Bowlby's Attachment Theory

There are three main theories of development that I shall discuss in this assignment, 'Cognitive', the main theorist being, 'Piaget', (1896 - 1980), The, 'Psychosocial Theory', 'Erikson', (1902 - 1994), and, The 'Psychosexual', of, 'Freud', (1856 - 1939).

The psychodynamic approach founded by Sigmund Freud was a lot of our behavior, is determined by unconscious thoughts, memories. Freud developed the first complete theory of mind and is the founder of a series of techniques called psychoanalysis. This aims to explore the unconscious mind by using techniques, such as free association, dream interpretation etc. and then and be used treat abnormal behavior. Psychodynamic psychology ignores the aspects of science and instead focuses on trying to get inside the head of individuals to make logic of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. (McLeod, 2007). Freud’s theories

1. According to Robert Sternberg, love goes through 3 stages of love he calls “The three dimension of love; passion, intimacy, and commitment. Sternberg believes when you go through the three dimension of love, there are also seven different type of love. The seven different type of love is liking, infatuation, empty love, romantic love, fatuous love, companionate love, and consummate love. The first dimension of love is passion; it is the process where we first start falling in love with a partner. Passion is what I call the “getting to know each other” stage of a relationship. The second part of the three dimension of love is intimacy. Intimacy is when you feel close to a person whether it’s emotionally or physically. It is also a stage where you share your deepest secret about you to the person who you feel that you’re in love with. Intimacy is where you feel the closest in your relationship. The third and final stage of the three dimension of love is commitment. Commitment is the phase where people decide that being with that one person is enough and they would spend the rest of their life being together that leads to marriage and children. I feel that Sternberg’s dimension of love is associated to Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation. “Adults seek someone with whom to share their lives in an enduring and self-sacrificing commitment. Without such commitment, they risk profound aloneness and isolation.” (Berger, p.525) I believe

Susanna starts her journey when her parents sent her to a therapist because of her fatal suicide. The doctor concluded Susanna with: “Severe depression and hopelessness and suicidal ideas” (Kaysen 13) which sent her to McLean Hospital. Some may claim that Susanna’s parents made the right choice of sending her to McLean since she was depressed and tried to commit suicide it would be the only rational explanation for her parents to do. Susanna did needed help however her parents were selfish and imprudent. This was during the 1960s, and Susanna parents were wealthy, respected, and diplomatic people.

Precious is a movie based on the novel Push by Sapphire (Daniels and Fletcher, 2008). It is on the life of an illiterate 16 year old African American girl, Claireece “Precious” Jones. (Natividad, 2010). I have applied John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and Erik Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development on the film. These theories helped identify an understanding of the characters, family group, and community in the film. I have primarily assessed Precious as the chosen character. This paper will analyze the many factors in assessing her human behavior.

“a way of conceptualising the propensity of human beings to make strong affectional bonds to particular others and of explaining the many forms of emotional distress and personality disturbance, including anxiety, depression, and emotional detachment, to which unwilling separation and loss give rise” (Bowlby, 1984 p.27).

A social relationship is defined as an interaction between two or more individuals, groups or organizations. The first relationship ever experienced is the family relationship. According to John Bowlby’s attachment theory, the patterns of attachment from our earliest relationships forms the type of attachments in our future relationships. This theory is meant to describe and explain people’s patterns of relationship from birth to death. It provides not only a framework for understanding emotional reactions in infants, but also a structure for understanding love, loneliness and grief in adults.

Psychology is the study of the behavior and mental processes of all living organisms. In psychology, different perspectives are made in order for us to have a better understanding of the different changes and behavior humans will undertake throughout their life. These “theories” help contribute to the study of human growth and development and provide us with a better understanding. They can be sorted into continuous or discontinuous, one course or many courses of development, and nature or nurture. In developmental psychology continuity and discontinuity are two theories that compete to try and explain how individuals change throughout their lives. The continuity theory says that someone changes for the duration of their life along a smooth course whereas the discontinuity theory instead claims that people change abruptly. A development theory is one course when it is believed that there is one universal common path for all people across all places and cultures. On the other hand, a development theory with many courses is stated to have specific stages for specific individuals across specific contexts. Lastly, the nature theory argues that we are born the way we are and genetics determine who we are and who we will become. The nurture theory argues that outside influences such as society determines

Developmental psychology recognizes three main models of psychosocial and cognitive development. The first theory, presented by developmental psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget, addresses cognitive development. The second theory, presented by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, focuses on the development of morality. The third theory, proposed by developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, outlines psychosocial development. All three theories are applicable from birth to death.

The Psychodynamic Psychology believes that we have innative drives which determine behaviour, however our early experiences shape these drives and our personality develops as a result of conflict resolution occurring in childhood towards adolescence. This approach was founded by Sigmund Freud who was criticised for having placed to much emphasis on sexuality especially in childhood and said about his largely unscientific nature of his research method might be an unreliable theory. He stated that

The psychodynamic approach is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces that underlie human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate to early experience. Sigmund Freud the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology or psychoanalysis. While he led the process to look at subconscious thoughts and desires most of his beliefs were wrong. Some beliefs are that our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences, Personality is made up of three parts: the id, ego and superego. Parts of the unconscious mind (the id and superego) are in constant conflict with the conscious part of the mind (the ego).

A psychodynamic theory is an observation that tells behaviour in terms of aware as well as unconscious concentrates including unconscious requirements as well as beliefs. However, in the 20th century, Sigmund Freud planned a psychodynamic theory giving to which character contains of the id accountable for characters including pleasure seeking, the superego which goes to obey the rules of parents as well as the society including the ego which mediates among them according to the difficulties of reality. Therefore, psychodynamic theories normally hold that childhood knowledges shape personality. As the theories are linked with psychoanalysis, a type of therapy that efforts to tell unconscious thoughts including the needs. However, not all psychologists agree psychodynamic theories including criticisers claim the theories lack supporting scientific data (Coursehero.com, 2016).Moreover, the other theories of personality such as the behavioural as well as the humanist theories.

The developmental psychopathology approach is the study of psychological problems and complexities in human development. It focuses on the atypical development of childhood through to adult life. According to Sroufe and Rutter (1984) it focuses on individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation throughout development. This approach is designed to prevent behavioural and emotional differences within development, whilst positively reinforcing the idea of typical development. Cases of atypical development can include ADHD, eating disorders, anxiety and many other developmental disorders that differ from the developmental population norm.

Developmental Psychology has widened my perspective and knowledge of the nature of development from humans’ infancy to adolescence and emerging adulthood. Although I have learned about biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes and periods of development, I am especially interested in socioemotional development in infancy because it is the foundation for a child’s future development. That is to say, if children have a healthy socioemotional development from infancy, they will have a healthy life later on. By understanding the developmental process in infancy, I will be fully prepared when I have children or when my family’s members do.

Leading up into the class I was both bit nervous and excited, since this was the first time in years that I haven’t taken a class outside of my particular major. As I was going through the course schedule, I had in my mind that I did not just want to take any old class just because I need it to graduate. So I came across developmental psychology and thought to myself that this would be a good fit because I enjoy learning about other people. Once class started, I was a little confused about how it the class was going to be, since I already had the thought in my head that I was going to be learning about people older in age. After understanding more about what I was going to learn from this class, I became much more excited because this is actually affecting me in my personal life now, as my wife is pregnant and due in December. I thought this was a great pre baby learning experience for myself, since each week I had the ability to learn everything from development, prenatal development, physical development, intelligence, temperament and attachment, gender role development, and development of the family.