Attachment and Separation.
In the absence of human ties, those mental qualities that we call human will fail to develop or will be grafted upon a personality that cannot nourish them, so that at best they will be imitations of virtues, personality facades."2
2Selma Fraiberg, The Magic Years (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1959), p. 300.
The term "attachment" was coined in the 1960s by British psychiatrist John Bowlby
Bowlby and Ainsworth were struck by the depth of the children's attachment and their despair upon separation.
The process of developing healthy attachments can be disrupted by...
Abuse, neglect, abandonment, multiple changes in caregivers, foster care, adoption, painful illness, exposure to alcohol/drugs in utero, maternal depression, inconsistent day care.
No variables have more far-reaching effects on personality development than a child's experiences within the family. Starting during his first months in his relation to both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations, and on all those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life. Attachment and Loss (1973, p.369)
The activation of attachment behaviours depends on the infant's evaluation of a range of environmental signals which results in the subjective experience of security or insecurity. The experience of security is the goal of the attachment system, which is thus first and foremost a regulator of emotional experience (Sroufe, 1996). In this sense it lies at the heart of many forms of mental disorder and the entire psychotherapeutic enterprise.
Secure explore readily in the presence of the primary caregiver, are anxious in the presence of the stranger and avoid her, are distressed by their caregivers' brief absence, rapidly seek contact with the caregiver afterwards, and are reassured by this. The infant returns to exploration. Some infants, who appear to be made less anxious by separation, may not seek proximity with the caregiver following separation, and may not prefer the caregiver over the stranger; these infants are designated 'Anxious/Avoidant'. A third category, 'Anxious/Resistant' infants show limited exploration and play, tend to be highly distressed by the separation, but have great difficulty in settling afterwards, showing struggling, stiffness, continued crying, or fuss in a passive way. The caregiver's presence or attempts at comforting fail to reassure, and the infant's anxiety and anger appear to prevent them from deriving comfort from proximity.
Secure infants' behaviour is based on the experience of well co-ordinated, sensitive interactions where the caregiver is rarely over-arousing and is able to restabilise the child's disorganising emotional responses. Therefore, they remain relatively organised in stressful situations. Negative emotions feel less threatening, and can be experienced as meaningful and communicative (Grossman, Grossmann, & Schwan, 1986; Sroufe, 1979; Sroufe, 1996).
Anxious/Avoidantly attached children are presumed to have had experiences where their emotional arousal was not restabilised by the caregiver, or where they were over aroused through intrusive parenting; therefore they over-regulate their affect and avoid situations that are likely to be distressing. Anxious/Resistantly attached children under-regulate, heightening their expression of distress possibly in an effort to elicit the expectable response of the caregiver. There is a low threshold for threat, and the child becomes preoccupied with having contact with the caregiver, but frustrated even when it is available (Sroufe, 1996).
A fourth group of infants exhibits seemingly undirected behaviour, giving the impression of disorganisation and disorientation (Main & Solomon, 1990). Infants who manifest freezing, hand clapping, head-banging, the wish to escape the situation even in the presence of the caregiver, are referred to as 'Disorganised/Disoriented'. It is generally held that for such infants the caregiver has served as a source of both fear and reassurance, thus arousal of the attachment behavioural system produces strong conflicting motivations. Not surprisingly, a history of severe neglect or physical or sexual abuse is often associated with this pattern (Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1987; Main & Hesse, 1990). I would like to consider this group in much greater detail, this afternoon.
The infant's behaviour by the end of the first year is purposeful, and apparently based on specific expectations. His past experiences with the caregiver are aggregated into representational systems which Bowlby (1973) termed 'internal working models'. Thus, the attachment system is an open bio-social homeostatic regulatory system.
