Attachment Patterns

In A Secure Base, Bowlby describes the three most common attachment patterns:

1. Secure attachment – the individual is confident that his parent (or parent figure) will be available, responsive and helpful should he encounter adverse or frightening situations. With this assurance, he feels bold in his explorations of the world. This pattern is promoted by a parent being readily available, sensitive to her child’s signals, and lovingly responsive when he seeks protection and comfort.
2. Anxious resistant attachment – the individual is uncertain whether his parent will be available or responsive or helpful when called upon. Because of this uncertainty he is always prone to separation anxiety, tends to be clinging, and is anxious about exploring the world. This pattern, in which conflict is evident, is promoted by a parent being available and helpful on some occasions but not on others, and by separations and by threats of abandonment used as a means of control.
3. Anxious avoidant attachment – the individual has no confidence that, when he seeks care, he will be responded to helpfully but, on the contrary, expects to be rebuffed. When in marked degree such an individual attempts to live his life without the love and support of others, he tries to become self-sufficient and may later be diagnosed as narcissistic or as having a false self (as described by Winnicott). This pattern, in which conflict is more hidden, is the result of the individual’s mother constantly rebuffing him when he approaches her for comfort or protection. The most extreme cases result from repeated rejections.

"One major influence that has led a parent to adopt the style of parenting she does is the amount of emotional support, or lack of it, she herself is receiving at the time. Another is the form of mothering that she herself received when a child."

"...the way a parent treats a child, whether for better or for worse, tends to continue unchanged...each pattern tends to be self-perpetuating. Thus a secure child is a happier and more rewarding child to care for and also is less demanding than an anxious one. An anxious ambivalent child is apt to be whiny and clinging; whilst an anxious avoidant child keeps his distance and is prone to bully other children."

"If the parent treats the child differently, the pattern will change accordingly."

"It is a characteristic of a mother whose infant will develop securely that she is continuously monitoring her infant’s state and, as when he signals wanting attention, she registers his signals and acts accordingly."

"Already by the age of 12 months, there are children who no longer express to their mothers one of their deepest emotions or the equally deep-seated desire for comfort and reassurance that accompanies it. It is not difficult to see what a very serious breakdown of communication between child and mother this represents. Not only that but, because a child’s self-model is profoundly influenced by how his mother sees and treats him, whatever she fails to recognize in him he is likely to fail to recognize in himself."

"As a child grows older, the pattern becomes increasingly a property of the child himself, which means that he tends to impose it, or some derivative of it, upon new relationships such as with a teacher, a foster-mother or a therapist." (we tend to repeat the pattern of relationship with new "others" that we learned before we had any words.)

"Attachment patterns predict how a child will behave in a nursery (or in the workplace!):

• Secure attachment: these children are likely to be described by nursery staff as cooperative, popular with other children, resilient and resourceful.
• Anxious avoidant attachment: these children are likely to be described as emotionally insulated, hostile or anti-social and, paradoxically, as unduly seeking of attention.
• Anxious resistant attachment: these children are likely to be described as unduly seeking of attention and as either tense, impulsive, and easily frustrated or else as passive and helpless."

"The most effective interventions are those that take into account both the patterns ingrained within the child’s personality and the way the parents still treat him or her. For example, by means either of family therapy or else by giving help in parallel to parents and child."

"For a relationship between any two individuals to proceed harmoniously each must be aware of the other’s point-of-view, his goals, feelings, and intentions, and each must so adjust his own behavior that some alignment of goals is negotiated. 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 the securely attached children excel and those of the insecure are markedly deficient."