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Attachment – A Reasonably Brief, Very Interesting Overview

Introduction

  1. Members of the Attachment Network Wales are drawn from a variety of professional contexts and have developed the following document to outline a consensus view on the meaning of attachment and its implications. It is acknowledged that attachment is a complex area. As the Network developswe anticipate that links will be embedded in the text to allow access to more detailed information.

What We Mean By Attachment

  1. Attachment is much more than being fond of someone or spending time with them, although both of these are vital to the growth of healthy attachment relationships. It is an ongoing, two-way process requiring continuity and consistency of ‘good enough’ caregiving from adult(s) bearing the major responsibility for parenting. The mother child attachment relationship will usually begin to develop during pregnancy. Children’s development continues to be shaped by their experiences within these vital relationships particularly during their first three years, although growth and change can take place throughout their lives.

Why Does Attachment Matter?

  1. If children grow up in homes where care-giving and nurturing is consistent and predictable children will develop well, with a sense that their caregivers are a secure base from which they can explore the world with confidence and trust.
  2. ‘Good enough’ caregivers are able to match their expectations to their children’s abilities, express their delight at new achievements and give praise. They will also provide encouraging, sensitive step-by-step guidance and clear, safe boundaries as their children grow and develop. The process through which this takes place is frequently referred to as attunement, whereby caregivers demonstrate their empathic understanding of the child’s internal emotional state and engage in mirroring and containing behaviour : ‘When two individuals {in this case caregiver and child} are attuned, they are in synch….and manifest a similar degree of intensity in their present experience. This is evident in the rhythm of their expressions, with a matched degree of animation or peacefulness…. [The child] feels understood by the other. He knows that his parent gets it….’ (Hughes, 2009:38)

Healthy children

  1. In physical terms, healthy attachment relationships provide the security, nutrition, nurture, sensory and movement experiences that allow young children to develop healthy bodies, to establish regular patterns of eating, sleeping, playing and relaxation and to gain increasing control over their bodily sensations and movements. This process of sensitively and dependably meeting children’s physical needs fundamentally influences how safe and competent they feel and how independent they become.

Happy Children

  1. In psychological terms, the quality of attachment relationships profoundly affects the way children feel about themselves and how they relate to other people. Healthy attachments allow young children to gain increasing understanding and regulation of their emotions, internalise social rules through understanding and anticipating other people’s responses; they will be able to form enduring relationships with others. These abilities develop from infants’ and young children’s experiences of being supported by caregivers to identify, name and make sense of their feelings through repeated, responsive everyday interactions.

Capable Children

  1. In intellectual terms, the attachment environment contributes powerfully to children’s capacity to learn and to reach their full potential. Encouragement and feedback from caregivers and repeated opportunities to practise and consolidate new skills, enables children and young people to reach developmental milestones and to continue to expand their thinking and reasoning capacity into adulthood.

What If Children’s Early Attachments Do Not Go Well?

  1. Some children grow up in homes where caregiving is inconsistent, unpredictable, inappropriate, neglectful or abusive. Others may experience caregiving that is interrupted by events, such as bereavement, separations, illness or family reconstitution. Such children may not trust that their caregivers are “on their side” to support, guide them and provide them with safe boundaries. They may not develop a secure base from which they can find out about themselves and the world with confidence. Under these conditions children may struggle to develop in the positive ways outlined in the previous section.
  2. Children whose caregivers have not adequately and consistently helped them make sense of and cope with strong feelings are likely to experience a further range of social, thinking and organisational difficulties. Examples of this can include: struggling to plan ahead or think things through, difficulties adapting to change, showing empathy for others or maintaining positive relationships.
  3. Children who have not felt adequately cared for (both physically and emotionally) are prone to shame and self–esteem difficulties associated with not having felt important or being worthy of others’ love. They also tend to experience emotions as confusing or overwhelming and can struggle with calming themselves down when they are very scared, angry, frustrated or over-excited (self-regulation of emotions). They can have considerable difficulty understanding others’ emotions and often misinterpret their intentions. These difficulties arise from having caregivers whose efforts to help their children process, make sense of and cope with emotion, are inadequate and inconsistent.
  4. Shame responses can be set off by any perceived of disapproval or threat. There can be enduring oversensitivity to benign or relatively minor events such as playful teasing, gentle criticism, or even praise. This can trigger rage or “shut-down” as a defence against intolerable feelings. A propensity to intense feelings of shame is strongly associated with enduring social and emotional difficulties.

What Do We Mean by ‘Good Enough’ Parenting and Attachments?

  1. Frequently caregivers themselves have had poor attachment relationships as children and are unable to be the dependable, well-balanced role models, they would like to be, for their offspring. They may have been in and out of care (Looked After) themselves as children. Often, they will have been pre-occupied by other life experiences that distract them from the attachment relationship;such as mental health problems, substance misuse or their own relationship difficulties. These circumstances can block their capacity to nurture their child well.
  2. No one can be the perfect parent and no one reaches adulthood without some ‘flaws’ in their attachment patterns. Caregiving, too, varies from individual to individual and yet, in most cases, it is ‘good enough’ to allow children to developbalance in their neurobiological systems, perceptions, beliefs, thinking and behaviour to do well in most situations and to handle everyday challenges. In their turn these individuals will be able to give and receive love, understand and trust those around them and seek support when they need it.