Bowlby proposed that internal working models of the self and others provide prototypes for all later relationships. Such models are relatively stable across the lifespan (Collins & Read, 1994). Early experiences of flexible access to feelings are regarded as formative by attachment theorists. The autonomous sense of self emerges fully from secure parent-infant relationships (Emde & Buchsbaum, 1990; Fonagy et al., 1995a; Lieberman & Pawl, 1990). Most importantly the increased control of the secure child permits him to move toward the ownership of inner experience, and toward understanding self and others as intentional beings whose behaviour is organised by mental states, thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires (Fonagy et al., 1995a; Sroufe, 1990). Consistent with this, prospective longitudinal research has demonstrated that children with a history of secure attachment are independently rated as more resilient, self-reliant, socially oriented (Sroufe, 1983; Waters, Wippman, & Sroufe, 1979), empathic to distress (Kestenbaum, Farber, & Sroufe, 1989), with deeper relationships (Sroufe, 1983; Sroufe, Egeland, & Kreutzer, 1990).
Effects of Attachment and Separation
Attachment and separation: these elemental forces drive the behaviors and decisions that shape every stage of practice. Assessment, removal, placement, reunification, adoption-no aspect of child welfare social work is untouched by their influence. This article will describe these forces and provide suggestions for helping children and families understand and cope with them.
Attachment
Attachment is the social and emotional relationship children develop with the significant people in their lives. An infant's first attachment is usually formed with its mother, although in some circumstances another adult can become the primary attachment figure. This may be a father, a grandparent, or an unrelated adult (Caye, et al., 1996).
Attachment is a process made up of interactions between a child and his or her primary caregiver. This process begins at birth, helping the child develop intellectually, organize perceptions, think logically, develop a conscience, become self-reliant, develop coping mechanisms (for stress, frustration, fear, and worry), and form healthy and intimate relationships (Allen, et al., 1983).
In her 1982 article on parent-child attachment, published in the journal Social Casework, Peg Hess states that three conditions must be present for optimal parent-child attachment to occur: continuity, stability, and mutuality. Continuity involves the caregiver's constancy and repetition of the parent-child interactions. Stability requires a safe environment where the parent and child can engage in the bonding process. Mutuality refers to the interactions between the parent and child that reinforce their importance to each other.
Research has demonstrated that two primary parenting behaviors are most important in developing an infant's attachment to a caregiver. Optimal attachment occurs when a caregiver recognizes and responds to the infant's signals and cues, meeting the infant's physical and emotional needs; and when the caregiver regularly engages the child in lively social interactions.
Studies of infants raised in institutional settings suggest that neither behavior alone is sufficient for secure attachment. For example, one study found that institutionalized infants failed to form strong attachments to caregivers who readily met their physical needs but did not engage them in social interaction. Conversely, social interactions alone are not enough: infants often form social attachments to brothers, sisters, fathers, and grandparents who engage them in pleasurable social activity. Yet, when they are tired, hungry, or distressed, they often cannot be comforted by anyone other than the caregiver who has historically recognized and responded to their signals of physical and emotional need (Caye, et al. 1996).
Separation
Separation, the removal of children from the caregiver(s) to whom they are attached, has both positive and negative aspects. From a child protection perspective, separation has several benefits, the most obvious being the immediate safety of the child. Through this separation, limits can be established for parental behavior, and the child may get the message that society will protect him or her, even if the parent will not. Separation also temporarily frees parents from the burden of child-rearing, allowing them to focus on making the changes necessary for the child to return home.
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This is a preview of the whole essay
Separation
Separation, the removal of children from the caregiver(s) to whom they are attached, has both positive and negative aspects. From a child protection perspective, separation has several benefits, the most obvious being the immediate safety of the child. Through this separation, limits can be established for parental behavior, and the child may get the message that society will protect him or her, even if the parent will not. Separation also temporarily frees parents from the burden of child-rearing, allowing them to focus on making the changes necessary for the child to return home.
Separating a parent and child can also have profoundly negative effects. Even when it is necessary, research indicates that removing children from their homes interferes with their development. The more traumatic the separation, the more likely there will be significant negative developmental consequences.
Repeated separations interfere with the development of healthy attachments and a child's ability and willingness to enter into intimate relationships in the future. Children who have suffered traumatic separations from their parents may also display low self-esteem, a general distrust of others, mood disorders (including depression and anxiety), socio-moral immaturity, and inadequate social skills. Regressive behavior, such as bedwetting, is a common response to separation. Cognitive and language delays are also highly correlated with early traumatic separation.
