Attachment overheads

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Attachment overheads

• Class Notes

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Attachment

• Theories of John Bowlby
• Parent-child relationship
• What happens when children are raised in relative
  states of maternal separation?
• Films institutionalized children staying in
  hospital wards.
• Three-phase separation behaviors resulted.

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Attachment

• Issue universality of stages.
• Stages
• Stage one Protest
• Stage two Despair
• Stage three Detachment

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Attachment

• Bowlby felt that the mother-child bond was
  adaptive important for survival.
• Bowlby was very influenced by Karl Lorenz and his
  work on imprinting innateness and adaptiveness
  of behaviors.
• Bowlby felt that attachment was innate on the
  part of the infant and caregiver.

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Attachment

• Certain behaviors connected with attachment.
• Critical or sensitive period for the development
  of attachment.
• Monotrophy main attachment figure.
• Model for future relationships.

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Attachment

• Mary Ainsworth conditions that activate
  childrens attachment systems.
• Strange situation baby in an unfamiliar room
  with a stranger.

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Attachment

• Eight episodes measured four behaviors.
• Willingness to explore
• Separation anxiety
• Stranger anxiety
• Reunion Behavior

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Attachment

• Definition of attachment put slide up here.

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Attachment

• Infant Characteristics that promote Attachment
• kewpie doll appearance
• Rooting, sucking, grasping reflexes
• Cooing, babbling
• Smiling
• Crying
• Responsiveness to social overtures

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Attachment

• Infant Characteristics that make attachment
  difficult
• Physically unattractive (e.g.) premature
• Reflexes weak
• Irritable, few smiles
• Little pleasant vocalization
• Irritating shrill
• Easily over stimulated, resists or ignores social
  overtures.

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Attachment

• Caregiver characteristics that hinder attachment
• Maternal depression
• Abused mother
• Mother does not want baby
• Mother unable to take lead in establishing
  interactions
• Mother insensitive to infant cues and may under
  or overstimulate child.

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Attachment

• Several children in family
• Poor marital relationship.

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Attachment

• Schaffer and Emerson Stages in Social Attachment
• Asocial stage 0-6 weeks
• Indiscriminate attachment stage 6 wks to 6-7
  months
• Specific attachment stage 7-9 months
• Multiple attachment stage shortly after stage 3

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Attachment

• Theories of attachment
• Psychoanalytical Theory
• Learning Theory
• Ethological Theory

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Attachment

• What does the research say about attachment?

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Attachment

• Types of Attachment
• Secure Attachment
• Insecure Attachment (anxious / resistant)
• Insecure Attachment (anxious / avoidant)
• Insecure Attachment (disorganized / disoriented)

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Attachment

• Ainsworths Caregiving Hypothesis
• Quality of attachment dependent on attention,
  responsiveness, sensitivity.
• Inconsistent caregiving leads to insecure
  attachment (anxious / resistant)
• Impatient caregiving leads to anxious and
  avoidant attachment.
• Abusive caregiving leads to disorganized /
  disoriented attachment.

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Attachment

• Kagans Temperament Hypothesis
• Quality of infants attachment dependent upon
• Easy temperment secure attachment
• Difficult temperment insecure (anx/res)
• Slow to warm up temperment insecure (anx /
  avoidant)
• Research evidence?

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Attachment

• Symptoms of a reactive attachment disorder see
  handout on the website.
• What can we do to help?
• Provide highly predictable environment.
• Avoid intimacy too soon.
• Holding therapy?
• Failure to thrive cases.
• Reparenting work.