All about affection

Is attachment good or bad? And is it possible to give an unambiguous answer to this question? After all, a person can be attached to another person, and to a thing, and to a phenomenon (for example, alcohol or sweets). How can an ordinary person distinguish between unproductive and productive attachments? Let's look at it below.

In psychology, the definition of attachment sounds like this: the feeling of closeness that a person has when he feels sympathy or devotion to someone or something keeps him close to this object. At the same time, a person does not feel love or interest for this object, nor does he strive to get some kind of benefit from intimacy. Thanks to the presence of affection, the child obeys and hears the mother and father, feels safe, grows, develops. Many psychologists argue that attachment is a natural program, and parents should form this program in such a way as to become a support for their children. Children, being attached to their parents, must, upon reaching a certain age, undergo separation from them and gain independence - both external and internal.

Speaking about attachment, first of all, it should be said about the child's connection with the mother, then with the father and other people who perform educational functions in relation to him. The child, like no one else, has a strong need for intimacy at the level of emotions, it is innate. A large number of psychologists argue that if a person in childhood was not attached to a loved one, then he cannot show other feelings based on attachment (these include love, friendship, camaraderie).Thus, a person is not fully socialized and may acquire one of the antisocial personality disorders.

Attachment can be interpersonal, or it can be domestic, for example, a person is attached to his favorite coffee mug or "happy" shirt, in which he successfully passed exams or held work meetings. Some of the inclinations are quite understandable and explainable, others are perplexing, and still others have an obvious destructive power for a person. Modern people have an inherent ability to get used to such things as a mobile phone and other gadgets, clothes, a car, etc. All these are household attachments that form a way of life and habits.

The nature of attachment can be ordinary, everyday, and maybe psychological. Everyday attachment is called unwillingness to change the usual life circumstances and conditions, unwillingness to change housing or even the situation in an apartment or house. As for the psychological nature, this is an interpersonal connection, which can manifest itself as a desire for constant presence nearby, a feeling of the fullness of existence only near a specific person, or maybe as anxiety that this closeness will be lost for some reason.

Researchers have identified several types of attachment. If the mother and child have a harmonious relationship, then their relationship is safe. With this type of connection, the child experiences joy and calmness, feels protected, and the mother is focused on his interests and needs. If the relationship between mother and child develops in this way, then later he will be able to socialize painlessly and calmly, adapting to any collectives and social groups.

When the mother, father, or both neglects the child, it is called avoidant attachment. Then, upon reaching adulthood, it will be difficult for such a child to build relationships in society, he will experience a strong dependence on what others think of him.

In this type of attachment, several subtypes are distinguished, namely: securely stable, securely closed, securely balanced and securely responsive. The terms are based on research by Mary Ainsworth, who has studied the relationship between mothers and babies for many years. Children, reliably connected with their mothers, more freely and strongly strive to explore the world around them. This happens because they are confident in the strength of the feelings of a significant adult, they know that if they need him, they will immediately return. Such children feel safe, they interact correctly with their parents and do not worry without a significant reason.

We can say that the most adaptive type of attachment is the reliable type. It arises when a significant adult (in infants, in most cases, this is the mother) is always in the child's field of vision, when he is focused on the child's needs and satisfies them correctly and responsibly. The key qualities that parents should show to a child at this time are care and attention, then children brought up in this way will show exactly this type of attachment in adulthood.

This type has several names - anxiously stable, ambivalent, anxiously ambivalent. Its essence is that the child is upset and often cries if the mother, for some reason, is forced to leave him. When the mother returns, the child is calm. Even when a parent is near him, such a child is reluctant to make contact with adults, is wary of them.Any unfamiliar situation causes a certain stupor in a child with this type of attachment, he needs to get used to the circumstances before starting to explore the space.

Mothers often do not need to be inattentive, any negative experience of early childhood can become an impetus for the manifestation of anxiety. For example, children who have experienced such care may be anxious when a parent leaves, for example, a mother was admitted to the hospital due to illness or due to the birth of another child. In such a situation, the child had been waiting for the mother's return for quite a long time, while not knowing exactly when she would return. In the future, such children may experience anxiety and discomfort during any parent's absence.