Social workers in child placement must be continually aware of the magnitude of the changes children experience when they are removed from their families. See "Helping a Child Through a Permanent Separation" for ways to minimize the trauma of separation.
Grief
In most cases of separation, the families involved go through the five stages of grief (shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and resolution), although not necessarily in this order. For example, it is possible for a grieving person to move from anger to depression and back to anger again. "Reactions to the Five Stages of Grief" is a chart that identifies behavioral expression in children and parents during each of these stages.
One of the most common errors made by social workers, foster parents, and parents is to misinterpret a child's compliant and unemotional behavior during the shock/denial stage and judge a placement to be a "success." When a child is thought to have handled the move without distress, later behavioral signs are often not recognized as part of the grieving process. They may be ignored or attributed to emotional or behavioral problems. At times the child may even be punished for them, intensifying the child's distress and depriving him of support and help (Caye, et al., 1996).
References
Allen, J. A., Fahlberg, V., Ellett, A., Montgomery, T. M., Overberger, C., Williams., C., & Swanson, K. (1983). Special needs adoption curriculum: Preparation of children. Tallahassee, FL: Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
Caye, J., McMahon, J., Norris, T., & Rahija, L. (1996). Effects of separation and loss on attachment. Chapel Hill: School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fahlberg, V. I. (1991). A child's journey through placement. Indianapolis, IN: Perspectives Press.
Hess, P. (1982). Parent-child attachment concept: Crucial for permanency planning. Social Casework, 63(1), 46-57.
Wasserman, S. & Rosenfeld, A. (1986). Decision-making in child abuse and neglect. Child Welfare, 65(6), 515-529.
(c) 1997 Jordan Institute for Families
. Infants' cognitive limitations greatly increase their experience of stress. Without a well-developed cognitive perception of the event, any change is threatening. Infants will be extremely distressed simply by changes in the environment and the absence of trusted caregivers.
2. Infants have few internal coping skills. Adults must "cope" for them by removing stressors and meeting all of their needs. When deprived of adults whom they have learned to trust and upon whom they can depend, they are more vulnerable to the effects of internal and external stresses.
3. The infant experiences the absence of caregivers as immediate, total, and complete. Infants generally do not turn to others for help and support in the absence of their primary caregivers. Infants who have lost their primary caregivers often cannot be comforted by social workers, foster parents, or others.
4. If separation occurs during the first year, it can interfere with the development of trust, the foundation of positive self-image, worldview, and later social development.
5. Infants' distress will be lessened if their new environment can be made very consistent with the old one, and if the biological parent(s) can visit regularly, preferably daily, and provide direct care to the infant in the placement setting.
Source
Caye, J. (1993). Capturing best practice in foster care and adoption for North Carolina: Trainer's notes. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC School of Social Work.
(c) 1997 Jordan Institute for Families
Separation, Loss, and Foster Parent Retention
Foster parents are in a tough position. On the one hand they are expected to welcome unfamiliar children into their homes, invest in them emotionally and physically, and help them through a difficult time.
On the other hand, this intense investment is supposed to be temporary. When the placement ends, foster parents are expected to disengage in a way that is helpful to the child and everyone else involved. In the hustle and bustle of a placement move, whether the child is going home or moving somewhere else, foster parents' feelings of loss are often not given adequate attention.
Agency Factors
In 1989, Lois Urquhart conducted a study to determine whether foster parents' experiences of separation and loss affected their decision to continue fostering children. She surveyed 376 foster homes, 275 of which were licensed and open to children, and 101 of which had been previously-licensed but had closed within the past three years.
She found that both groups of families expressed love and affection for their foster children and sadness at their loss. The two groups also felt similar levels of anxiety and uncertainty regarding foster care placements. Urquhart found that "although open home respondents more often knew how long a placement would be, both groups rarely knew from the outset a child's length of stay in their homes" (p. 203).
