Coun 502 Unit 2 Research Paper

The Relationship Between Parental Attachments and Mental Disorders
COUN 502: Human Growth and Development
September 28, 2013
Abstract
Emotional development is important for a child as it plays essential roles in the functioning and wiring of the brain within the first few years of life. The right emotional attachments formed by a parent or caregiver can influence how a child interacts with others as well as how the child copes with stress and adversity. The need for secure attachment in a child’s life serves as a type of mental molding which helps with positive growth and expectations in the confident adult life. Secure parental relationships at an early age lay the blueprint for an adult who is able to create and maintain
positive and fulfilling relationships with others. A child who experiences insecure parental attachment will lack the security that aids the child’s mental development.
This lack of security can open a range of possibilities for mental disorders. Certain types of attachment disorders, if not properly treated, may cause low self-esteem, inability to maintain healthy relationships, violence, and a negative outlook towards others in life.
Keywords: attachments, emotion, relationship, secure, disorders
The Relationship between Parental Attachments and Mental Disorders
While there are many reasons for mental disabilities, the type attachment between caregiver and child have a profound impact on the ability for a child to develop positive relationships, learn coping skills, or control their emotions. The Online Psychology Dictionary (n.d.) defines attachment as “the tendency of human infants and animals to become emotionally close to certain individuals and to be calm and soothed while in their presence. For
humans, attachment also involves and affects the tendency in adulthood to seek emotionally supportive relationships”. The attachment formed during infancy plays a crucial role in the social development in children. When a child feels comforted in a time of distress by a particular caregiver or experiences pleasure and nurturing, the child forms an attachment with that caregiver. As the child grows, the attachments formed will determine the child’s ability to be self-confident and trusting of others as well as set the foundation for how the child will deal with stress. The more positive a child’s attachments are, the greater the chances are that a child will continue throughout life with a strong foundation of social and emotional skills. Some parents lack the ability to understand that the experiences within the child’s environment actually form a blueprint within the child’s brain for future emotions such as fear, anxiety, aggression, and giving up. The nurturing and social connections aid in the child’s ability to copy or imitate the healthy and positive attachments which lead to one being able to accept love, be secure in his/herself and the ability to relate well with others. The lack of attachment formed between a parent/caregiver during the early stages of childhood can cause mental disorders later in life. The attachment formed during infancy plays a profound role in the outcome of a child’s psychological health throughout life. The wrong types of attachments formed can have a long-lasting negative impact throughout life beginning in childhood and progressing through adult life. Negative attachments leave the child with a number of psychological problems which can include having unstable personal relationships and low self-esteem. Children with positive attachments are more apt to display higher peer social competence, not be quite as withdrawn, show high self-esteem, and have a stronger ability when coping in stressful situations. Psychoanalyst, John Bowlby (1982) originated the attachment theory which proposed that mental health and behavioral problems could be attributed to early childhood. For a child, the attachment bond with a protective, loving adult figure is a primary mechanism for the maintenance and regulation of safety. Through observations, Bowlby (1969) suggested that there were distinct qualities of the caregiver to child bond that come to regulate children’s emotional experience and behavior. According to Bowlby (1988), infants are at birth equipped with a biologically based behavioral and motivational system that has evolved with the purpose of promoting proximity to a caregiver. His theory suggests children come into the world pre-programmed to form attachments with others as a survival mechanism, and attachment behaviors are instinctively activated by any conditions such as fear, separation, or insecurity (Liu, 2007). According to Bowlby (1969), it is the extent to which the caregiver is consistently accessible and responsive to the infant 's bids for comfort and security that determines the quality and type of attachment the child will have for the caregiver. The caregiver-child relationship is central to the infant 's comfort and security. The child 's experience of a positive, responsive relationship with the caregiver or significant other is a necessary precursor for healthy exploration and adjustment. Persistent threats to the balance of this goal-directed partnership lead to less adaptive ways of the child relating within the child-caregiver relationship and ultimately in the way the child is able to relate to the outside world (Lyddon & Sherry, 2001).
Ainsworth 's (Ainsworth et al., 1978) research with the Strange Situation Protocol helped to establish four commonly accepted child-caregiver attachment patterns: secure attachment, avoidant attachment, ambivalent attachment and disorganized attachment (Journal of Counseling and Development: JCD, Vol. 79, No. 4). Unfortunately, each attachment disorder has the ability to change not only the emotional but the social and educational outcome of a child’s life. A person who experienced secure attachment in life believes and trusts that his/her needs will be met. Someone with avoidant attachment believes that his/her needs probably will not be met. A person with ambivalent attachment cannot rely on his/her needs being met, and the person with disorganized attachment is severely confused with no strategy to have his/her needs met (Lumiere, 2012) .
