I have been doing some research on emotional attachment. As this is something that significantly effects all of us in our lives and in our most intimate relationships with others, I thought I would share what I have learned with you. As Michael and Shantel adopt a child, this will be good information to know, also for each of you, as you begin to find romantic partners, you should know how powerful these bonds are, and how they are formed. Good luck navigating the relationship jungle. . . :). Love is a wonderful and essential part of our lives, but it really helps to understand what is driving us. This e-mail contains bits and pieces of things I have collected or commented on over several days. It may seem a bit patched together. Hopefully you can make connections to your own circumstances and experiences that will help to create meaning for you. So please--read on:
This is where it started for me: the question that was in my mind today was: What is that invisible thread that connects us to certain people in our lives? What things cause such a thread to develop? What makes those threads dissolve or dissipate?
I was wondering what I could use to describe the concept I had in my mind to others and I wondered if it was a phenomenon that was unique to a specific type of person, or if it would be universal for everyone.
I remember my mother talking about her experience with a similar invisible thread. This occurred when she was emotionally letting go of her children--the proverbial cutting of the apron strings I suppose. After suffering some years of deep concern and pain on her part due to the choices of her children. (Mom had carried these burdens so long and so personally that she felt she needed a release from the feeling of responsibility for her children's actions.) She said that she was in the Celestial Room praying about it when she was basically "disconnected" or given a kind of psychic release from her children. She said it was a very visceral experience like strings of light being broken, "pop, pop, pop." I remember her using those words.
I realized that the first invisible thread that connects us to another person is our emotional tie to our parents, but more especially to our mothers. I well remember my experience as a young mother as I was minding to the needs of small children. There was a constant physical, mental, and emotional checking in that occurred each moment of the day that forged an almost tangible line between myself and my children. I was constantly aware of where they were and I was always sensing for their needs. As they got older, my kids would try to sneak up on me when I was sleeping at night, but I could always sense their presence in the room, and I would ask them what they needed without even opening my eyes. They thought this was weird, but it was just something I could do. When I had an infant sleeping in my room, I would always wake up when they started squirming around in the bassinet because I knew that they were hungry, I would almost always pick them up before they really started to cry so they wouldn't wake Kirby up in the night.
I found upon looking for information on emotional bonding that the research upon this subject is quite extensive and validates the concept that emotional ties are very vital to our psychological well being and our eventual success with human relationships. It is sobering to know how formative those first relationships are and how elemental. Here is a quote:
For better or worse, the infant brain is profoundly influenced by the attachment bond—a baby’s first love relationship. When the primary caretaker can manage personal stress, calm the infant, communicate through emotion, share joy, and forgive easily, the young child’s nervous system becomes “securely attached.” The strong foundation of a secure attachment bond enables the child to be self-confident, trusting, hopeful, and comfortable in the face of conflict. As an adult, he or she will be flexible, creative, hopeful, and optimistic
Our secure attachment bond shapes our abilities to:
feel safe, develop meaningful connections with others, explore our world, deal with stress, balance emotions, experience comfort and security, make sense of our lives, create positive memories and expectations of relationships. Attachment bonds are as unique as we are. Primary caretakers don’t have to be perfect. They do not have to always be in tune with their infants’ emotions, but it helps if they are emotionally available a majority of the time.
Bowlby believed that there are four distinguishing characteristics of attachment:
Proximity Maintenance - The desire to be near the people we are attached to.
Safe Haven - Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat.
Secure Base - The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.
Separation Distress - Anxiety that occurs in the absence of the attachment figure.
This article goes on to relate the relationship between the attachment bonds we have as infants and our ability to form meaningful relationships later in life.
The study of attachment bonds later in life mainly focuses on couples. Successful couple relationships have to have certain elements to be secure and healthy. These are described as:
the ability to:
manage stress
stay “tuned in” with emotions
use communicative body language
be playful in a mutually engaging manner
be readily forgiving, relinquishing grudges
Infants form an attachment to caregivers based on the nature and amount of physical contact they have with others. Infants form an attachment to the person who provides the most physical contact – the most kissing, cuddling, caressing, and so on.