Urquhart did find two key differences between open and closed foster homes. The first emerged when she asked foster parents how well their agency prepared them for the separation and the grief they would feel at the end of a placement. While 36 percent of foster parents from open homes felt they had been taught skills for coping with a child's removal; only 19 percent of closed homes felt they had been adequately prepared.
The other significant difference between open and closed homes had to do with the degree to which they felt their agency supported them before, during, and after separation. Foster parents from open homes felt they were better supported by their agency in every category assessed. Parents from open homes were also provided with information about and contact with former foster children more often than were parents from closed homes.
Urquhart concludes that foster parents who are "unprepared or unsupported for the separation and loss experience can be considered foster parents at risk" of leaving foster care (p. 206).
Emotional Factors
To continue on in their work after the end of a placement, foster parents need to resolve their grief. One step in this process-expressing the pain associated with the loss-can be especially difficult for some foster parents.
In When Foster Children Leave: Helping Foster Parents to Grieve, Susan Edelstein (1981) identifies four obstacles that prevent people from expressing grief over a loss. Foster parents can run up against any or all of these. First, grieving is difficult when the relationship to the lost person was ambivalent or hostile. Foster parents may experience mixed feelings about foster children, especially those who are prone to act out. A second barrier to fully expressing feelings of loss when a child leaves the foster home is the number of other demands placed on foster parents. Usually, there are other foster and biological children still in the home. Foster parents must continue to attend to these children, leaving little opportunity to express themselves.
Expectations can be another barrier. It may be an unspoken expectation that foster parents should not get too attached to the children in their homes. Foster parents who express feelings of loss may be considered weak by their agency or other foster parents; they may even have their ability to foster questioned. The final barrier has to do with differences in individual personalities. Some people have a need to always appear confident and independent, and grieving makes them uncomfortable; they view the vulnerability that is part of grief as a sign of weakness.
For suggestions for supporting--and retaining--foster families, see "Support at the End of Placement".
References
Edelstein, S. (1981). When foster children leave: Helping foster parents to grieve. Child Welfare, 60(7), 467-473.
Urquhart, L. (1989). Separation and loss: Assessing the impacts on foster parent retention. Child and Adolescent Social Work, 6(3), 193-209.
(c) 1997 Jordan Institute for Families
Helping a Child Through a Permanent Separation
. Help the child face reality. The pain needs to be acknowledged and the grieving process allowed.
2. Encourage the child to express feelings. There can be expressions of reasons for the separation without condemning parents.
3. Tell the truth. You can emphasize that his parents were not able to take care of him without saying, "Your mother is an alcoholic." Also, try to deal with the fantasy that children often have that the parents will return. The permanency of the loss needs to be realized.
4. Encourage the child to ask questions. Again, be as truthful in your responses as you can without hurting the child. Never lie to the child, even to spare some pain.
5. Process with the child why the losses occurred. Ask about his ideas of why he has made the moves he has and experienced these losses.
6. Spend time with the child. Any child who has experienced separation feels rejection and guilt. This can interfere with his sense of trust in others and himself. By spending time and talking with the child, a new, trusting relationship can be built between the worker and child during preparation. This, in turn, can lead to other healthy relationships.
7. Encourage information about the past. A child's identity is partly a result of having a past that is continuous. To achieve this continuity, various techniques, such as the Life Book, are valuable. Social, cultural, and developmental information needs to be included in the book and made available to the child.
8. Understand your own feelings. It is difficult to share the pain of separation and to be the one who helps the child face reality--such as the fact that he may never see his biological or foster parents again. Often, the worker would prefer to avoid the pain and angry feelings. However, if these feelings are not dealt with now, they will recur and may jeopardize placement.
Source
Fahlberg, V., Jewett, C., with contributions by Buress, C., and Lopez, C., in Morton, Thomas, ed. Adoption of children with special needs. Athens, GA: Office of Continuing Education, University of Georgia (developed under contract with the U.S. Children's Bureau), 1982, pp. 9-11.