The anxious-avoidant or avoidant type of attachment has long been a mystery to psychologists. They could not find an explanation for the phenomenon that infants or older children avoid or ignore a parent or other caregiver who plays a significant role in their life. Such children were not interested in what was happening outside, did not seek to explore their environment, regardless of whether the parent was nearby or absent. Finally, it has been suggested that by such behavior, ignoring the parent, children are only trying to mask their sadness at their departure. The assumption was confirmed by the results of measuring the pulse of children with avoidant attachment type.

Parent avoidance is most often demonstrated by infants in a stressful situation where their needs have not been addressed. This gives the child the confidence that the parent does not care at all whether his needs are met, whether he is satisfied. In most cases, this is true that the child intuitively and feels. While avoiding the adult, he nevertheless leaves him in sight, maintaining a semblance of closeness with him. In addition, the not fully formed ability to express their emotions and experiences does not allow the child to let the adult understand how upset and upset he is with what is happening, and therefore he moves away from the parent.

Mary Ainsworth originally identified the three types of attachment listed above. However, it was later discovered that there were children whose behavior did not fit any type. They did not show anxiety, but at the same time they were clearly under stress, did not avoid the parent, but did not show signs of a reliable type of connection with him. So another type was added to the classification, called "disorganized". With this type of attachment, the activation of the connection between the adult and the child does not occur during an unfamiliar, stressful situation and is in no way connected with the departure and arrival of the parent.

The child shows fear, not anxiety, during the procedure "Strange situation", while the manifestations of emotions are atypical for the simulated situation. Interestingly, in children with this behavior, the mothers themselves often faced major losses or stresses before or after the birth of the child.

The child-parent attachment begins to form from the moment the child is born. What it will be depends mainly on the adult, since children, up to a certain point, "mirror" the emotions of their parents due to the lack of formation of their own emotionality. A person is not born with attachment, he acquires and forms it.The child, crying or in some other way, informs about his need, the parent satisfies it, and then a healthy type of attachment begins to form, or does not satisfy, then everything will become much more complicated. By about three months of age, the child begins to recognize a significant adult (in most cases, the mother and father), to rejoice in him. This suggests that attachment is formed correctly.

At the age of six months, he already confidently recognizes his parents (but may not recognize grandparents), distinguishes them from all other people. With regard to interpersonal relationships, attachment is formed gradually. A healthy kind of mutual close connection between people, man and woman, is the so-called “I + I” scheme, where each “I” is a free and independent individual who can exist without the other. Such people become attached to each other not painfully, without strain and imprisonment of both themselves and their partner. They live an ordinary life, it's just more pleasant for them to do it together. Attachments also arise in teams, for example, a class, study group, colleagues. The teacher becomes attached to the students, the children to each other.

Some of the attachments can develop into friendships or even love ones, but most remain at the level of friends, such ties are quite easily and painlessly terminated with the completion of activities - educational or work. If the nature of the attachment is such that because of it a person is deprived of freedom and the ability to function normally, we are talking about the fact that an addiction has arisen. It can be either another person or a phenomenon - alcohol, food, drugs, weight loss. The factor of focusing on the subject of attachment, feeling full only next to it is an indicator of painful addiction.

Signs of a child's attachment to a parent have been listed above. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, it is fairly easy to distinguish attachment from love, you just need to be honest with yourself. Sometimes it is enough to be very frank to answer the question: "Why am I next to this person?" There are a lot of answers, but only one speaks of love.

Relationships do not develop - another indicator that they are unproductive for the participants, that people are in them, as it were, by inertia. Often, both are well aware that these relationships are temporary, that they do not bring positive for both, that there are a lot of things that people are not ready to put up with, but are used to and continue to be in a relationship. All of this speaks of an unhealthy attachment. The desire to remake a partner, to change him, speaks about her. In love, a person is accepted as he is.

Attachment disorders can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. First of all, it depends on what features the child has - temperament, vitality, psychological structure. Some children tolerate things that can deeply hurt others. It is far from always possible to predict this. The same parents can have children completely different in the degree of psychological stability. There can be no general scheme, each case is individual. Violations can manifest themselves in the form of:

• aggression;
• depressive state;
• psychosomatic disorders;
• unsociability;
• lack of empathy;
• low self-esteem;
• and even all of the above at once.

