What is the attachment system
The attachment system is a motivational system Innate, which fulfills a protective function. It is exercised through the active research of closeness to a member of his own species.
This system has evolved into birds and mammals with the function of protecting the individual as well as from environmental dangers also from other forms of vulnerability. For example, from the impossibility of procuring food alone to solitude and to pain situations of all kinds.
In the human being and in few other species this system performs its function of request for help and comfort to its conspecifics throughout the life span. However, it works with maximum intensity during the early stages of existence. In a specular way i signals of attachment They activate the care system that urges a conspecific to provide a response of closeness and comfort.
First relationships and attachment
In the human species, each person develops, starting from early childhood, a style proper to Request for help and care.
This style is modeled according to the different responses provided to the child by those who usually take care of it, that is, from the figure of attachment (otherwise said caregiver).
Empirical research has identified three styles of behavior (note how pattern of organized attachment) and a condition of disorganization of the attachment.
The empirical observation situation that has made it possible to outline these styles is called “Strange Situation“(Ainsworth et al, 1978). A child, between 12 and 18 months, is accompanied by a attachment figure in a room where he has never been before. Here are toys, a chair and, later, a foreign person.
It is observed how the child interacts with the attachmentthe toys and the foreign person. Subsequently, the attachment figure leaves the room, closing the door behind him. At this point the reaction of the child is observed. After a maximum of 3 minutes the attachment figure returns to the room and invites the child to a hug. The child’s reaction to reunification is observed. The attachment figure returns to sit on the chair and the interaction of the child with it, with the environment and with the stranger is observed again.
Attachment styles
The first attachment style identified was called patterns a. This is characterized by a reaction of not protesting to the absorbing of the Caregiver. The child does not cry, he does not seek the figure of attachment. At the moment of reunification it actively avoids it (it does not welcome the invitation to the embrace, it continues to play or actively turns the shoulders). For this feature it has been defined as style of preventive attachment.
The attachment pattern B It is characterized by a lively protest to the separation (crying, search for the figure of the attachment and refusal of the extreum) and by a ready to straighten up at the time of the return and reunification, welcoming the embrace and finding comfort. This pattern has been defined safe attachment.
In the pattern c The child strongly protests at the time of separation, but appears inconsolable at the time of the meeting. Even in the arms of the attachment figure, he can continue to cry or react with screams and anger, actively resisting the gestures of comfort of the caregiver. This style has been called resistant attachment.
Disorganized attachment
A fourth attachment pattern was identified (Main, Solomon, 1986) and was present in a high percentage of children. These are those who cannot organize a coherent and unitary style of attachment during the first year of life. The resulting condition is called disorganized attachment.
The other styles maintain a certain consistency in behavior (avoidance or maintenance of a certain distance in patterns A, active and sure research of proximity to pattern B and search for closeness followed by resistance to comfort in the C). In this case, however, an organization in behavior towards the attachment figure cannot be identified.
Children with patterns D at the time of the meeting with the attachment figure can show inconsistent behaviors. They can head towards the attachment figure with the gaze addressed elsewhere or make quick changes of direction in the opposite direction. They can manifest fear (such as assets, frightened facial expressions) or confusion (absent gaze, disorientation).
Causes of the disorganized attachment
The collected data show that the disorganization of the attachment it is strongly correlated to the presence of mourning or trauma not resolved in the memory of caregiver (Main, Hesse, 1990). The correlation is also strong between the disorganization of the attachment in the child and mental states of the caregiver Characterized by hostility and helplessness ((Lyons-Reth et al., 2005).
It has been hypothesized that the attachment figures can cause fear in the child as he cares, through openly aggressive attitudes (usually linked to traumatic memories) even violent becoming openly frightening. Fear can also be induced by a frightened attitude of caregiverwhich unknowingly can express fear (connected to one’s painful memories). He loses communicative harmony and becomes an indirectly frightening.
In the’disorganized attachmenttherefore, the attachment figure represents for the child both a source of protection and danger. It causes a state of fear that finds no solution neither in the behavior of departure nor in those of approach. The behavior therefore disorganizes.
Disorganized attachment and psychopathology
This disorganization is manifested as a disorganic combination of behaviors incompatible with each other in self -experience with the other. It is intuitive that it could potentially predispose to disorders of the state of consciousness in adulthood (Liotti, 1992; Liotti, 2001).
The instability of the behaviors of the attachment figure, together with careful and frightened-profit, leads the child to form multiple and inconsistent representations of himself and the other. This can play an important role in disorders such as depersonalization and derealization, also frequent in the phobic-anxious states. For example, panic attack disorder with or without agoragobia or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Even in eating disorders, in the use of substances and somatophormic disorders disorders disorganization of the attachment can exercise an important influence. Finally it can play a role in mood disorders.
Finally in personality disorders, especially in borderline disorder, the early experiences of disorganization of the attachment can condition the psychopathological nucleus. In particular, they affect the difficulty in recognizing and regulating their emotions and on the multiple and inconsistent representation of themselves (Liotti, 1999)