(c) 1997 Jordan Institute for Families
CONTROVERSIAL ASPECTS OF BOWLBY'S ATTACHMENT THEORY
by
Juan Carlos Garelli
BOWLBY'S INITIAL SCIENTIFIC STANCE
Bowlby's first attempts focused on countering psychoanalysis psychologism and replacing it by a more common-sense, everyday experiences both children and their parents undergo, and which may be labelled "environmentalism", which enable him to make a strong point against psychoanalysis' subjectivism, fantasies, inner representational world, and the like, since the hypotheses he advanced were in keeping with empirical data, whereas, psychoanalytic introspective speculation was not liable to contrastability, and so it simply rendered it unscientific.
Let's recall the three fundamental papers that, to my mind, make a tremendous dent in psychoanalysis' structure:
Bowlby's first formal statement of Attachment Theory, drawing heavily on ethological concepts, was presented in London in three now classic papers read to the British Psychoanalytic Society. The first, The Nature of the
Child's Tie to his Mother was presented in 1957 where he reviews the current psychoanalytic explanations for the child's libidinal tie to the mother (in short, the theories of secondary drive, primary object sucking, primary object clinging, and primary return to womb craving). This paper raised quite a storm at the Psychoanalytic Society. Even Bowlby's own analyst, Joan Riviere protested and Donald Winnicott wrote to thank her: "It was certainly a difficult paper to appreciate without giving away everything that
has been fought for by Freud". Anna Freud, who missed the meeting but read the paper, wrote: "Dr Bowlby is too valuable a person to get lost to psychoanalysis".
The next paper in the series, Separation Anxiety, was presented in 1959. In this paper, Bowlby pointed out that traditional theory fails to explain both the intense attachment to mother figure and young children's dramatic responses to separation. Robertson and Bowlby had identified three phases of separation response:
. Protest (related to separation anxiety)
2. Despair (related to grief and mourning), and
3. Detachment or denial (related to defence).
All of which proved Bowlby's crucial point: separation anxiety is experienced when attachment behaviour is activated and cannot be terminated unless reunion is restored.
Unlike other analysts, Bowlby advanced the view that excessive separation anxiety is usually caused by adverse family experiences, such as repeated threats of abandonment or rejections by parents, or to parent's or siblings' illnesses or death for which the child feels responsible.
In the third major theoretical paper, Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood, read to the Psychoanalytic Society in 1959 (published in 1960),
Bowlby questioned the then prevailing view that infantile narcissism is an obstacle to the experience of grief upon loss of a love object. He disputed Anna Freud's contention that infants cannot mourn, because of insufficient ego development, and hence experience nothing more than brief bouts of separation anxiety provided a satisfactory substitute is available. He also questioned Melanie Klein's claim that loss of the breast at weaning is the greatest loss in infancy. Instead, he advanced the view that grief and mourning appear whenever attachment behaviours are activated but the mother continues to be unavailable.
As with the first paper, many members of the British Psychoanalytic Society voiced strong disagreement. Donald Winnicott wrote to Anna Freud: "I can't quite make out why it is that Bowlby's papers are building up in me a kind of revulsion although in fact he has been scrupulously fair to me in my writings". Because he was undermining the very bases of psychologism in psychoanalysis.
These three papers were more than enough to tear the fantasy building of speculative psychoanalysis to pieces. So why did Bowlby have to concede his was an object-relations theory, when it sprang from the very reading of the papers that it was a theory about personal relationships. We insist in this distinction, as it is sometimes overlooked the fact that both theories are incompatible. Either you are related to an ambiguous inner object which happens to be projected onto a real person (object-relation theory), or you distinctly know who you are related to, who you are for the other party in the relationship, why you are related, what you expect from the relationship in each interaction, and so on.
BOWLBY'S CONTRADICTIONS
Let us examine Bowlby's contradictions regarding this central arguments which approach personal relationships, psychology and psychopathology in a radically new way.
