I am attached to them!

I am attached to them!

About attachment as a buoy in distress

Martine F. Delfos

Translation of: Martine F. Delfos (2013; 2014).

Ik ben aan ze gehecht! Over gehechtheid als een boei in nood.

PICOWO-serie Deel 3. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SWP (ISBN 978 90 8850 463 1)

I am attached to them!

About attachment as a buoy in distress

PICOWO series Part 15

Martine F. Delfos

ISBN 978 90 8850 780 9

e-ISBN: 978 90 8850 784 7

NUR 740

Information about the work of Martine F. Delfos: www.mdelfos.nl

© 2017 Martine F. Delfos / SWP Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of SWP Publishers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Content

Motto

Biographical information on John Bowlby

Introduction

Attachment: the core

The need for contact

The founder, John Bowlby

The basic idea

The development of attachment

Phase 1: From birth to three months

Phase 2: From three to six months

Phase 3: From six months to three years

Phase 4: From three years to the end of childhood

The nature of the attachment

Attachment and autonomy

Gender differences in attachment

The role of attachment over the life course

Attachment and growing up in different situations

Attachment when growing up in non-biological situations

Attachment in divorce, in single-parent households and step-families/composite families

Attachment in case of death

Attachment in an adoptive family

Attachment in foster care and family homes

Give no love

Attachment and acculturation

Epilogue

References

Name and subject index

About the author

You have to be well attached to be able to become truly autonomous

Biographical information

on John Bowlby

John Bowlby (1907-1990)

British psychiatrist Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, called John Bowlby, was born in London on February 26 1907 and died in Skye on September 2 1990, England.

He is the founder of Attachment theory. His work has had great influence on the education of children, the treatment of children in the child welfare, foster care and the policy of children in hospitals. Bowlby wrote his thoughts about the theory on attachment in the trilogy Attachment and loss.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAAmSqv2GV8

Bowlby also wrote a biography of Charles Darwin, this biography was published posthumously in 1991. In this biography Bowlby formulates an answer to the question why Darwin suffered throughout his life from physical complaints and never wanted to go to funerals. The explanation of Bowlby is that the symptoms of Darwin were psychosomatic by nature and Darwin’s resistance to attend funerals had the same source as the physical symptoms, namely the death of his mother when little Charles was eight years old and his sisters asked him not about speak about his mother again.

Most important books of Bowlby:

Bowlby, J. (1995) [1950]. Maternal Care and Mental Health. The master work series (2nd ed.). Northvale, NJ; London: Jason Aronson.

Bowlby, J. (1999) [1969]. Attachment. Attachment and Loss (vol. 1) (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1973). Separation: Anxiety & Anger. Attachment and Loss (vol. 2); (International psycho-analytical library no.95). London: Hogarth Press.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Loss: Sadness & Depression. Attachment and Loss (vol. 3); (International psycho-analytical library no.109). London: Hogarth Press.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Tavistock professional book. London: Routledge.

Bowlby, J. (1991). Charles Darwin: A New Life. New York: Norton.

Introduction

Attachment is an important topic. It is about the connection between people and how this can be accomplished. Man is best characterized as an individual in the group. This means the human being is very attached to his or her own independence, autonomy, but he does this because of the attachment to the other. The independence of man can only develop if there is a ‘safety net’. That safety net is the connection with an attachment figure. The motto of this book reflects the relationship between attachment and autonomy:

You have to be well attached to be able to become truly autonomous.

In the nature of his or her commitments the human being usually makes a hierarchy of one main character, then family, relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors and colleagues; and on another level: teachers, physicians and religious leaders. Perhaps man does function at his best when he or she has a significant person on all levels of the hierarchy.

The person hierarchy becomes visible in the desire to share something with others. Who do you call?

The nature of the commitment to people changes during lifetime in relation to the place that people get and varies within the these positions. The function of the parent normally shifts to the background and that of a partner comes to the foreground. This has to do with growing up and getting older. Sharper formulated, the nature of the attachment changes especially with the degree of autonomy, the degree in which a person can function independently. The need for care, support and confirmation changes with the characteristics of a person and his or her life. A child with severe intellectual challenges will be a child up to and into his adulthood.

Mother’s child they sometimes say, without realizing that “some fruits never mature,” as the poet Vasalis (1940) puts it so beautifully in her poem “The idiot in the bath.”

How people connect, is very important. How for one person it is easy to make connections with other people and for others it is very hard to do so, is even important for everyone in daily life. The attachment theory of Bowlby has proven to be of great value. It is one of the most researched theories of recent decades. In educational practice and care, attachment has become an important issue.

As precursors three main studies can be mentioned. The first is the study of King Ferdinand the Second in the thirteenth century about the development of language. He found that children died without having contact. The next two are the studies of René Spitz war orphans (1887-1974) and later that of Anna Freud (1895-1982) who discovered the vital need of contact of war orphans in orphanages.

In researching attachment several ‘generations’ of progressing insights can be designated:

 1: The foundation, laid by the founder John Bowlby (1907-1990).

 2: The refinement of the theory, in collaboration with Bowlby: Mary Ainsworth (1913-1999).

 3: The expansion of attachment figure to an attachment network.

 4: The extension of core family and family to educators and caregivers.

 5: The expansion to broad network.

 6: The extension to the quality of responsiveness.

 7: Extending the static view of attachment to a continuum of attachment.

 8: The extension from mother to father.

 9: The addition of loyalty.

10: The attachment scheme with translation to the nature of attachment in thinking patterns.

11: The placement of attachment in the life-course and generations.

This book describes attachment, whereby research provides the foundation and new insights are integrated. Also, the specific problems of developing attachment in atypical upbringing situations such as divorce, and growing up in foster care are discussed. Thereafter, attachment is also described in a broader sense, such as the context in which a family is developing.

It is important to realize that knowledge alone is not enough. This should be supported by experience and can only be successfully be internalized and remembered when emotion is added. These three elements are in continuous interaction with each other, see Figure 1.

Figure 1: The knowledge triangle (Delfos)

The educator’s experience is important, but must be tested on the available knowledge and the characteristics of the specific person; in this case the child. Only in the integration of these three elements we may speak of evidence-based and an optimal perspective on attachment.

The material in this book is among other things based on different publications of Martine Delfos, particularly the developmental psychology textbook: Development from a birds view. Development of children and adolescents (Delfos, 2015). At the end of this book is a list of references.

Photo: Céline Kronenburg

Attachment: the core

The need for contact

A child is born very helpless. It takes many years to become an independently functioning human being. In order to develop, the human child needs help and therefore the baby is equipped with a tendency to make human contact. However limited it may seem, the baby asks for care through contact, through communication.

Very young, a few days old, babies tend to imitate an adult sticking out his tongue. However difficult it is for the baby to stick out his tongue, because he or she has very little muscle control, the need for making contact causes the baby to make every effort to imitate the adult. Equality is a strong impetus for attachment. Man connects primarily to what is the same, not to what is different.

A study about the influence of the nature versus nurture, probably the first in this area, shows how fundamental the idea of contact is.

It is a study of the thirteenth century, commissioned by King Ferdinand the Second (in: Stone & Church, 1973). This German king wanted to know with what language children are born: Hebrew or Greek. In order to find out, he had babies brought into the castle and had them only fed, clothed and bathed. He strictly forbade anyone to speak with the babies. The result was unexpected and shocking, because the babies soon died. In the twentieth century, we see a similar effect in the research of René Spitz (1965) about war orphans.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvdOe10vrs4