Washington - Watching the way your baby reacts when you walk out of the room is the springboard for an entire field of psychological research called attachment theory. By the time a child is one, researchers believe that he has developed specific ways of thinking about close relationships, all based upon whether he considers his primary caregiver to be reliable and warm, distant or unpredictable. He uses this to generalise about how the rest of the world will treat him, which will affect how he views relationships as an adult. (I'll use “he” here for simplicity's sake, but attachment applies to babies of both genders.)
Here's how researchers test these feelings in children: a baby, a mother and a research assistant play together in a room. Briefly, the mother walks out of the room and leaves the baby with the research assistant, or alone, and then returns soon after. The baby's reaction is key to his attachment style; it's a method called the Strange Situation.
Seventy percent of babies, classified as securely attached, become upset when their mothers leave, but allow the researcher to soothe them and play with them. They are happy when their mothers return. The remaining 30 percent are generally divided between two insecure attachment styles: avoidant (20 percent) and anxious-ambivalent (10 percent).
If the baby is ambivalent, he is unable to be soothed, and only watches for his mother to return. When she does, though, he acts angry and even violent. This style is thought to derive from misattunement between the caregiver and the child. The mother is often inattentive or intrusive, and the baby is angry that he cannot rely upon her to respond to his needs, whether for closeness or distance.
Avoidant babies act unfazed by their mother's departure or return. Yet, we know they are as stressed by this as the other babies due to studies measuring their heart rate and other stress responses. But avoidant babies have learned not to show their distress because their caregivers do not usually respond with warmth and comfort. (There is also a disorganised style, for babies who are abused, where babies engage in unusual extreme behaviours such as curling up into a ball during the Strange Situation, or running toward the parent but then abruptly stopping and running away, but this is thankfully not a large percentage.)
How does this relate to adult romantic relationships? Research has found the same breakdown of attachment categories in adults as in infants, with 60 percent reporting feeling secure in romantic relationships, 25 percent avoidant and 15 percent anxious. Adults report that their early relationships with caregivers follow the patterns that correlate with their adult attachment style (e.g., non-responsive parenting associated with avoidant attachment), and moderate stability of attachment style has been demonstrated from infancy to adulthood.
Anxious-ambivalent attachment in adulthood is called preoccupied. This partner always wants to be close, wants to know their partner's whereabouts, and worries whether their partner really loves them. The relationship is paramount, and they usually choose to spend time with their partner over anything else. However, this time together is fraught with conflict.
Avoidant attachment in adulthood can be one of two types: dismissive or fearful. A dismissive partner does not seem to need anyone, and often values career and hobbies over relationships. They think of feelings as irrational and often prefer sex to verbal or emotional displays of affection. Fearful partners fear and avoid both closeness and distance. They have low self-esteem and assume a passive role in relationships.
Secure babies and children are more resilient, happy, empathic and sociable than their insecurely attached counterparts. Secure adults are also more social in adolescence and adulthood, and their romantic relationships are more happy and stable, with healthier communication and coping skills, and more self-disclosure, commitment and trust. Their marriages are better at weathering stressors like the birth of a child. In contrast, insecurely attached adults are less trusting and lonelier, and even are likelier to experience domestic violence.
Evidence also suggests that people end up in relationships that confirm their existing beliefs. Thus, preoccupied individuals are likely to find partners that act unreliable and distant (avoidant), while avoidant people often find partners who act smothering and overwhelming (preoccupied), and these pairs keep bringing out the worst in each other. Insecurely attached spouses are more likely to be unfaithful, and anxious wives paired with avoidant husbands both show the greatest increase in stress hormones during marital conflict. Relatedly, insecurely attached adults married to other insecurely attached adults do not divorce more frequently, because these unhappy relationships feel familiar to them and confirm how they think relationships will go. But when securely attached individuals marry insecurely attached ones, there is a higher rate of divorce, presumably because the securely attached individual has the ability to perceive that something is wrong and that a different relationship may be healthier.
Fortunately, attachment style can change over time. The overall goal of therapy, particularly psychodynamic therapy, is to help clients become more securely attached, learning to become more open, trusting and loving. The therapist-client relationship teaches a new, healthier alternative to the client's own insecurely attached relationship with a caregiver. Couples counselling can also change attachment style, as partners learn to respond to each other in a more attuned ways.
Parents can change their attachment relationships with their children from insecure to secure, which is the goal of family therapy, and various specific interventions with at-risk mothers and babies. If your baby exhibits the sorts of signs that are representative of insecure attachment in daily life (e.g., never calming down at day care and seeming angry with you when you return at the end of the day, on a continuous basis), or if you realise that you are avoidant or preoccupied, you may want to seek therapy to avoid continuing the insecure attachment cycle with your own child.
Parenting From the Inside Out,” by Daniel J. Siegel, discusses the importance of examining the impact of your own upbringing on your parenting, as parents' own attachment styles can predict those of their children. But, if you can engage in self-reflection and increase your responsiveness to your child's needs, you can facilitate a more secure attachment relationship no matter how you were raised. This change is not only extraordinarily powerful on its own, but it will also increase your child's likelihood of having satisfying intimate relationships throughout his life.
Washington Post
* Rodman is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Maryland and a mom of three kids under 5 years old. Guess which job is harder? Hashtag: #judgemyparenting