2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-15 16:05
Attachment trauma (including types of attachment disorders, causes and consequences) is complex. To understand it in detail, it is worth starting from the beginning
Uncle Z. Freud believed that attachment is based on the physiological needs of a child - to survive, eat, receive care and attention. By default, this is why the child loves the mother. John Bowlby, an English psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, an expert in developmental psychology, family psychology, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, studied the topic of attachment in more depth. In general, it is from Bowlby's theory of attachment that all other hypotheses proceed
So, John Bowlby was firmly convinced that the child is attached to the mother not only in needs for physiological survival, he also has an instinctive need for emotional contact. Even in the womb, the baby receives merging with the mother, for him this is the paradise that each of us remembers at the unconscious level, therefore we strive for that very mother, as if again trying to feel at least a little bit of this bliss through the arms, to get into the merger and close emotional contact. What happens if a person does not receive what he wants at all, or this need is not fully satisfied?
The four types of attachment are formed during early childhood. It is rather difficult to understand what exactly they depend on - on the one hand, maternal behavior, on the other hand, the child's predisposition (that is, the temperament with which he is born). However, to a greater extent, many researchers (psychotherapists, theorists and practitioners) are inclined to believe that it is maternal behavior that is fundamental in the formation of a child's attachment type
Secure attachment.
A secure type of attachment means that the mother is clear, understandable, inclusive, and emotionally accessible to the child. You could have fun with her, the baby was able to get some frustration (otherwise, the child in adulthood will have certain problems). If a child is never denied anything, once in the big world, he is horrified by everything and is not able to realize the fact that you can not get everything you want. Thus, overprotection of the child (we are not talking about overprotection) is also bad. However, in general, where there is hyper-care, there will be hyper-care. So, the result of this type of attachment is that a person in adulthood trusts the world, himself, is fairly confident in his strengths and capabilities. Sometimes he has thoughts of mistakes and what could have been done (this is a healthy option). If thoughts revolve only on confidence in their superiority, this is already narcissistic compensation for attachment ("I am the best!"). As a result, the person trusts the "good shape" of other people (if there were no precedents, why not trust?). In general, such individuals develop family relationships and life. It is worth understanding here that people who never have problems do not exist
Anxiously stable attachment (ambivalent).
The child reacts very painfully to the mother's departure, he is sad, does not communicate with others. At such a moment, strangers are a danger to him, so the baby avoids communication with them and does not want to contact. After the mother returns, the child may behave ambivalently - sometimes he immediately asks for his arms, sometimes sits in a corner, trying to pretend not to see her. This is his own reaction, an attempt to cope with anger towards his mother, who left so unexpectedly, and helplessness. For a baby, the mother always leaves abruptly, even if she warned him 300 times (mostly this happens until a certain age, until an understanding of the situation is formed, for example, up to one year old)
Anxious-avoidant type of attachment.
The child avoids the mother. When the maternal object leaves, the baby tries not to show his emotions, while he does not communicate with other people, does not engage in contact, and at the moment the mother returns, he can show quite opposite reactions - on the one hand, he runs, and then completely eliminates emotions. In essence, an avoidant personality is a person with an avoidant type of attachment, a person with a low level of trust in the world
Disorganized attachment.
This type of attachment is the most complex and insufficiently studied, it is typical mainly for orphans, from whom the object of attachment was removed in early childhood (they do not have their own mother and their own object of attachment). The child suppresses the maximum of feelings, although, as studies show, he physiologically experiences them (restrains the movements of the shoulders, lifts them strongly, etc.) - a nervous tic seems to pass through the body. In fact, this is a child under extreme stress when his object of affection leaves / comes
How did anxiety-resistant and anxious-avoidant attachment types develop?
