Creating a Secure Base: Understanding Attachment Theory

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Creating a Secure Base Understanding
Attachment Theory

• University of Utah Summer Institute
• Summer 2003
• Douglas Goldsmith, Ph.D.
• Executive Director
• The Childrens Center

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Attachment

• Emotional bond
• Behaviors promote proximity
• Motivational system to seek proximity
• Enhances feelings of security
• Motivates baby to take action when frightened

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Attachment

• To say of a child (or older person) that he is
  attached to , or has an attachment to, someone
  means that he is strongly disposed to seek
  proximity to and contact with the that individual
  and to do so especially in certain specified
  conditions. Bowlby
  (1988)

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Attachment in Action

• Anxiety provoking situation
• Exploration decreases
• Proximity seeking increases
• Infant regains security
• Exploratory system re-engages

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Attachment Behavior

• Attachment behaviour is any form of behavior
  that results in a person attaining or maintaining
  proximity to some other clearly defined
  individual who is conceived as better able to
  cope with the world. It is most obvious whenever
  the person is frightened, fatigued, or sick, and
  is assuaged by comforting and caregiving. Bowlby
  1988

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Circle of SecurityMarvin, Cooper, Hoffman
Powell (2002)

• Childs Exploratory System and Needs
• The child can move off and explore, if he
  believes and expects that the attachment figure
  will be available if, or when, needed
• Attachment System
• The child needs the attachment figure to be
  available to protect, comfort, delight, and
  organize his feelings when he becomes overwhelmed

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Attachment Classifications

• The strange situation
• Secure 65
• Avoidant 20
• Ambivalent 10
• Disorganized 5-10 (80 maltreated)

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Attachment Classifications

• The strange situation
• Secure 65
• Avoidant 20
• Ambivalent 10
• Disorganized 5-10 (80 maltreated)

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Secure (B)

• Uses mother as secure base
• Signs of missing mother
• Actively greets with smile or gesture
• Signals or seeks contact if upset
• Once comforted resumes exploration
• Solomon George (1999) p.291

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Avoidant (A)

• Explores readily
• Little visible distress when left alone
• Upon reunion, looks away or actively avoids
• May stiffen or lean away if picked up
• Solomon George (1999) p. 291

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Ambivalent (C)

• Distressed, fretful, passive
• Fails to explore
• Unsettled, distressed by separation
• Alternates bids for contact with signs of angry
  rejection
• Fails to find comfort from the parent
• Solomon George (1999) p.291

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Disorganized (D)

• Behavior lacks an observable goal
• Look fearful
• Behavior is bizarre
• May try to leave after the reunion or freeze

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Secure Attachment Formula

• Always be bigger, wiser, and kind
• Whenever possible, follow the childs lead
• Whenever necessary, take charge
• Marvin, et al (2002)

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Attachment ProblemsBowlby

• A severely hurt child fails to seek comfort
• Signals that ordinarily activate attachment
  behavior fail to do so
• System controlling attachment, and the feelings
  and desires associated, is rendered incapable of
  being aroused

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Development of Relationships

• For a relationship between any two individuals
  to proceed harmoniously each must be aware of the
  others point-of-view, his goals, feelings, and
  intentions, and each must so adjust his own
  behavior that some alignment of goals is
  negotiated.

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Development of Relationships

• This requires that each should have reasonably
  accurate models of self and other which are
  regularly updated by free communication between
  them. It is here that the mothers of securely
  attached children excel, and those of the
  insecure are markedly deficient.
• Bowlby (1988) p. 131

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Impact of Empathic Failure

• Whatever she fails to recognize in him he is
  likely to fail to recognize in himself. In this
  way, it is postulated, major parts of a childs
  developing personality can become split off from,
  that is, out of communication with, those parts
  of his personality that his mother recognizes and
  responds to, which in some cases include features
  of personality that she is attributing to him
  wrongly. Bowlby (1988) p.132

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Maternal Attributions

• Fixed beliefs that the mother has about the child
  beliefs that she perceives as objective,
  accurate perceptions of the childs essence.
• Lieberman (2000)

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Positive Maternal Attributions

• When a mother sees her child as the cutest,
  most intelligent, most endearing being ever
  created, she is summoning from the depths of
  herself the capacity for ecstasy that allows her
  to put up with the inevitably annoying,
  exasperating, or simply tedious aspects of
  raising a child.
• Lieberman (2000)

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Maternal AttributionsProtective Function

• Child feels adored
• Allow child to cope with self-doubts and feelings
  of despair
• Allow parent to better tolerate self-sacrifices
  that are integral to the parenting process
• Lieberman (2000)

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Negative Maternal Attributions

• Determine whether and how mother will respond
  to, misinterpret, or ignore certain behaviors
• Lieberman (2000)

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Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin Powell , 2000
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Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin Powell , 2000
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Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin Powell , 2000
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(No Transcript)
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Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin Powell , 2000
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Parental Empathic Understanding

• Parental empathic understanding involves the
  capacity to see things from the childs point of
  view within a balanced, accepting, and coherent
  frame.
• Oppenheim (2000)

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Assessment of Parents Point of View

• Interview questions
• Could you give me a thumbnail sketch of your
  child?
• Tell me about a time in the past two weeks when
  you and your child really clicked.
• Tell me about a time when you didnt.
• What gives you the most joy in your relationship?
• What gives you the most pain?
• Where do you turn for emotional support?
• Steele (2003)

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Assessment Secure Base

• Over the past two weeks can you think of a time
  when your child was
• Hurt?
• Frightened?
• Separated from you?
• What did your child do?
• How did you respond?

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Tips For Working With Parents

• Concept of Good Grandparenting
• Nurture
• Avoid being sidetracked by opposition
• Understand underlying feelings
• Develop coping strategies
• Focus on the childs sadness rather than anger

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Working with the Child

• Develop a secure base for exploration
• Relationship with a therapist may be a safer
  beginning
• Nurturing behavior must occur regularly and
  anticipate the childs needs
• Help child explore his/her past relationships
• Play therapy
• Projective games
• Sandtray therapy

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Working with the Child

• Utilize therapy groups to help broaden the
  childs perception of self
• Lifespace interviews
• Empathy training
• Teach the foster and biological parents about
  child centered play techniques
• Filial Therapy
• Utilize limit setting and natural consequences to
  increase security

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Working with the Child

• Teach the foster and biological parents
  communication techniques that deflect the childs
  anger and hostility
• How to talk so kids will listen and listen so
  kids will talk. Faber Mazlish
• Gradually reduce reliance on the therapeutic
  process and focus on generalization of skills