The Importance of Attachment

Before I moved to Indiana, I was a student at Cal State University Fullerton, as a Child and Adolescent Studies Major. Each of my classes discussed the importance of attachment in human development. These classes included Infant Studies, Middle Childhood Studies, Adolescent Studies and Inquiry & Methodology. This doesn’t make me an expert by any means, but it sure opened my eyes to the significance of healthy and poor attachments.

One of my professors, Sharon Willmer, gave powerful lectures on attachment and the long term effects. She explained that everything in our universe is attached to something in order to survive. She used a tree as an example. A tree is obviously attached to the ground and receives water and nutrients in order to grow strong and survive. If the tree received bad water, poison, and no nutrients, it would still need to be attached to the ground to survive, but it could grow up stunted, or deformed. She used this example to show that we are attached to our environments. As children we depend on the people around us to care for us so we will grow strong and healthy. However, if a child doesn’t receive the nutrition it needs and/or is neglected or abused, the attachment is unhealthy and there could be long term consequences for that child.

John Bowlby is a well known developmental psychologist who formed and Attachment Theory, and was responsible for most of the early research conducted on attachment in humans. “According Bowlby’s attachment theory, all children become emotionally attached to their caregivers, regardless of the treatment they receive from them. Resent research supports the idea that early attachments are influential in later development. (Fabes & Martin, 1999)

Now I think this next part is interesting, and I’m just going to quote directly from a book called Adolescence, Fifth Edition by Laurence Steinbert, pages 310-311.

”Many theorists who study adolescent development believe that the nature of the individual’s attachment relationships during infancy continues to have an influence on his or her capacity to form satisfying intimate relationships during adolescence and adulthood, for two reasons. First, some theorists have argued that the initial attachment relationship forms the basis for a more general model of interpersonal relationships that we employ throughout life. This so-called Internal working model determines to a large measure whether we feel trusting or apprehensive in relationships with other and whether we see ourselves as worthy of others’ affection. According to the theory, individuals who enjoyed a secure attachment relationships during infancy will have a more positive and healthy internal working model of relationships during adolescence, whereas individuals who were anxiously attached as infants will have a less positive model. Along similar lines, children who have been physically abused by their parents behave less intimately with their friends than do non-abused children.” (Steinberg, 1999)

“A second reason for the continued importance of early attachment relationships during adolescence is cumulative. Although few longitudinal studies of infant attachment have followed individuals into and through adolescent, a number of studies have followed infants well into the childhood years. These studies quite convincingly show that anxiously attached infants are more likely to develop psychological and social problems during childhood, including poor peer relationships.” (Steinberg, 1999)

We have all heard these questions before: Why Didn’t she just leave? Why does he let her treat him that way? Could it be that a harmful attachment is better than no attachment at all?

Maybe now it’s becoming a bit clearer on why a person in a Domestic Violence situation is so attached, and why it is hard to leave. I do not believe that having had a bad attachment as an infant is the only reason or always the reason people become part of a Domestic Violence situation. There is also research that shows that emotionally healthy individuals can easily get involved in Domestic Violence. One idea is that they were never taught what an unhealthy relationship was? Ever hear stories about a young man that got involved with his girlfriend because he thought he could save her, the knight in shinning Armor? Or the girl that has so much empathy for her boyfriend that it becomes the excuse of why he treats her so bad, she knows she can make him better?

Fabes, F. & Martin, C. (1999) Exploring Child Development: Transactions and Transformations. (pp. 32). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Steinberg, L. (1999) Adolescence, Fifth Edition. (pp. 310 – 311) Hawkins, TN: McGraw-Hill.