Karen, R. (1990). Becoming Attached. The Atlantic 265(2); 35-70.
This article speaks of the historical development of the attachment theory. That is to say, this article delineates how John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth had to struggle with criticism from the psychoanalytic and the scientific world. Bowlby/Ainsworth criticized the psychoanalytic world for focusing too much on the internalized workd, but not how it came about. Bowlby/Ainsworth tried to utilize and balance the two, making all parties unhappy. Mary Ainsworth tried using observations of mother/child dyad to assess attachment styles, and some criticized while other loved her observation techniques. Others questioned the generalizability of Ainsworth’s data. Ainsworth used the strange situation paradigm to observe how children respond to a new situation, given the mother’s leaving, and then returning to it. Each observation was correlated with many hours of in-home observations to ensure foreknowledge of the regular quality of the dyadic interaction style. One of the critics, Kagan (who studies temperament] claimed that you cannot put so much weight on one observation/one element of experience. Bowlby/Ainsworth thought otherwise, and countered with the “reminder” that infantile temperament is not stable throughout life. Behaviourists thought that infant’s crying is a learnt thing – it must be ‘worth it for the infant”. Bowlby/Ainsworth claimed that more attachment will reduce and not increase the distress signs.
Attachment theory’s basis was Harry Harlow’s observations that rhesus monkeys prefer a soft mother doll rather than a feeding/sharp-wired one. Similarly, Rene Spitz observed that infants with no maternal attention withered and died. Freudians were of course fuming at those observations.
Ainsworth’s initial attachment categories included:
1)
Securely attached – is
confident in sensitive responsiveness of the other, even when the secure person
has to cry/etc…
2) Insecure/anxious – to deal with maternal unavailability/inconsistency, the infant learns that others are unable to handle his negative feelings [dismissing or over-reacting to them], and may have to distort the/mis-communicate/ignore them. On the parental side, the parents think that the anxious child does not like them. Bowlby claims that insecure attachment is amendable early in life with supportive figures [i.e. secondary caregivers]. Attachment is harder to change once the child reaches adolescence. The insecure attached’s coping mechanisms [aggressive/cloying] are those that “protect” the child but also keep alternate sources of attachment away. Even after the mother may have gone through therapy, it will take time for the child to respond and introjects her changes.
a. Ambivalent – baby knows that the mother comes around on occasion, and shows anger at her for not doing so more often.
b. Avoidant – his cries have been rejected. Reaching out seems impossibly hopeless. The baby bight become narcissistically stuck by thinking “I can do anything, I do not need anyone!” Some parents promote such thinking, by saying that their child is so superior that he does not need comfort! Such distorted thought often stems from the parents’ own experiences. Bowlby thinks that narcissism is an offshoot avoidant attachment.
3) Disorganized attachment – i.e. abusive/incoherent messages: i.e. being harsh with a smile. Child seeks proximity in distorted ways. i.e. walk towards mother backwards/freeze half way/stare into space. This is a collapse of a strategy.
-in drastic change sort of cases, attachment could change for the better [or worse?]
Structure of the mind
Mary main: built an interview to access the parents’ internal working model. Categories of adult attachment include:
1) Securely attached [labeled “autonomous”]: those with good experiences or that have forgiven their parents for bad experiences.
2) Dismissive of early attachment: indifference to childhood experiences and little memory of their childhood bonding; idealized sense of parents, which contradicted recalled incidents. This is indicative of parental rejection or neglect. Those people present themselves as strong/independent, but emotionally reminiscent of the avoidant child.
3) Preoccupied with early attachments: confused/incoherent about their past. When interviewed, they are flooded with negative memories of early childhood.
4) Disorganized: unresolved trauma/abuse
-some disagreement between Bowlby and Ainsworth as to whether day care is bad [Bowlby], or acceptable [Ainsworth claiming that some surrogate caregiving is fine for infants].