In book 1 of his trilogy, Attachment, page 16, he asserts: "Throughout this inquiry my frame of reference has been that of psychoanalysis. There are several reasons for this. The first is that my early thinking on the subject was inspired by psychoanalytic work -my own and others'. A second is that, despite limitations, psychoanalysis remains the most serviceable and the most used of any present-day theory of psychopathology. A third and most important, is that, whereas all the central concepts of my schema -object-relations, separation anxiety, mourning, defence, trauma, sensitive periods in early life -are the stock-in-trade of psychoanalytic thinking, until recently they have been given but scant attention by other behavioural disciplines". So as we can see, he has a first sentimental reason to stick to psychoanalysis, a second consensual reason, and a third pedagogical reason. One wonders, what on earth did psychoanalysis need Bowlby for to drum the practice away on those three feeble grounds: nostalgia, hegemony, and an example for other rebel stances (for instance, his own).
However, only seven pages later, he criticizes psychoanalysis' way of gathering data for its conclusions. Psychoanalysis relies on "a process of historical reconstruction based on data derived from older subjects... "The point of views from which this work starts is different... it is believed that observation of how a very young child behaves towards his mother, both in her presence and especially in her absence can contribute greatly to our understanding of personal development. When removed from mother by strangers, young children respond usually with great intensity; and after reunion with her they show commonly either heightened degree od separation anxiety or else unusual detachment... Because this starting point differs so much from the one to which psychoanalysts are accustomed, it may be useful to specify it more precisely and to elaborate the reasons for adopting it."
And he goes on: "Psychoanalytic theory is an attempt to explain the functioning personality, in both its healthy and its pathological aspects, in terms of ontogenesis. In creating this body of theory not only Freud but virtually all subsequent analysts have worked from an end-product backwards. Primary data are derived from studying, in the analytic setting, a personality more or less developed and already functioning more or less well; from those data the attempt is made to reconstruct the phases of personality that have preceded what is now seen."
"In many respects what is attempted here is the opposite. Using as primary data observations of how very young children behave in defined situations, an attempt is made to describe certain early phases of personality functioning and, from them, to extrapolate forwards. In particular, the aim is to describe certain patterns of response that occur regularly in early childhood and thence, to trace out how similar patterns of response are to be discerned in later personality. The change in perspective is radical. It entails taking as our starting point, not this or that symptom or syndrome that is giving trouble, but an actual event or experience deemed to be potentially pathogenic to the developing personality."
" Thus, whereas almost all present-day psychoanalytical theory starts with a clinical syndrome or symptom -for example, stealing, depression, or schizophrenia - and makes hypotheses about events and processes which are thought to have contributed to its development, the perspective adopted here starts with a class of event -loss of mother-figure in infancy or early childhood- and attempts thence to trace the psychological and psychopathological processes that commonly result. It starts with the traumatic experience and works prospectively."
It is fairly evident that an approach such as the one advanced above cannot but clash against classical psychoanalytic mores. Where psychoanalysis relies on memories, Attachment Theory distrusts them. Where psychoanalysis asserts the natural site to perform research is the consulting-room, Attachment Theory declares research must be done out of psychotherapeutic premises. Where psychoanalysis works retrospectively, trying to reconstruct the patient's infancy, Attachment Theory is determined to see by its own eyes what goes on during infancy and early childhood directly, dispensing with untrustworthy informants. But this is exactly what the "new generation" of Attachment Theorists is encouraging throughout the United States: they rely exclusively on reports, self-reports: they interview a mother-to-be, or for that matter, anybody else, and ask her about her relationship with her mother. From her responses and the way they are made, they infer the kind of early attachment the adult must have had with her own real mother, as they are convinced patterns of attachment endure unalterably throughout life. As to why they think all this nonsense, we will elaborate on below. At any rate, I hope it is crystal clear that present-day methodology amounts to about the opposite to what Bowlby recommended half a century ago, and which he had come to adopt as a rejection of similar methods characteristic of psychoanalysis, a whole century ago.