Securely attached children feel confident the attachment figure/caregiver will be available for meeting their needs. Most children display a secure attachment which shows the loving, warm, and responsive relationship with their primary giver. They display strong levels of confidence and security with peers as well as show high levels in learning abilities. The love and support received from the caregiver transforms a child later in life to a very strong, independent, and emotionally stable young adult. The child will later view his/herself as an adult who is worthy, goal oriented and shows high self-esteem (Lumiere, 2012). Possible mental disorders experienced later in life generally will not be a reflection of positive, secure infant or childhood attachment issues experienced with a caregiver or parent. The displayed mental disorders will fall behind things such as domestic violence, relationship abuse, assault, or other situations involving trauma.
Avoidant attachment results from the caregiver providing little or no response to the child’s emotional needs and distress. Such neglect is common with caregivers who are alcoholics, drug addicted, or severely depressed. The child does not experience sufficient connection, which results in either a collapse or rebellion, and results in lower self-image and self-esteem (Lumiere, 2012). Avoidant attached adults minimize the importance of relationship and remain distant and emotionally unavailable. They desire a high degree of independence and view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to needing others (Lumiere, 2012). They may also have mixed feelings about close relationships. On one hand, the feeling is to desire them, however, on the other hand, the feeling is to fear them.
Ambivalent attachment results from having a caregiver which is inconsistently available.
The caregiver’s responses are at times appropriate and at times neglectful (Lumiere, 2012). Ambivalent attachment can also occur when the caregiver responds only to the physical needs such as feeding and changing, but ignores the infant’s need for human interaction and connection. The child is therefore unable to experience the caregiver as a secure base (Lumiere, 2012). A preoccupation with the caregiver’s availability is formed, seeking contact but resisting angrily when it is achieved. In this relationship the child always feels anxious because the caregiver’s availability is never consistent. Therefore this attachment style is at times also referred to as resistant, anxious or preoccupied (Lumiere,
2012).
A disorganized attachment forms as a result of having a caregiver who is dangerous, harmful, or abusive in some way. Disorganized attachment can occur when the caregiver abuses a child physically or sexually, or when there is domestic violence in the home (Lumiere, 2012). This creates a powerful double bind for the child. The very person from whom the child wants to seek comfort frightens him/her. The human brain is hard-wired to seek comfort from primary caregivers when hurt or afraid, and another part of the brain is hard-wired to fight or flee when threatened (Lumiere, 2012). This sets up a dual response in a child or infant’s brain where there is a pull to go towards the caregiver and away from them at the same time. This type of attachment is often characterized by a dissociated response, which can look like no response at all, where an infant or child is emotionally absent (Lumiere, 2012). Adults with disorganized attachment may become aggressive and angry in relationships. They may be unable to open up and be vulnerable, and can be insensitive to the needs of their partners (Lumiere, 2012).
There is however, another attachment disorder called Reactive Attachment Disorder, also known as RAD which can be described as a rare, but serious condition in which infants and young children do not establish healthy bonds with parents or caregivers and are often confused. It is further evidenced by persistent failure to initiate or to respond appropriately in social situations or by complete lack of appropriate restraint in regards to certain attachments (The Online Psychology Dictionary, n.d). According to studies there are two sub divisions of RAD which are known as Inhibited RAD and Disinhibited RAD. Inhibited RAD is when a child has become withdrawn showing no attachment to the caregivers or peers, and Disinhibited RAD is when a child may seem to overly friendly or cross inappropriate boundaries with another person (Pediatric and Child Health, 2004). These children do not trust others due to past negative experiences and are not motivated by the usual rewards of typical positive behavior of a normal child displaying secure attachment. A child suffering with RAD often will show poor judgment by going to extreme measures to get what he/she wants no matter what boundaries may be crossed to get it (Pediatric and Child Health, 2004). The child will see no wrong in using aggression to get that need or desire met independently. This act is viewed as acceptable behavior by a child suffering from RAD.
