The Third Attachment In Infants And Adults

The importance of a healthy attachment in early childhood development can lead to a better adult development and skills for daily life. A secure and healthy attachment to the caregiver in infancy to adolescence showcases the importance of building strong relationships and coping skills during periods of stress and anxiety. The research that has been found, goes into detail about the different types of attachments that infants and children can develop as well as what negative and positive aspects come along with the attachments.

Mary Ainsworth is known for her ‘Strange Situation’ (Custance 2010) studies with children. Her theory was that the quality of an infant’s attachment depends largely on the kind of attention the infant has received. She observed the attachment styles of children, mostly aged between 12 and 24 months, by placing them in an environment and recording their reactions to their mothers (or primary caregivers) leaving the room and then returning. Based on these observations Ainsworth concluded that there are different types of attachment. Three types of attachment are: ‘anxious-avoidant’, where the child shows little upset with the stranger, but will avoid contact with the parent on their return. The ‘securely attached’ child is one that will show moderate levels of proximity seeking towards the parents and is upset by their departure but deals with the parents return positively, often returning to play. The third type is the ‘anxious-resistant’ child; greatly upset by the parent’s departure and on reunion seems angry and will not be comforted or picked up (Custance 2010).

Early attachments of children to their caregivers are a widely studied subject among psychologists. Childhood attachment theories draw their theses and components from cognitive, behavioral, and psychoanalytic branches of psychology; in the form that attachments deals with what a child is thinking, doing, and the analyses of these attachments in later life (Weiten, 2005). "Attachment refers to the close, emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers." (Weiten, 2005) The age that attachments start forming is usually between 6 to 9 months, depending on the child; prior to this, a child can be handed off to babysitters with little protest, but after attachments begin forming children may develop separation anxiety (Weiten, 2005, Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 2009).

An infant with a secure attachment style has a natural bond with their parent, where they are able to trust them, at the same time leaving their side to discover and explore their surroundings. In an insecure/resistant attachment the relationship the child has with their mother or caregiver is very clingy, thus making them very upset once the caregiver is away. When the mother or caregiver is back they are not easily comforted and resist their effort in comforting them. In an insecure/avoidant attachment the infant is, “indifferent and seems to avoid the mother, they are as easily comforted by a stranger, as by their parent” (Siegler 2011, p.429). Lastly, the disorganized/disoriented attachment is another insecure attachment style in which the infant has no way of coping with stress making their behavior confusing or contradictory. Through these brief descriptions of the attachment theory, many researchers have defined the turning point in which each attachment definition can have an influence on one’s self esteem, well-being and their marital relationship.

In resistant, anxious, or ambivalent attachments the infant has separation anxiety. In this style, the person is basically not there for you. He or she feels insecure when the mother is not present and this insecurity results from her being inconsistently available, leaving the infant afraid to leave her side (Strong & Cohen, 2014). About 10 percent of infants in our society have anxious or ambivalent attachments. In avoidant attachments the infant senses

Attachment is described as an "affectionate reciprocal relationship between an individual and another individual." Much psychological research has been carried out into the types of attachments that infants form with their caregivers, and the results gained from these studies show how early attachments can affect children whether positively or negatively.

Attachment is the bond that links humans to vital people in their lives. This bond begins to develop early on in life. According to Berk (2012), infants can become attached to regular people in their lives before the second half of their first year of life. These early attachments are normally to the primary caregivers of the infant.

From the start of childbirth, children depend on their parent(s) or caregiver(s) to take care of their needs in life (Rodrigue & Reeves, 2015). Four types of attachment to focus on are: secure attachment, insecure-resistant attachment, insecure-avoidant attachment, and insecure-disorganized attachment. Secure attachment refers to when the parent(s) or caregiver(s) are present in the child’s life. Children feel comfortable about being independent to an extent and will interact with new and familiar things on their own in the presence of their caregiver. Separation may cause distress, due to the dependence and attachment to the caregiver. Insecure-avoidant the child does not rely on the care giver for safety and will be precociously independent. They also do relatively well with the caregiver being non present and opened to interacting with strangers. Insecure-resistant attachment the caregiver has the child more focused on their presence and will avoid new experiences even if the caregiver is present. If separation occurs, they become distress and do not cope well even after their return. Finally, insecure-disorganized attachment children show more disoriented or strange behaviors. They will wander with no purpose and show engagement in any activity while being distressed and confused about what they should do or how to interact with or around the

