Self-insight.

There are many ways to understand people and how they relate to others. This time we will look into an interesting perspective on this phenomenon, taken from studies in one part of developmental psychology. (Some of this is already well known, for health nurses, kindergarten staff, child psychologists and professionals who work with children)

I dont know if you have thought about your own attitudes towards others.That is what typical feelings and reaction patterns öf yours that emerge when meeting with other people. For example whether there is a big difference in the way you behave when you are with your own family or close friends, compared to the way you are towards others outside this inner circle of people.

What about complete strangers, how do you behave then? And just as important; – how do you feel in all these different relationships? Are you confident, or insecure, restrained or persistent, laid back and relaxed, or tight and quite stiff?

Attachment theory.

Michelangelo’s pictorial conception of man’s first divine connection. (picture)

In one of the front page articles, – the one about psychology, we looked at the development of the science of psychology. We looked into various theories and research that show how we humans can be understood from childhood until we’re grow ups. Here, the so-called Developmental Psychology is particularly central when it comes to illuminating the significance of our earliest encounters with the world, and not least the people in it. Here I highlighted several infant researchers, including John Bowlby and his attachment theory, and research based on various forms of connection to the caregiver.

In this article, I will take a closer look at what attachment theory in psychology can provide us with knowledge about our way of being, and how we relate to other people. The most famous of these researchers besides John Bowlby, is Mary Ainsworth. She examined the reactions of one and a half year old toddlers in a so-called “strange situation”, where mother and child enter a room where there is also a stranger. After a while, the mother leaves the room, leaving the child alone with a stranger. Then what happens to the child’s reactions?

Four different types of reactions and attachment patterns were found:

1. Secure attachment and reaction pattern.

2. Evasive attachment and reaction pattern.

3. Ambiguous and reluctant reaction pattern and attachment.

4. Chaotic and destructive attachment and reaction pattern.

By looking more closely at what Ainsworth found from her studies of 18 months old children, some typical traits recur both in the child and in the mother, in the four categories. we find

1. Secure attachment do children have, says Ainsworth, who use their mother as a safe starting point for exploring the world. These children can either cry or let it be, when they are separated from their mothers. They seek closeness and always stop crying when their mother returns, and they continue to explore the room and it’s facilities. They also accept comfort from the stranger, but clearly show that they prefer the mother over the other.

The mother, for her part, shows appropriate, quick and consistent reactions to the child’s needs, and has built up a secure bond to the child.

2. Avoidant attachment occurs in children who show few signs of sharing emotions with others during play. Toddlers also show little or no stress reaction when separated from their mother. There is also no visible reaction to reunion. Then the child most often ignores the mother, or turns away, and also shows no willingness to maintain contact if the child is lifted up. The girl or boy consequently behaves equally towards both the stranger and the mother. The child actually feels no attachment to anyone, and is rebellious, with underlying poor self-esteem.

The mother, on the other hand, reacts little or not at all to the frustration and stress of the child. She also does not allow crying and encourages independence.

3. Insecure Ambivalent / Resistant attachment, and reluctant reaction pattern. The child does not dare to explore the room before the mother leaves, because the child is unable to use the mother as a safe base. The child seeks closeness to the mother before the separation from her, but becomes very stressed when she leaves the room.

The child shows very mixed feelings, including anger and reluctance towards her. When she returns, the child also returns to play. But he or she is preoccupied with the mother’s availability and seeks contact, but again shows reluctance and anger when the contact is achieved. The child can hit and push the mother when she encourages closeness. He or she is not easily comforted by either the caregiver or the stranger. In this relationship, the child always feels anxious because the mother is never consistent in being present and available to the child.

The mother, on the other hand, alternates between appropriate and absent or deficient reactions to the child’s needs. She will mostly only react if the child shows strong attachment behavior.

4. Disorganized and desoriented attachment and reaction pattern.(This fourth category was added to Ainsworth’s originally three categories by Mary Main in 1990.) The category describes a child that shows unusual behavior. It can stiffen completely in a frozen body position, or it can rock back and forth when reunited with the mother. The lack of a meaningful form of attachment manifests itself in contradictory and confused actions, such as approaching the mother with sudden exclamations, then turning his back on her, or just standing there with an expressionless face.

The mother, on the other hand, exhibits frightened or frightening behavior. She can be intrusive with her negative behavior, forgetting her role as a mother. Make serious mistakes in how to communicate with the child about emotions. Demonstrate a high degree of neglect, not infrequently in connection with various forms of abuse of the child in the child’s family. This is a very serious condition in both mother and child.