Psychologists also talk about reactive attachment disorder, which is easy to identify, but very difficult to cure. In this state, children have no emotional connection to significant adults, it is simply not formed. The child is lethargic, does not want to communicate and play, does not go to handles, does not need comfort if he is hit or injured. Such children smile little, do not maintain eye contact, and are always sad and apathetic. Growing up, children can move to either disinhibited or inhibited behavior.In the first case, they want to attract the attention of everyone, even unfamiliar or completely unfamiliar people, as much as possible, they often do not behave according to their age. It is important for a parent to be patient and understanding, otherwise aggression or anger will appear.

Steve and Connire Andreas offer a sequence of steps to take to release painful, neurotic attachments.

• The first step is to realize that you are attached to a person (or a phenomenon, for example, alcohol), to identify your symptoms. Understanding that attachment exists, visualizing it in the form of fetters, ropes, ropes is the beginning of the path to getting rid of it. It will not be possible to quickly cope with addiction, it passes gradually due to constant work to get rid of it.
• Next, you need to decide what a person gets from attachment, for what it is to him. It can be feeling fulfilled only in a relationship with another person, or feeling confident only after a couple of glasses of wine.
• The next step is to comprehend the feelings experienced and try to find a replacement for their source. It is necessary to remember when a person experienced the same sensations in other ways. Try to repeat these situations.
• Further, the so-called environmental audit is carried out. Would a person feel better or worse after giving up attachment? If there are doubts that outside help will not be required (for example, when getting rid of the habit of alcohol or drugs), then it is better to enlist the support of professionals in advance by signing up for an addiction recovery course at a rehabilitation center.

Once a person realizes that he is addicted, attached, and also found a way to break this attachment, he is able to abandon it. Perhaps this will not work the first time, then you should return to the second step and again try to repeat the sequence of actions to get rid of the addiction. If we are talking about attachment to a person, for example, after a divorce or in its process, you need to put yourself in his place and go through all the steps on his behalf.

After all the stages have been passed, you need to analyze your condition without painful dependence on a person or phenomenon. Remind yourself more often of what you have purchased:

• freedom;
• relaxation;
• peace of mind;
• harmony, etc.

Of course, there will be a fear that attachment will return or that life will no longer be the same. It's okay to be afraid. In some cases, therapy may be needed.

To build a stronger emotional bond with your child, simple steps are enough.

• First of all, this is a tactile connection - every day the child needs to be hugged, touching him, kissing, for him this is an indicator that he is loved and appreciated. It is known that hugs with a child should last as long as the child needs, an adult should not interrupt them. The child lets go of the adult when he has received the necessary portion of warmth. Verbal communication is also important - you need to tell the child how valuable and important he is, how he is loved.
• Reading books together is great for strengthening the symbiotic bond between parent and child. Through the book, you can not only develop the intellect of children, but also work on education, the emotional sphere, examining various situations, discussing feelings and their manifestation, the opportunity to laugh or be sad. A child who read books in childhood will grow up to be calmer and more self-confident.
• Cooking is a seemingly unexpected activity to raise a child, but in fact, it is quite logical. In the kitchen, the mother prepares lunches and dinners, and the child may well help by completing simple tasks. At this time, he does not suffer from the absence of his mother, he is connected to an important matter - cooking for the whole family, and his mother can calmly control the process. Plus, things like sculpting dumplings or shaping cookies are great for developing fine motor skills.
• Being engaged in joint creativity means developing the child's ability to see the beautiful and in doing so, strengthen the bond between parent and child. The main thing to remember is that the child himself expresses his emotions through creativity, and the task of the parent is to guide and help, and not do for him and not indicate how to do it right. The child draws a blue crow and a red eagle, which means that this is correct, this is how he develops imagination and imagination. A mother who supports any creative endeavor of the child, thereby strengthening the bond between them.
• Few parents play with their children, but play is not silly at all, but an important element of development. Through play, children experience various situations, sometimes a parent can simulate them in order to discuss what happened (for example, a conflict situation with other children) on dolls or other toys. Outdoor games develop the child's dexterity, team games teach them to think several steps ahead, board games form the rudiments of strategic and tactical thinking, situational games develop the emotional and psychological sphere, and creative ones (modeling, mosaic, construction set) help fine motor skills.