But Bowlby is even more emphatic concerning the unreliability of reports, let alone of self reports. On page 25 of Attachment and Loss: Attachment, he says that psychoanalysts regard direct observation of behaviour as superficial and that it contrasts sharply with what is the almost direct access to physical functioning that obtains during analysis. On page 26, he unambiguously states: "Now I believe an attitude of this sort to be based on fallacious premises. In the first place we must not overrate the data we obtain in analytic sessions " (let alone data obtained in interviews). So far from having direct access to psychical processes, what confronts us is a complex web of free associations, reports of past events, comments about the current situation, and the patient's behaviour. In trying to understand these diverse manifestations we inevitably select and arrange them according to our preferred schema; and in trying to infer what psychical processes may lie behind them we inevitably leave the world of observation and enter the world of theory (i.e., speculation). As regards infants or children's observations he firmly contends:" Since the capacity to restrict associated behaviour increases with age, it is evident that the younger the subject the more likely are his behaviour and his mental state to be the two sides of a single coin. Provided observations are skilled and detailed, therefore, a record of the behaviour of very young children can be regarded as a useful index of their concurrent mental state". As anybody can appreciate, nothing of the kind is being carried out in the late nineties, where all that seems to matter is adult attachment, and may God take care of the kids. Furthermore, we can see from these quotations from Bowlby's Attachment I, that reality takes pride of place over fantasy, or inner representational models, which amounts to be the same.
More differences between the psychoanalytic approach and that of Bowlby's
Ethology
In page 27 of his Attachment I, Bowlby says: "Another way in which the approach adopted differs from traditional psychoanalysis is that it draws heavily on observations of how mothers of other species respond to similar situations of presence or absence of mother; and that it makes use of the wide range of new concepts that ethologists have developed to explain them."
"A main reason for valuing ethology is that it provides a wide range of new concepts to try out in our theorizing. Many of them are concerned with the formation of intimate social bonds -such as those tying offspring to parents, parents to offspring (See my Outline), and members of the two sexes to each other, and so on. We now know that man has no monopoly either of conflict or of behaviour pathology. A canary that first starts building its nest when insufficient building material is available not only will develop pathological nest-building behaviour but will persist in such behaviour even when, later, suitable material can be at hand.. Ethological data and concepts are therefore concerned with phenomena at least comparable to those we as psychotherapists try to understand in man".
Theories of motivation: Instincts
On page 34 of Attachment I, Bowlby continues: " Since the theories that Freud advanced regarding drive and instinct are at the heart of psychoanalytic metapsychology, whenever an analyst departs from them it is apt to cause bewilderment and consternation." The work of Rapaport and Gill (1959) provides a useful point of reference.
In their attempt to state explicitly and systematically that body of assumptions which constitutes psychoanalytic metapsychology, Rapaport and Gill classify assumptions according to certain points of view. They identify five such viewpoints, each of which requires that whatever psychoanalytic explanation of a psychological phenomenon is offered must include propositions of a certain kind. The five viewpoints and the sort of propositions each demands are held to be the following:
. The Dynamic: this point of view demands propositions concerning the psychological forces involved in a phenomenon; 2. The Economic: This demands propositions concerning the psychological energy involved in a phenomenon; 3. The Structural: this demands propositions concerning the abiding psychological configurations (structures) involved in a phenomenon; 4. The Genetic: This demands propositions concerning the psychological origin and development of a phenomenon; and 5. The Adaptive: This demands propositions concerning the relationship of a phenomenon to the environment.
