOLABLE UPON

REUNION; THEY SEEK

PHYSICAL CONTACT, YET

RESIST WHEN MOTHER

OFFERS IT


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EXTRAPOLATION OF THE STRANGE SITUATION

EXPERIMENT

Main and Cassidy (1988) later validated a modifiedStrange situation for six year olds and found thesame three attachment categories.

Other assessment procedures used for pre-schooland latency aged children yielded the sameresults.

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)conducted a meta analysis of 18 strange situationstudies and concluded that world wide

distribution of the three traditional patterns ofattachment are-

21% a, 65% B and 14% C.

This was identical to what Ainsworth and her

colleagues have originally found in 1978 study.


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OTHER OUTCOMES OF THE STRANGE

EXPERIMENT

Specific maternal behaviors assessed duringthe first 12 months predicted each of the threeoriginal attachment patterns.

Maternal sensitivity, emotional availability,responsiveness to infant cues and attachmentbehaviors, predicted infant attachmentsecurity at 12 months.

Maternal rejection of attachment cuespredicted infant avoidance, while

Maternal inconsistency in responding toattachment cues predicted infant resistance.


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LONG TERM STABILITY OF ATTACHMENT PATTERNS

Waters, Merik, et al(1995) established 64%

stability of attachment patterns after 20 yrs, and70% stability among those with no major negativelife events.

De Wolff and Ijzendoorn (1997) established that

sensitivity moderately predicts attachmentsecurity.

Thus, overt manifestation of patterns mightchange, but their underlying organisation

becomes increasingly resistant to change as pastinteractional experiences become: habitual,expected, and reliable forecasters of futurecaregiver behavior(Bowlby, 1980; main et al,1985).


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THE SECURE BASE EFFECT

Ainsworth also confirmed that attachmentserves to reduce anxiety.

What she called the secure base effect enables

children to move away from attachment figures

and to explore the environment.

Inanimate objects(what Donald Winnicot called

the Transitional object) can also serve as a

secure base, one that often accompanies them

as they investigate the world.


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MARY MAIN:and the Fourth Attachment Category

Mary main extended the attachment theory andresearch in two important ways:

1. She discovered a fourth pattern ofattachment(along with Solomon), later showedto be related to psychopathology;

The infants lacked both organization andcoherence to separation response and reuniondistress and there were wide diversity ofbehaviors in that category ranging from shriekingwith head averted to falling prone on floor upon

mothers return. Main named this category-

Disorganised/Disoriented.

Inspite of thorough searching, they found no new

categories of attachment.


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2. Main assessed the quality of attachment

patterns at the level of representation-theinternal working model.

She also stated, increasingly abstract

assessments of language replace concretebehavioral observations as indices of the

structure and function of internal working

model beyond infancy.


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CHANGES IN ATTACHMENT DURING

CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE

Age, cognitive growth and continued social experience

advance the development and complexity of the

internal working model.

In early childhood, parental figures remain the centre of

a child's social world, even if they spend substantialperiods of time in alternative care.

There appear to be limitationsintheirthinkingthat

restricttheirabilitytointegrate relationship

experiences into asingle generalmodel. Peers become important in middle childhood and have

an influence distinct from that of parents. Attachment

model shifts from contact maintenance to secure base

model to goal corrected partnerships in adolescents.


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ATTACHMENT IN CHILDREN & ADOLESCENTS

In mid childhood, relationships with peers have

an influence on the child that is distinct (they donot form attachment figures, unless parents areunavailable) from that of parent-childrelationships, though the latter can influence thepeer relationships children form.

Attachments to peers tend to emerge inadolescence, although parents continue to beattachment figures.. With adolescents, the role ofthe parental figures is to be available when

needed while the adolescent makes excursionsinto the outside world.

A single generalmodelofattachmentrelationshipsis developed duringadolescence.


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ADULT ATTACHMENT STYLES:FOUR CATEGORY

MODEL

Bartholomew and Horowitz(1991):

Extrapolating from Bowlbys parent infantattachment, this model examines both the

persons internalised self image as well as howthe person imagines other people.

One dimension is- selfimage:worthwhile/treasureable vs self doubts;

Other dimension is- beliefinothers:trustworthy vs unreliable/rejecting.


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FOUR CATEGORY CLASSIFICATIONSECURE DISMISSING PREOCCUPIED FEARFUL

Seek out &

are

comfortable

with intimate

relationships

Avoids close

relationships,

Value self

independence

Reluctant to

trust others,

Fearful of

being hurt.

Seek self

acceptance by

becoming

close to

others,

Vulnerable to

heart break

on failure of

partner to

meet strong

intimacy

needs.

Avoid getting

close to

others,

Fear pain of

rejection.


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ADULT ATTACHMENT STYLE AND ROMANTIC

RELATIONSHIPS

Klohnenand Bera(1998) examined theconnection between attachmentstyle andrelationship happinessin a longitudinal studyof

participants when each of them were 21, 27, 43,and 52 yrs old.

