Is Bowlbys (1951) theory of attachment still relevant in understanding how to support and intervene with children who have experienced parental maltreatment? Discuss with reference to recent research evidence.

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Is Bowlby’s (1951) theory of attachment still relevant in understanding how to support and intervene with children who have experienced parental maltreatment? Discuss with reference to recent research evidence.

I. INTRODUCTION

Within the general field of parenting studies, attachment research is a well-theorised and productive approach (Oates, 2007). To date, attachment theory has been exposed to increasingly extensive research that has yielded predictive results and findings which are highly relevant to family therapy (Byng-Hall, 1995).  

However, there are a number of competing perspectives found in a significant body of empirical studies. Answers to some enquiries may not be yet available but with the conduct of further studies new answers often emerge and are added to the pool of literature now available for learning.

In the process of achieving greater levels of understanding and likewise to form an pragmatic backbone for this essay, a review on different academic literature will be made. Highlights will include some of the modern arguments, perspectives and complementary insights that have been developed since the introduction of Bowlby’s attachment theory.

A particular focus will be rendered on intervention and providing support to children who have experienced parental maltreatment. Other areas that will be discussed include an outline of Bowlby’s original theory, human ethology, and how Bowlby reconsidered his original theory along with current thinking on the impact of attachment theory.  

Some of the questions that serve as guide in developing this essay are: Is it relevant to children today? What are other researchers concluding? Do they support or challenge the original theory? How did Bowlby’s theory impact upon the support of child maltreatment with comparison to later research evidence presented by Rutter, Field, and others?  Are there more relevant tranches to the original theory applicable to today’s maltreated children? Or, is Bowlby’s theory still sound?      

In an attempt to provide substantive answers to the above, this essay will present analytical, comparative and evaluative data through a review of literature. Evaluations or observations critical of attachment theory will be researched and discussed. Through a collection of relevant research-based evidences and the deductions of complementary and contradictory propositions to the work of Bowlby, this paper aims to draw some conclusions that will inform and guide readers concerning relevant points deemed helpful in the study of attachment disorders, particularly child maltreatment.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Theory of Attachment

Bowlby’s ‘attachment theory’ carries a significant role and importance to our understanding of key areas in stages of development and the development of psychological treatments. The aforesaid theory is a brand of developmental psychology based on children’s attachment to primary carers (Scourfield, 2010), whereby the incumbent presumption found in most child development research suggests that most infants and young children form an attachment to the mothers whenever the infant has spent a reasonable amount of time in the care of the mother (Kelly and Lamb, 2001).

The frameworks now guiding attachment theory are attributed to the works of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Whereas the former had developed the basic tenets and laid the groundwork for such a theory, the latter made it possible to test some of Bowlby’s ideas empirically (Bretherton, 1992). What Bowlby had proposed was not just a theory of outcome, but a theory of process (Sroufe et al., 1999).

In ‘Attachment’ (1969), Bowlby addressed the nature of the child’s tie to its mother, as he saw this tie as rooted in instinct (Parkes, 1995). Bowlby proposed that a host of instinctual responses comprises the binding function between the infant and the mother, and/or vice versa (Bretherton, 1992). It is based on a number of species-characteristic behavioural systems congruent with instinct theory and biology, which are activated or terminated by classes of stimuli that facilitate proximity and interaction between infant and mother (Ainsworth, 1969). Attachment is highly activated when the infant is stressed or frightened (Cassidy, 2001) whilst in such situations, the activation of the attachment system increases the chances that an infant will receive protection at times they are most vulnerable (Bowlby, 1973 in Cassidy, 2001). Bowlby boldly acknowledges that attachment is a unifying principle that reaches from the biological depths of our being to its further spiritual depths (Parkes, 1995).

According to Ainsworth (1969), the term ‘attachment’ was widely used by some ethologists then adapted by psychologists studying animal behaviour. It refers to an affectional tie that a person (or an animal) develops with another person (Ainsworth, 1969).

2.2 The Ethological-based Approach

To reinforce his arguments, Bowlby introduced ethological concepts such as sign stimuli that cause activation or termination of specific responses under certain conditions (Bretherton, 1992). He elucidated the ethological and evolutionary underpinnings of attachment theory, eliminated drive theory and in its stead, developed the concept of behavioural systems as control systems designed to achieve a specified end either by activating or terminating under certain conditions (Ainsworth and Bowlby, 1991).

Observing animal behaviour enabled Bowlby to explain, in evolutionary theory, about the mechanisms of infant-mother attachment as the mother figure is developed and expressed during the first two years of life, and to describe the consequences that could arise when they are separated (Parkes, 1995). With human infants the assumption that developed was that attachment behaviour has a biological function of its own which is quite distinct and independent of the functions of other biological mechanisms such as food intake (Ainsworth. 1969). The attachment system is thus considered to be of the several biologically-based and species-characteristic behavioural systems (Ainsworth, 1985).

According to Ainsworth (1985), the system underlying attachment behaviour is one that has the usual or predictable outcome of keeping in proximity to one or a few significant others, who, in the case of an infant, are likely to be the principal caregiver and one or a few other secondary care-givers in closer proximity which leads to the is a general presumption that most infants in the first year of life develop preferential relationships with their primary caregivers – usually their mothers (Kelly and Lamb, 2001). From an evolutionary perspective therefore, forming and maintaining attachments is a key biologically-based developmental task (Dozier et al., 2009).

2.3 Attachment Relationships

According to Sroufe et al. (1999), attachment theory was a theory of psychopathology and was concerned with both the development and normal course of attachment relationships as well as the implications of atypical patterns of attachment. Yet the cause is complex within attachment theory (Sroufe et al., 1999) and there is no conclusive illustration that has been developed on the mechanisms involved with the effects of attachment (Hecht and Hansen, 2006). Instead, researchers of attachment theory have delved on patterns of individual differences in attachment quality that can be distinguished reliably in both the behaviour and the internal representational models of both parent and child (Ainsworth, 1978 in Hoffman et al., 2006). Although such representations emerge early in development, they continue to evolve in light of attachment-related experiences during childhood and adolescence (Bowlby, 1973 in Waters et al., 2000).  

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The formation of attachment relationships with caregivers is a primary developmental task and the quality of those relationships is associated with subsequent competence in social and emotional functioning (Haskett et al., 2006). In this regard the quality of maternal and paternal behaviour, as well as the quality of both mother-child/father-child interactions, remain the most reliable correlation of individual differences in psychological, social and cognitive adjustment in infancy as well as in later childhood (Thompson, 1998 in Kelly and Lamb, 2001). Through their impact on parenting, some contextual influences create impact on the child either directly or indirectly as the child ...

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