Core principles of attachment and attachment styles*
| Core principles |
| Attachment is the close emotional bond which binds families, to protect children while they learn necessary skills for safe independence |
| The core of attachment is attunement to the feelings and needs of the other |
| Quality of attachment depends on the adequacy and consistency of children’s ability to elicit responses, and of parents’ ability to respond |
| Quality of attunement is affected by: |
| Foundations for intuitive attunement (ie, parents’ ability to respond instinctively to their child because of what they learnt through their own early parenting) |
| Stress, fatigue, anxiety, distractibility |
| Substance abuse, mental illness |
| Learning difficulties |
| Attunement allows stress regulation before children can self-regulate, affecting programming of stress responses |
| Attachment styles merge on a continuum |
| Quality of attachment is dynamic, and depends on both sides of the relationship, although individual tendencies persist |
| Quality of attachment affects the extent to which children see relationships as valuable, safe, reliable and predictable |
| Quality of attachment affects the extent to which children seek attention, and risk relinquishing it |
| Quality of attachment, and consequent assumptions about relationships, substantially affect children’s learnt behaviour, which serves a purpose determined by the anticipated response |
| Emotionally abusive parenting affects perceptions of relationships and self, and programming of stress regulation; it both reflects and promotes dysfunctional attachment |
| Quality of attachment is always relevant to children’s wellbeing – the question is how, not whether it is significant |
| Attachment style* | Parenting | Perception of relationships | Developmental implications |
| Secure | Reliably well attuned; breaks effectively repaired | Valuable; attention worth seeking and readily achieved | Competent in functioning independently and in using relationships to learn |
| Insecure | |||
| Anxious* | Intermittently well attuned; breaks unpredictably repaired | Valuable but unreliable; attention worth seeking but unpredictably achieved. Depend on attention/approval for self-worth | Attention-seeking may impair learning, or anxiety to please may accelerate it |
| Ambivalent* | Variably attuned and antagonistic; breaks unpredictably repaired | Confusing: valuable, frightening, unpredictable. Crave relationships but fear closeness | May learn better at school than through close relationships. Craving for attention/approval may impair or enhance aspects of learning |
| Avoidant | Consistently non-attuned or often aggressive | Unhelpful or frightening. Attention not worth seeking, or feels unsafe | Social learning impaired. Cognitive development affected until independent learning is possible. May selectively develop non-personal abstract skills (eg, computing) |
| Disorganised | Unpredictably but pervasively abusive | Confusing, unhelpful, unusable | Ineffective independently and in using relationships; unable to integrate effectively in school |
*Understanding from first principles is more important to practical application than labelling. Terminology used to describe attachment styles varies and can therefore be confusing. Some do not differentiate between “anxious” and “ambivalent” patterns.