The effect of the child’s first two years of life, on adulthood.

A lot can change during a person’s life. However, according to infant researchers such as Winnicott, Trevarthen, Benjamin and Stern, there is little doubt that the first two years of our lives form the main basis for how we view ourselves and others. That is also what neuropsychologists like Alan Shore and Antonio Damasio have found out regarding the organization of the human brain. The quality of the interaction between mother’s and the child’s brain during the two formative first years, is crucial for the quality of the child¨s wellbeing during the rest of it’s life.

During these two years, the basis for our self-esteem is also created, a feeling that is consciously or unconsciously linked to the value we experience that we have.

Studies of the four forms of attachment in adults.

Based on the above-mentioned study, Bartholomew and Horowitz designed a study in which they tried to find out how children’s early experiences in connection with the caregiver were expressed later in life as adults. (Bartholomew & Horowitz, “Models of Adult Attachment” 1991), They then found two main types of self-perceptions: One was a consistently positive self-perception, which researchers called a positive model of themselves, and the other was a consistently negative self-perception, which the researchers called a negative model of themselves.

The paradox here, was that the group of adults who had a positive self-perception, or model of themselves, could have different perceptions or models of others. Those who were described as safe and secure in their attachment to the mother in Ainsworth’s study, as adults also proved to have a positive perception, or model of others. But even those children with dismissive caregivers, and who were described as evasive, independent, emotionally indifferent, turned out to have a positive self-perception or model of themselves. But in contrast to the group of children with a secure connection, as adults these had a negative perception, or model of others.

In the other main group, there were those children with a negative perception or model of themselves. These children had been exposed to caregivers who were unclear and unpredictable, both close and distant in relation to the child’s needs. In spite of this, these children still had a positive perception or model of others. While the children with chaotic parental relationships, had both negative perceptions of themselves and negative perceptions of others.

So how did these four groups of adults react to closeness, intimacy and independence in relation to others?

The safe adults with basic stable and secure attachment to their caregivers as children, responded with the ability for both closeness, intimacy, empathy, but also independence. What they said during the interviews was very much in line with their true ability to empathize and positive closeness in friendships and love relationships. They radiated warmth and positive emotions, but also had a good ability to control themselves if necessary, and show responsibility in their close relationships.

The rejected children, with very distant attachment to caretakers, also later, as adults, rejected intimacy and closeness. In addition they lacked the ability to empathize, and had a limited repertoire of emotions, but showed on the other hand, a very high degree of independence. During the interviews, they scored uniquely high on self-confidence and incredibly low on emotional expressions, including interpersonal warmth and the capacity to cry. They did not trust others, did not want closeness, or get involved in romantic relationships or close friendships.

The adults who had experienced great duality and ambivalence in the relationship with the caregiver as children, with a lot of on and off contact and little predictability, they seemed preoccupied with the relationship and how they were perceived, and in addition very dependent on external confirmation to feel vel. During the interviews, they showed a high degree of comprehensive and detailed language, with strong emotional expressions. In their relationships, there were often inappropriate confidences, with both crying, excessive trust in others, and attempts to use others as a secure base. These adults were very often involved in romantic relationships, but had difficulty controlling themselves both in love life and in relation to friends.

The last group with rather disorganized, chaotic and destructive attachment experiences as children, seemed like adults very anxious, and afraid of closeness to others, especially for fear of rejection. These usually chose a very secluded life. The interviews showed that they had very weak self-esteem and the ability to balance emotions in both friendships and romantic relationships. In addition, they had very little trust in others, and therefore did not seek others to be safe and feel satisfied.

What can we get out of this research about you and me?

If you are a parent reading this, I want you to understand that we all as adults have been children, who have tried to adapt to the conditions that our parents have offered us. Our brains and our emotional lives are tuned in to this adaptation to mother and father’s way of life. We need this quality to ensure that we are neither expelled from the group nor invaded by it. We need both the connection to the community and at the same time the feeling of being independent individuals.

Since we depend on doing what our parents need of us to be, to be able to tolerate and love us, we organize ourselves mentally and physically so that the relation to them is as positive and rewarding as possible, and contain as little disappointments as possible. It is this way of being with people, that also creates the relationship we have with ourselves.

We become ourselves, through the relation to others, as the German psychoanalyst Helm Stierlin called it. And this basic experience with people in our world, is what you and I are bringing with us both consciously and unconsciously in later relationships. This pattern is not least expressed and acted out when we as parents get our own children.