In the first case, in contrast to secure attachment, the mother periodically abandoned the child (perhaps this is a situation of early departure to work after maternity leave, or the mother herself was anxious), but contact with her was maintained and was quite close. This type of attachment is typical for codependent people
In the second case, attachment was formed in conditions that were more unsafe for the child - beatings, the mother suddenly lost her temper, splashed out her anger on the baby, something incomprehensible happened between the parents. As a result, the child was frightened by this whole situation and closed in himself. In this case, a counterdependent behavior model will form in adulthood, i.e. the person will distance themselves from other people and avoid any intimacy
When we talk about attachment disorders, this is all about the relationship with the mother or mother object. If the child's mother is "taken away" (she left, died, abandoned the baby, etc.), there will be no reliable attachment. Regardless of the love and tenderness that the child may receive in the future, the relationship will still fail. Why is this happening? Everything is quite simple - the baby remembers the smell of his mother, the most dear, understandable, soothing and close to him. This is the only thing that connects him with that paradise, which he remembers well from the womb, with a strong, strong, reliable and very important merger for him. And even if immediately after childbirth the child is taken away from his own mother and given to another mother in the arms, he will feel this substitution (however, in such a situation, this option is more acceptable than the complete absence of maternal care for only one or two days, because this will already affect his affection)
If a person does not understand at all what he needs a relationship for, we can talk about a basic defect of Mikael Balint. This category includes orphans, children who were brutally abused in childhood, offended, beaten, abandoned, forced to work (in other words, the relationship was never safe for them, and the object of attachment that compensates for these painful bonds (for example, a grandmother or grandfather), was absent). In fact, a child who grew up emotionally deprived of human relationships perceives them exclusively as functions. He was a function for his parents or those who raised him, respectively, in adulthood, this person copies the model of behavior to his environment. However, given that we are all social beings, the need for emotional contact is an instinctive and uncontrollable inner need of each of us (according to John Bowlby). Against this background, people with attachment disorders often have a lot of rage - the need for human love, support, tenderness and affection is strong, but at the same time repressed. There may also be schizoid splitting - rage and need are so strong, but the latter simply cannot be fully satisfied, therefore splitting into need and rage occurs, and the person decides to withdraw into himself and not touch anyone. Sometimes in the same place there can be narcissistic compensation - I will conquer the whole world, because at birth I had nothing and no one
Attachment trauma associated with fusion is when the mother and attachment seem to be there, but the mother's behavior tends to 0. In this case, the child does not have a sense of fusion (my mother and I are one). Up to 1, 5 years old, the baby is in psychological merger with the mother - what the mother wants, so I want. In fact, the first years of a child's life, the mother devotes herself to him, this is some kind of sacrifice in a good way (if there are internal resources). If the mother does not have a resource, she does not fully manifest maternal behavior, and then the child unconsciously takes the blame - this is how the human psyche works (if they don’t give me something, what I really need, what I want, then it’s me bad). As a result, a shape-shifting situation arises - the child begins to take care of the mother, while greatly in need of her (that is, the need for merging does not disappear anywhere). Having matured, a person continues to need fusion and strong attachment ("Be only near me! God forbid you leave!"). Any movement of a partner causes a traumatic sensation - “I will be abandoned, rejected! They don't like me, they deprivate me emotionally again."
The next period that we live is separation (age 3 years). The first period of separation begins when the baby begins to walk on his own and can run away from the mother. Surprisingly, this process can last as long as 18 years and up to 50 years
So how does it work? Conditionally - I will move a meter away from my mother, it is safe for me here, my mother is calm, which means that I can return to her, and the merger has not yet been lost. My mother! I run away again, now by 2 meters, and again everything is fine! At the age of 3, it is physically important for children to run away or move away from the mother's object at some distance, but some mothers, especially anxious ones, slow down the child ("No! Kostya, where are you running? Stay beside me! Oh, God!"). As a result, they get codependent children, for boys it is more often counterdependence. If the merger was enough, but then the mother did not let go, there may be very, very even counterdependent behavior (“I will try to break away from my mother all my life”), a life-long separation. The child could not separate from his mother in time, why? It's all about the mother's behavior - with every movement of the baby, she gets hysterical, she screams; and the child at the same time experiences strong feelings for her, because she is an important object (If my mother suddenly dies, who will love me, bring up and give me the best in life? If my mother stops loving me, rejects me, I will become bad for her?) … The child believes that he should be good for his mother (this is important for her!), So he will do everything to satisfy her need. Accordingly, it is important for the baby to receive the love of the mother at any time. Love, affection, motherly behavior, care, my mother, and I am important to her - in order to feel all this, the child will strive to confirm every time, will do everything for the mother to feel important and needed
If the baby is afraid to move away from the mother because she is overprotective (or he moves away 2, 3, 5, 10 meters, but the mother does not care), then he will return and cling to the mother's skirt. There can be three variations here - there was not enough merging, the mother did not respond to the child's distance, the mother does not allow her to "cling" to her skirt. What will be the reaction? It depends on how comfortable the baby was in this state. If the mother was not just overprotective, but also pressed on the child, caused him pain, he would avoid relationships for the rest of his life, since they will by default be associated with pain
Trust is formed when there is a merger with the mother. If the merger does not take place, there will be no trust in the world, people, etc. The most extreme variant is M. Balint's basic defect
The next stage is from 1 to 3 years, from 2 to 4 years. This is the narcissistic period when the first separation begins, the narcissistic zone of recognition, shame. At this stage, there can be two options - the formation of self-shame, then there is also a violation of attachment; narcissistic grandeur (I am the most wonderful) - due to the fact that I did not feel warmth, care and love, I will compensate for everything with some grandiose part
Subsequent developmental periods do not so strongly influence the formation of attachment trauma. This is already the development of initiative or a sense of guilt, if the child was severely scolded or violently reacted to his initiative, to something that did not work out (in such cases, he will be more likely guilty than initiative). Then there is the development of independence and independence (school period, from 6 years to 12 years), working capacity. If the child is severely crushed at this stage, he will not feel any freedom, ease and independence. This topic does not quite relate to attachment trauma, but if such a person is invited into therapy, the influence of the mother figure will be clearly felt
Major attachment injuries form from a very early age (infancy) to 5 years of age. This topic is rather complex and insufficiently researched. Why? The main trauma begins at a very early age, when a person does not remember himself. This information needs to be raised through hypnosis or in gestalt therapy through associations-ligaments (for example, this is happening in your life now, most likely in childhood it was like this). As a rule, over time, something is still remembered - up to a certain age. Yes, you can remember, but it takes time, a long process
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