Today's message, “The Theory of Attachment”

Our thoughts, beliefs and patterns of behavior are largely shaped and conditioned in childhood, and the way synthesize the information we receive from the world around us, especially in the types of adult relationships we seek, discard or keep, can be attributed to those years—in how we attach to our caregiver in infancy through childhood.

There are so many benefits in deconstructing our early attachments and one is to better understand how the past might be showing up unconsciously in our present moment in our relationships with others. In excavating our early childhood experiences, we can begin to understand the why, when and how we got here.  
 
 So what is attachment theory?

In the “Importance of Early Emotional Bonds,” it states that, ”Attachment theory is focused on the relationships and bonds between people, particularly long-term relationships, including those between a parent and child and between romantic partners. British psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a 'lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.' "

Early attachment experiences, and their impact on adulthood, have been captured in numerous scholarly research studies, showing negative experiences in infancy and childhood are often linked with poor outcomes in education, health and relationships with others.

In 1975, the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children began, which has since predicted with 77% accuracy whether a child would drop out of high school based off the type of attachment experienced in infancy with the mother.

Additionally, the Harvard Mastery of Stress study showed that 91% of people they interviewed who expressed a broken relationship with their mother also experienced health issues including coronary artery disease, hypertension, and alcoholism,.

The conclusion: “Since parents are usually the most meaningful source of social support for much of early life, the perception of parental caring, and parental loving itself, may have important regulatory and predictive effects on biological and psychological health and illness.”

Someone I greatly admire and follow on Instagram is Dr. Nicole LePera, the holistic psychologist.  And, in her book, “How to do the work” she discusses positive and negative attachments formed in early childhood. 

A positive attachment would be one where the mom/dad/primary caregiver was attuned to the child’s needs and capable of handling their own stress in order to respond to the child’s needs.

Now, there are three types of negative attachment Dr. LePera describes.

The first is Insecure Avoidant, the caregiver was disconnected from the emotional needs of the child (think no hugs and little empathy).

The second is Insecure Anxious, caregiver responds to the needs of self first, so there is inconsistency (think mood based attentiveness, if I’m in a bad mood, child suffers my mood too).

The third is Insecure Avoidant, caregivers is abusive and not capable of regulating their emotions (think silent treatment, slamming doors, manipulation, threats, name-calling, blaming and shaming).

Connect with me: Instagram.com/megan_nycmom