Now there is no difficulty with the structural, the genetic, and the adaptive. Propositions of a genetic and adaptive sort are found throughout Bowlby's work; and, in any theory of defence, there must be many of a structural kind. The points of view not adopted by Bowlby are the dynamics and the economic. There are therefore no propositions concerning psychological energy or psychological forces; concepts such as conservation of energy, entropy, direction and magnitude of force are all missing, because of a model of the psychical apparatus that pictures behaviour as a resultant of a hypothetical psychical energy that is seeking discharge was adopted by Freud almost at the beginning of his psychoanalytical work. "We assume," he wrote many years later in the "Outline" as other natural sciences have led us to expect, that in mental life some kind of energy is at work..." But the energy conceived is of a sort different from the energy of physics and consequently is termed by Freud "nervous or psychical energy" (Standard Edition, 23, pp. 163-4)
Harking back to what had been objected to: Object-Relations Theory - Working Models
It looks as though genial thinkers are also aware, too aware of the scientific community social repercussions, and that it would put them on the public placard of ridicule, were it the case, they were proved wrong. As far as I know this has been going on since the Inquisition times. Galilei had to backtrack officially lest he be burned at the pire. Copernicus spends half of his book on "The Revolutions of Celestial Spheres", trying to convince his pope that his is but an instrumental hypothesis, concocted, not to displace the EARTH from the centre of the universe, but an "as if" manner to resort to more efficient predictions as to the positions of the astral bodies, a fundamental issue for kings, princes and popes in the wars they were engaged in. Examples abound in the history of science: Lavoisier, Darwin, Freud, and now Bowlby.
Working Models, a mere change of terminology for "mental representations" (See Bowlby's Scientific Stance)
Let us take a look at what he says in this respect on page 236 of his Attachment II: Separation, under the heading of "Working Models of Attachment Figures and Self":
"The states of mind with which we were concerned can conveniently be described in terms of representational or working models". Bear this in mind, he equates representational models to working models. "in the working model of the world that anyone builds, a key feature is his notion of who his attachment figures are, where they may be found, and how they may be expected to respond. Similarly, in the working model of the self that anyone builds a key feature is his notion of how acceptable or unacceptable he himself is in the eyes of his attachment figures.
And again, on page 237, he states: "...the formulation adopted is... a way of describing... ideas traditionally described in such terms as "introjection of an object (good or bad) and "self-image". So you see, what difference is there between these formulations and current psychoanalytic thinking? None. Now this amounts to a very serious contradiction to a man who had fought Freud's contention that neuroses are the result of a misdeveloped component instincts which led to fantasies that made the patient ill, and for so doing had presented evidence that environmental reality, and not inner representations, were far more important -as a matter of fact the only relevant aspect to be taken into account- to a person's mental health.
So there isn't one Bowlby and one Theory of Attachment: there are at least two quite wide apart.
One which unmistakably states mental health depends entirely on the relationships the individual keeps with his attachment figures so as to make him say that "the psychology and psychopathology of emotional life is the psychology and psychopathology of affectional bonds". This we can call the "young Bowlby", or the "uncontaminated Bowlby".
The other Bowlby which begins to appear in the seventies, two decades later, has little difference with a common psychoanalyst, and thus gives way to all that fake literature on attachment produced by American attachment theorists. For instance, just to underscore my previous assertion with a quotation from Bowlby's Attachment II: Separation, p. 239. He writes: "In terms of the present theory much of the work of treating an emotionally disturbed person can be regarded as consisting, first, of detecting the existence of influential models of which the patient may be partially or completely unaware of, and second, of inviting the patient to examine the models disclosed and to consider whether they continue to be valid..." What difference is extant between these naive words and those of making conscious the unconscious and contrasting both? None.
The decadence we now observe pervades all of US university system and academic life devoted to attachment is not even their own invention, they just followed this gattopardism Bowlby himself had elaborated, consciously or unconsciously.
References
Bowlby, John (1958) The Nature of The Child's Tie to His Mother, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39, 350-73.
Bowlby, John (1960a) Separation Anxiety, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 41, 89-113.
Bowlby, John (1960b) Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of The Child, 15, 9-52.
Bowlby, John (1969, 1982) Attachment and Loss, vol. 1: Attachment. London: The Hogarth Press.
Bowlby, John (1973), Attachment and Loss, vol. 2: Separation. London: The Hogarth Press.
Freud, Sigmund (1938) An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Standard Edition, 23, pp. 163-4.
Garelli, JC (1989) Critique of Psychoanalytic Reason. (In Spanish: Critica de la Razon Psicoanalitica. Buenos Aires: Troquel).
Rapaport and Gill (1959) Beyond Metapsychology, New York: Psychological Issues