By admitting infants diagnosed with neonatal hypoglycemia (low blood glucose levels in infants) into the Kennestone Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), infants are not in close proximity of their mothers. In addition to interrupting breast feeding, this disturbance in the mother-infant bonding creates separation anxiety for the infants leading them to being anxious-resistant or avoidant (insecure attachment patterns where infants are extremely distressed or unaffected by the separation respectively) in the strange situation, which is “a laboratory paradigm for studying infant-parent attachment” (Fraley, 2010).  Obtaining an insecure attachment pattern, instead of a secure attachment pattern (infants who seek for parental attention), impacts “multiple domains, such as emotional processing and executive functions” (Escobar et al., 2013, pg. 1).  In addition, insecure attachments correlate with “reduced attention to angry faces, which can reflect a failure to notice threatening stimuli” (Escobar et al., 2013).  Avoidance of disturbances between the mother-infant bond aids in

Over the years research has shown that attachment is critical to human development, and that in many ways early childhood attachments set up a framework for intimate relationships in adulthood. As they begin to develop an attachment with their caregivers infants go through several phases. The first phase is the asocial phase, which occurs during the first six weeks of an infant's life (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). The second phase is the phase of indiscriminate attachments, which lasts until the infant is six or seven months old (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). When infants are about seven to nine months of age they are go through what is called the specific attachment phase (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). It is during this time that infants establish their initial genuine attachments (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). The development of a secure attachment during this time is critical for, "… it promotes the development of exploratory behavior" (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). Finally, during the phase of multiple attachments, in which infants are about nine to eighteen months old, they begin to develop attachments to multiple people (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014).

Berzoff, Flangan, and Hertz (2008) recognize Ainsworth differentiated two types of attachment styles. The first type is avoidant infants, who did not protest their mother’s leaving and did not respond to her immediately upon her return. Ainsworth’s second type is insecurity, ambivalent infants (also called resistant) were upset when their mothers left and seemed to welcome their return, but did not calm down readily and they often resisted their mothers attempt to calm them down. Max is a four year old child, who experienced a full term labor. Holistically his biological functioning was determined as appropriate having met all of his developmental milestones. Unexpectedly, Max experienced repeated trauma in early childhood and he was separated from his biological mother.

When attachment does not happen whether due to neglect, child abuse or even an autistic child then the baby tends to display the last three types of attachment. I think it depends on the type of child, or the child’s personality. A child who is extremely neglected or even abused probably has behavior problems as an adult, perhaps trust issues or severe emotional problems. It really boils downs to the type of attachment they had with their mother and then other types of attachment and bonds they formed later in life.

Discusses the attachment principles in relation to infant/toddler care programs. Emphasizes a secure base for exploration of physical and social worlds, physical comfort, and child-teacher relationships. Concludes by describing the five major benefits of attention to attachment concepts for the infant care field in

John Bowlby, who originally developed the theory of attachment, describes it as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Somerville, 2009). Furthermore, there are four main characteristic of infant attachment, proximity maintenance, safe haven, secure base, and separation distress. Proximity maintenance is the desire to stay close to the people we have formed an attachment. Safe haven refers to the action of returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety when danger or fear is present. A secure base is a place where the attachment figure acts as a base of security from which a child can explore the surrounding world. Separation distress is the anxiety that occurs when the attachment figure is absent (Cherry, 2011).

Lastly, avoidant attached infants are untroubled when the caregiver leaves and returns. The infant wants to keep closeness to the caregiver but this attachment style lets the infant maintain closeness to the caregiver even in the face of rejection. In order to control their feelings of distress and to prevent more rejection, the infant may just give up on seeking closeness to the caregiver (Walsh, 2015).