Attachments
Attachments are emotional bonds that connect individuals to each other. Attachments may be categorized into primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary Attachments are attachments to parents and siblings. Secondary Attachments are attachments to friends. Tertiary Attachments are attachments to your job and the community at work. [1]
Related LP Terms
Attachments > Attachment Algorithm, Locus of Attachment
Non-LP Related Terms
Notes
Attachments may be classified into Active Attachments, Broken Attachments, and Inactive Attachments
Destruction of attachments is a component of Toxic Socialization
Attachment is a critical need (see Seven Essential Needs)
Healthy attachments are required for health and longevity.[2]
Attachments are destroyed by inattentive adults.
Consequences of Fractured Attachments
"...there is evidence indicating that insecure children [and adolescents] show heightened physiological responses to and/or poorer down regulation of stress, but it is not entirely clear which insecure subgroups are most affected."[3]
Children with Fractured Attachments show heightened cortisol responses to a stressor and also a more flattened cortisol profile compared to non-disorganised children..."[4]
Treatment
Attachment focused interventions like Attachment and Bio-behavioural Catch-up (ABC) can help with children. [5]
"...a sensitivity-focused video-feedback intervention for toddlers at risk of behavioural problems replicated this result of a reduction in basal cortisol, although only among children with the variant of the dopamine D4 receptor gene referred to earlier in this article, who might be considered at risk of cortisol hyper-reactivity."[6]
Attachment Theory (Bowlby)
Types of attachment
Secure type is observed in the well-known Strange Situation Procedure when a child misses the caregiver when absent and seeks con tact and comfort, which is effective, when they return.
In the avoidant pattern, young children actively avoid contact with the caregiver when they return,
The resistant pattern is marked by heightened anxiety even before the caregiver leaves, and anger and extensive distress when reunited.
Disorganised attachment is a form of attachment in which the child appears to lack a coherent strategy for dealing with the stress of separation and may become disoriented, frozen, or overtly fearful.
These three non-secure forms of attach ment, and particularly disorganised attachment, are thought to represent a relationship- based vulnerability to future stressors and to poorer social and emotional adjustment. These types of early attachment are observed relatively commonly and in circumstances where the parent–child relationship has not been severely disrupted.
In more extreme circumstances, such as exposure to institutional rearing, repeated changes in primary care- givers or severe social neglect, two types of disturbed attachment behaviour have been described. One is a disinhibited pattern, characterised by indiscriminate social approach and lack of wariness of strangers – captured in the diagnostic category Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder (DSED; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The other is an inhibited pattern, characterised by extreme social withdrawal, lack of comfort-seeking from and emo- tional reciprocity with available caregivers, reflected in the diagnostic category Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The key distinction between disorganised attachment and attachment disorders (DSED or RAD) is that while disorganisation is seen as conferring increased risk for maladjusted developmental trajecto ries including psychopathology, DSED and RAD are shown pervasively across relationships and situations and are considered an indication of psychopathology themselves.[7]
"...temperament appears to play a very limited role in attachment security generally ..."[8] In other words, genes don't cause attachment problems, environments do. This is confirmed by the "remarkable" results of twin studies which show strong environmental determination.[9]
Causes
"There is strong evidence that the environment, and specifically severe neglect, is the major determinant of the more severe forms of disrupted attachment behaviour, such as those observed among children classified as having RAD or DSED. The clearest evidence of this comes from the English Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study which found high rates of DSED-type behaviour in children rescued from Romanian orphanages and placed in UK adoptive families. The degree of this last type of behaviour was highly dependent on how late in development the children were removed from the institution; for example, more than 30% of children placed in adoptive families after the age of 18 months were classified as having DSED at age six years compared to half that rate in those placed earlier."[10]
Footnotes
- ↑ Sosteric, Mike, and Gina Ratkovic. Lightning Path Workbook Two - Healing. Vol. 2. Lightning Path Workbook Series. St. Albert, Alberta: Lightning Path Press, 2017. https://www.lightningpath.org/lp-workbooks/
- ↑ Sosteric, Mike and Gina Ratkovic. “It Takes a Village: Advancing Attachment Theory and Recovering the Roots of Human Health with the Seven Essential Needs.” Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 2022. https://doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol34iss1id887.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019): 274–93. p. 282.
- ↑ Luijk, Maartje P.C.M., Nathalie Saridjan, Anne Tharner, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn, Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, Vincent W.V. Jaddoe, Albert Hofman, Frank C. Verhulst, and Henning Tiemeier. “Attachment, Depression, and Cortisol: Deviant Patterns in Insecure-Resistant and Disorganized Infants.” Developmental Psychobiology 52, no. 5 (July 1, 2010): 441–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.20446.
- ↑ Dozier, Mary, Elizabeth Peloso, Erin Lewis, Jean-Philippe Laurenceau, and Seymour Levine. “Effects of an Attachment-Based Intervention on the Cortisol Production of Infants and Toddlers in Foster Care.” Development and Psychopathology 20, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 845–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579408000400.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019): 274–93. p. 283.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019.): 274–93. p. 275.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019): 274–93. p. 276.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019): 274–93. p. 276.
- ↑ Oliveira, Paula, and Pasco Fearon. “The Biological Bases of Attachment.” Adoption and Fostering 43, no. 3 (2019): 274–93. p. 278.
