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A summary of attachment theory.
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Mon Dec 15 2003
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A summary of attachment theory. Copyright 1999, R. F. Bettler, Jr. Attachment theory derives from work of Bowlby in his three volume examination of the mother-child bonding. His notions derive from evolutionary principles and cybernetics. Babies have evolved certain behaviors because they increased survival: orienting towards the caregiver, distress over separation from the caregiver, searching for the caregiver. Human parents have evolved to respond to certain features of the baby, e.g., physiological arousal at the baby's cries, attraction to neonate facial features, etc. Bowlby felt that from his/her early experiences with caregivers, the child created a mental model of how relationships operate. Throughout life, then, the child, even into adulthood, will expect love relationships to echo the relationship he/she formed with important caregivers. If those early relationships were warm and caring, then the child would grow up expecting that other relationships would be warm and caring. If the early relationships were cold...
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