There is no point in criticizing ourselves and soaking ourselves in guilt if we see that we have sonewhat failed during the attachment phase. That is if we have inflicted on our children, an equally difficult pattern of attachment, as we ourselves have had. Yes, it is our responsibility as adults, and quite rightly our fault, that we pass on dysfunctional behaviors from generation to generation. But most important is to be able to see and understand the way we carry with us models of being together in close relationships and parenthood. At the same time, we must try to apologize and repair some of the damage done to our children.

This is important to prevent this is passed on from generation to generation. Here we should certainly not underestimate the power that lies in the desire to repair a derailed relationship. This is what is called the reparative function in a relationship!

Attachment and psychological treatment.

Attachment theory can be relevant to me as a clinical psychologist especially in one area that I will show. However, some of the concepts in attachment theory seem a little too rigid and objectifying. The fact that there are only four categories to place people into, does not seem very nuanced in practice. Nevertheless, it can be useful to use the categories to shed light on some typical forms of attachment we find in children and adults. At the same time, we must remind ourselves that a person is much more complex than what the impression seems to be, if your interpret these four types og attachment literally.

I also personally believe that there need to be set up a clearer distinction between what we call self-esteem and what we refer to as self-confidence. In my view self-esteem refers to the deep trust in oneself that has it’s origin in a relation based on unconditioned love. Self-confidence or being self-assure on the contrary, is a feeling based on conditioned love or accept, that is, – as a function of achievement . How can we else understand that a person who has not received the necessary emotional closeness and care in a mother/father-child relationship, (category 2.) still has such an enormously high self-confindence? At the same time, the person in question does not trust others at all.

But as mentioned above, if we distinguish between basic unconditional affirmation on the one hand, and conditional affirmation that depends on how good you are, on the other hand, we may be able to understand how this is possible.

Important: Unconditional affirmation and recognition, where you as a child experience love for who you are, no matter how you are, gives a very robust, good, safe and positive self-esteem.

In the case of conditional affirmation and recognition, you do not get recognition for who you are, but for what you do. Thus, we can say that this confirmation does not rest on secure grounds, but is constantly dependent on what you achieve in the relationship. In this way, you may become very independent and self-sufficient, but unfortunately without the ability to be close. In my experience, you also lack the unconditional positive self-esteem, and the ability to be dependent on someone.

Independence is an illusion.

What exactly is dependence and what is independence? As we through ecological research have come to understand ourselves as thinking beings, – situated somewhere in the middle between micro and macrocosm, – we all seem highly dependent on the existence of all living matter above and below us. In other words, independence is an illusion. Because everything living is sustained by something else, whether it is gravity, mineralogy, chemistry or biological life. This in turn keeps other things alive. (check front page’s introduction; Psychological Universe)

Independence must always relate to the phenomenon of dependence. There must be a balance between the security of having been completely dependent as a child, and the freedom to be able to become independent over time. It is impossible to become completely independent and autonomus under normal conditions. So for the extremely independent and self-assure person, with lots of confidence, it will turn out to be very risky not to be able to perform. Then the person will probably collapse in some way, because this surface does not rest on safe ground! It does not have the necessary deep self-esteem that forms the basis of self-experience.

I otherwise experience that the concept of attachment makes good sense if, as I said, we do not think too strictly in the four categories. There are many overlaps here.

For me as a psychotherapist, it is still particularly fruitful to think of attachment as a cornerstone of the therapeutic relationship. Without trust in the therapist, and a sense that the therapist accepts and recognizes you as you are, it will be difficult to create change in the patient’s life.

In psychotherapy it is crucial to form a positive bond and eventually a secure connection between me and the person who needs psychological help. I therefore see it as crucial that my fellow human beings in need of help, have an experience of equality in the relationship. This makes the best prerequisite for creating a relationship based on trust and a feeling of mutuality. Then the concept of attachment becomes fruitful, and practically useful. However, my experience after many years as a psychotherapist and a teacher in psychology, – to create this realtionship you need TIME! You also need an open but safe SPACE for CHANGE.

Improving a damaged or deficient self-esteem, and changing a negative perception of other people, necessarily takes many hours or sessions. This is not a quick fix. As a therapist, you have to build a platform of trust and connection to move forward in the psychological work.

Conclusion:

It can be very fruitful trying to understand ourselves and our pattern of reactions, by thinking about how we balance closeness and distance, independence and dependence, as well as the ability to show and express emotions. At the same time, not least what we think about others and ourselves. All change starts with finding out where we stand and how we have ended up there. Then the task is to accept that it has become like that, before we possibly try to open up to new ways of being with others and ourselves.