Children suffering with RAD show signs of being abused, abandoned or neglected. These children are deprived of a child’s necessity for nurturing and consistent care from a caregiver or parent. RAD is a lifelong acquired condition that occurs during critical brain development in children which later become young teens and adults that experience additional psychiatric problems such as drastic mood changes, anxiety, learning disabilities and substance abuse that will need to be treated (Pediatric and Child Health, 2004). Although there is currently no medicine or cure for RAD patients, there are ways to help through, coping skills, behavioral therapy, family therapy, and group therapy. A significant problem with the psychiatric diagnosis of RAD is that it suggests that the attachment difficulties lie within the child (it is the child who receives the psychiatric diagnosis), when, in fact, attachment involves the relationship between a child and caregiver (Pediatric and Child Health, 2004). Some unproven treatments have be known to cause traumatizing effects and at times death from experiments where the child is bound or wrapped in order to have a child experience a rebirthing process. This type of therapy is ineffective and dangerous to anyone.
Attachment is thought to play a role in developmental behaviors such as internalizing and externalizing. Teens who reported a higher more stable attachment with parents displayed less depressive symptoms and decreased suicidal ideation (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). Children showing signs of externalizing behaviors have been known to become extremely disruptive teens. In life, the teen will find it challenging to obtain and hold on to a positive relationship when the norm is to have conflict or argue on a consistent basis(Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). A parent who does not respond to the needs or requests of the teen will in turn, force the teen to respond in an unsafe, negative, or forceful attempt to get his/her needs met by a parent or provider.
Those who do not receive a secure relationship with their parents report higher levels of internal distress and an increased fear of the future. The parental attachment formed in infant and childhood studies show that those who were given secure attachments that involve love, consistency, security, trust, and comfort become goal oriented, driven adults with high self-esteem, while those who have insecure attachments suffer from anger, depression, the inability to trust, or to form and maintain any positive stable relationships throughout life (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). Attachment insecurity is a feature of many personality disorders, however, for each person the features may be different. It is important to know a person’s life history when trying to determine which type of an attachment association he/she suffers from. Most children in this category view themselves as unworthy and unacceptable. Feeling unworthy and unacceptable is usually caused from negative projections onto the child from the primary caregiver.
Attachment insecurity can be viewed as a general vulnerability to mental disorders, with the particular symptomatology depending on genetic, developmental, and environmental factors (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). When testing this theory in studies of adults, most researchers have focused on the systematic pattern of relational expectations, emotions, and behavior that results from one’s attachment history: what Hazan and Shaver called attachment style (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). Research clearly indicates that attachment styles can be measured in terms of two independent dimensions, attachment-related anxiety and avoidance. Attachment insecurity is also a key feature of many personality disorders. Anxious attachment is associated with dependent, histrionic, and borderline disorders, whereas avoidant attachment is associated with schizoid and avoidant disorders (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012).
An important step in identifying more specific “links between psychophysiology and attachment has been taken by abandoning the concept of general arousal in response to peripheral challenges in favour of an approach that seeks to identify the organization of discrete physiological responses” (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). The polyvagal theory as developed by Porges to describe the neural underpinnings of adaptive and maladaptive autonomic nervous system responses to challenges facing humans. Some children with a history of severe disruption or deprivation of attachment develop disorders of attachment. Several descriptions and criteria for disorders of attachment exist for young children, but consensus is emerging that there is a small group of children who fail to develop specific attachment relationships or show behaviours antithetical to maintaining specific attachments, due to the pathogenic environment in which they grow up (Schuengel, Oosterman and Sterkenburg (2009). Theorists suggest that a child’s progression into adolescence will be most successful if the parents have been able to assist in the development of secure internal working models throughout the relationship (Myric, Green, & Crenshaw, 2013). While there are many reasons for mental disabilities, the attachment between caregiver and child have a profound impact on the ability for a child to develop relationships and control their emotions throughout their lifetime.
Conclusion
For this paper, I have examined the types of attachments and how they are formed during infancy. Secure attachment types believe and trust that needs will be met. Avoidant attachment types cannot rely on that same trust for the need to be met. Ambivalent attachment results in emotional distance and disorganized attachment leads to an adult who aggressive and insensitive in relationships. I also discussed reactive attachment disorder causing psychiatric problems that involve mood, anxiety, even substance abuse. Each attachment, no matter positive or negative, will have a mental and emotional effect throughout a life. Attachments formed during infancy impact which and what type of adult that child will grow to become.
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