How Do We Know This?

  1. Theories about attachment and development have been with us for decades, drawn from observation, initially of animals, and subsequently ofhumans in varying circumstances and across cultures. In recent years there has been a marked growth in research on how babies’ brains and bodies grow and develop together. Studies show that the bodies and brains of children raised in homes where attachment is inconsistent, absent or interrupted (see para 8) develop in markedly different ways from those of children who have ‘good enough’ care.
  2. We now know that the bodies, brains and minds of maltreated children adapt to survive their current circumstances. Once patterns have been established they are likely to continue, even if circumstances change. This has implications for children’s physical health, such as coordination and speech and language acquisition, as well as their emotional and intellectual development.
  3. Insecure attachment patterns are an adaptive response to aid survival in adverse circumstances; they continue to influence perceptions of self, others and relationships, and can perpetuate defensive behaviour, even following an improvement in circumstances.
  4. There is a growing body of evidence that these patterns of relating to others are ‘driven’ by early attachment experiences and associated brain development. A child, young person or adult could therefore be said to have little choice in their pattern of behaviour in the absence of effective intervention and guidance. These patterns of relating to others are in effect “survival strategies.”
  5. Children from warm and loving families may also develop attachment difficulties due to unavoidable separations from their primary caregiver(s) for long or repeated periods during infancy, for example, due to prematurity, illness, or bereavement.

How Long Do the Effects of Poor Attachment Relationships Last?

  1. Poor early attachments can have long term consequences that unfold over the lifespan. For example, children and young people with attachment difficulty are more likely to become Looked After Children (LAC), be adopted, require the input of mental health services, engage in anti-social behaviour that may develop into offending. They are also likely to experience difficulties in relationships with others. Without timely, effective and informed support, poor early attachment experiences continue to affect young people’s perceptions, reactions, thinking and behaviour and make it likely that they will adopt self-destructive or anti-social ways of coping.
  2. Although these “survival strategies” may help children and young people manage their lives and protect themselves in the short term, they ultimately become unhelpful and increasingly entrenched, leading to more complex problems. In turn, these patterns will ultimately affect the way they take care of their own children. This is often referred to as the “intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns”. Early developmentally-based attachment support programmes are essential if we are to interrupt and change these dysfunctional patterns.
  3. Children and young people with attachment difficulties may be perceived by others to have a “bad attitude”, to be “attention-seeking”, “manipulative”, “controlling” or as having “emotional and behavioural difficulties” or “challenging behaviour”. Conversely, they may present as overly-compliant, quiet, conflict avoidant, indiscriminately friendly and eager to please. The attachment needs of these children and young people can often be overlooked. However, for this latter group problems may become more overt in adulthood as they are at risk of victimisation, chronic anger and experience turbulent lives and relationships.

What Can Be Done to Help Children and Adults with Poor Attachment Histories?

  1. Attachment patterns are laid down during the first years of life and are relatively fixed, so that they continue to inform an individual’s feelings, thinking, behaviour and relationships throughout their lifetime. However, with the right help these patterns can be improved at any stage of life. Just as a stroke sufferer can be encouraged to practise new ways of coping, those with attachment difficulties, however serious, can be helped to feel and act differently if they develop a secure attachment relationship with someone who is consistently available. Through this different interpersonal experience they can gradually learn to recognise, regulate, reflect and reshape their perceptions, feelings, expectations and reactions to the world. In time, people with attachment difficulties, whatever their age, are better able to understand and regulate themselves. There may be associated neurobiological changes as a result of this developmental process.
  2. In children and young people the primary influence that will promote positive attachment is empathic, containing, responsive and consistent care. Sometimes this will be through placement in new families where children and young people can experience different and more positive relationships. Often they will need attachment-focused interventions to support these changes. This usually involves working with the young person, the caregiver(s) and helping them make sense of current behaviour in the light of past experience. Caregivers are likely to need ongoing access to therapeutic support, information and guidance.
  3. For other children and young people, a period of therapeutic residential care can prove helpful. In a small minority of cases a temporary placement in a secure setting might be warranted to provide the structure and routine and a secure base. This serves as the foundation for the development of trusting relationships and opportunities for self reflection. Such a period of safe containment will only be necessary for the most chaotic and ‘at risk’ young people with attachment difficulties. For this group of young people active steps should be taken to foster good supportive attachment relationships outside the institutional setting.
  4. Early interventions to ameliorate attachment difficulties will be most effective. However adults of any age can also attain a degree of attachment security through consistently “good enough” relationships over an extended period, such as with a partner, mentor, counsellor or therapist. Although long-established attachment related problems can seem devastating and highly challenging, adults can achieve attachment security that brings improved insight, health, well-being and resilience at any time during their lives. Such improvements can help break the ‘intergenerational transmission of unhealthy attachment patterns’.

Reference: Hughes, D.A. (2009) Attachment-Focussed Parenting: Effective Strategies for Children, W.W. Norton & Co., New York

Authors:

Caroline ArcherJonny Matthew

Richard DownTricia Skuse

Charlotte DruryJan Wigley

Thanks to Attachment Network Wales

Definition of Attachment – Attachment Network Wales/Rhwydwaith Ymlyniad Cymru – April 2012