By age 52yrs, 95% ofsecure adults had beenmarried, and only 24% had ever been divorced.

While only 72% ofavoidantadults had ever beenmarried, and 50% of them had experienced adivorce.

O C O S S G O


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ROMANTICRELATIONSHIPS DEPENDINGON

ATTACHMENT STYLES

SECURE (B.) AVOIDANT (A.) ANXIOUS-

RESISTANT (C.)

Great dealof

love,

Strong

commitment,

Large amountof

trust

Able toaccept

and support

partners despite

personal faults

Ofintimacy,

Problems with

jealousy,Doesnt believe

in fallinginlove.

head over

heels or forever love istakenas

a joke.

Fallinlove many

times,

Difficulty finding

longterm

happiness,

Afraid oflosing

theirpartner,Quicktogive in

topartners

demands.


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ROMEO


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OTHELLO


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HOPE FOR THOSE WITH AVOIDANT OR

AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT STYLES

It may be possible forpeople tochange theirattachment style when they enter a secure, longlasting adultrelationship.

That relationship may specifically provide thesecure working model some people were deniedas children.

30% of young women in one study (Davila, Burge,

1997)changed their attachment style classificationover a two-year span.

It also makes it difficulttoassessifsecureattachment style was the cause or the effect.


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METHODS TO ASSESS ATTACHMENT IN

ADULTS

The mostcommoninterview method isthe AdultAttachment Interview (AAI) developed by MaryMainand hercolleaguesatthe UniversityofCaliforniaat Berkeley (Main and Goldwyn, 1993).

The AdultAttachment Interview contains 20-questions that asks the subject abouthis/her experiences with parents and other attachment figures, significant lossesand trauma and if relevant, experiences with their own children. The interviewtakes approximately 60-90 minutes. It is then transcribed and scored by a trainedperson

Anothermethod ofassessingadultattachmentis

the Adult Attachment Projective (AAP) developedby CarolGeorge of Mills College,and Malcolm Westofthe Universityof Calgary(George and West, 2001).

The test consists of eight drawings (one neutral scene and seven scenes ofattachment situations). The AAP drawings depict events that, according to theory,activate attachment, for example, illness, solitude, separation, and abuse. Thecharacters depicted in the drawings are culturally andgender representative.


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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Whereas Bowlby was inspired by Piaget's

insights into children's thinking, currentattachment scholars utilise insights fromcontemporary literature on implicitknowledge, theory of mind, autobiographicalmemory and social representation.

Psychoanalyst/psychologists Peter Fonagyand Mary Target have attempted to bring

attachment theory and psychoanalysis into acloser relationship through cognitive scienceas mentalization.


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Nowadays, increased the numbers of children livewith their unmarried or working mothers or same

sex couples,

Also, there is increase in the number of older-child

adoptions and adoptions from third-world sources

in first-world countries.

These complexities were not present in Bowlbys

time, and are now giving rise to more research in

this field.

NEWER HURDLESFOR ATTACHMENT

THEORY


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ATTACHMENT THEORY IN EXPLAINING ADULT

BEHAVIOR & PLANNINGSOCIAL STRATEGIES

Principles of attachment theory have been

used to explain adult social behaviours,

including mating, social dominance and

hierarchical power structures, groupcoalitions, and negotiation of reciprocity and

justice.

Those explanations have been used to designparental care training, and have been

particularly successful in the design of child

abuse prevention programmes.


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ATTACHMENT THEORY AND ROBOTICS

Bischof (1975): simulation of attachment behaviourwith a software simulation of infant approach andavoidance behaviours. This work didn't closely followBowlby's ideas on a control system formed of

independent behaviours. Its control mechanisms wereinstead based upon more abstract cybernetic controlcircuits.

More recently, several research groups working withrobots have created control systems that re-create

patterns of attachment behaviour, to exploit the use of'comfort zones' in the exploration of theirsurroundings.


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CRITICISM

a lot of personality traits come from their genes,

not their parents nurturing, as this can be seen in

the separated twin studies (Harris, 1998).

The first limitation is "model attachment is based

on behaviors that occur during momentaryseparations (stressful situations) rather than

during nonstressful situations. A broader

understanding of attachment requires

observation of how the mother and infantinteract and what they provide for each other

during natural, nonstressful situations" (Field,

1996, p. 543).


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CRITICISM.. Another problem with the attachment model is

that "the list of attachment behaviors is limited tothose that occur with the primary attachmentfigure, typically the mother. However, otherattachments are not necessarily characterized by

those same behaviors" (F

ield, 1996).

The last limitations to the attachment model isthat the mother is viewed as the primaryattachment figure, when in fact, a father orsibling can have the same type of attachmentwith the infant at the same time. This relates toadults having more than one primary attachment,such as to their spouse and child.


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THANK YOU !!!

attachment seminar

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