And adults do the same when it comes to forming a romantic attachment. Adults form a deep emotional attachment based on intimate physical contact – kissing and cuddling, etc. If you have repeated intimate contact with another person, you will most likely form a deep attachment to that person. Once an attachment is formed – people want to spend more time together, feel safe and secure in each other’s presence, and they will experience loss when the relationship comes to an end.
Not only that, but it can be difficult to end a relationship, even a bad relationship, because people experience tremendous loss when attachments come to an end.
I am feeling like these attachment relationships are so foundational, that disruptions in them--like the death of a family member, or disloyalty of a spouse, cause us to flounder a bit in our sense of security. Finding a way to put ourselves back into a "secure" position is pretty important, but not always easily accomplished. This is what I have learned:
Attachment relationships appear to be of special importance for the maintenance of feelings of security, just as relationships of community appear to be of special importance for goal attainment. The loss of any attachment relationship would seem to lead to separation protest, one aspect of which is a sense of helplessness and fear. The presence of attachment, on the other hand, buffers what could otherwise be devastating events. In adults as well as in children, attachments appear to be relationships critical to continuing security and so to the maintenance of emotional stability. --Colin Murray Parkes, Atachment Across the Life Cycle.
Bowlby defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (1969, p.194).
A person who does not have a secure attachment bond as a child will not be able to manage relationships as naturally. This will effect a person's relationships during their lifetime. The identified classes of attachment types are: secure, anxious, and dismissing. Secure attachments are the type I have already described. Here are descriptions of the other two: Overall, anxiously attached individuals are hard to satisfy; you can’t love them enough, or be close enough to them, and they constantly monitor their relationships for problems. Ironically, their need for love, makes it easy for anxious individuals to be taken advantage of when it comes to love and romance, which in the long run can create even more suspicion and doubt.
Finally, people who had a dismissing style of attachment as an infant are likely to form a dismissing attachment to their romantic partners. As adults, dismissing individuals are uncomfortable with intimacy - they actually fear it. They do not like it when people get close, and they don’t like being dependent on a partner or having someone be dependent on them.Dismissing individuals tend not to trust others, and they are more self-sufficient, cynical, and independent in nature. They are less likely to fall deeply in love and need a lot less affection and intimacy. Dismissing individuals are more apt to put their time into their careers, hobbies, and activities than their relationships. They also get easily annoyed with their relational partners and often display negative feelings and hostility toward their loved.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg proposed a triangular theory of love that suggests that there are three components of love: intimacy, passion and commitment. Different combinations of these three components result in different types of love. For example, a combination of intimacy and commitment results in compassionate love, while a combination of passion and intimacy leads to passionate love.
According to Sternberg, relationships built on two or more elements are more enduring that those based upon a single component. Sternberg uses the term consummate love to describe a combination of intimacy, passion and commitment. While this type of love is the strongest and most enduring, Sternberg suggests that this type of love is rare.
I guess my marriage is rare for a couple of researched reasons. I think that Kirby and I started out with love at first sight, which moved into passionate love, and at this point I'm quite confident that we have attained consummate love--Maybe consummate love just needs a little more time and effort than the other kinds--that seems likely--if you keep working on it, I think you master it. That seems like a good reason to tough out the tough times, to keep working out the kinks, and to stay in it for the long haul.
So to revisit my original question: What is that invisible thread that connects us to certain people in our lives? What things cause such a thread to develop? What makes those threads dissolve or dissipate?
I've got the answer to all of my questions now:
The invisible thread that connects us to certain people in our lives: this is an attachment bond.
The things that cause such a thread to develop: are physical contact (cuddling), intimacy (sharing personal feelings and thoughts), and compassion (caring for the other person as much as you do for yourself.)
What makes those threads dissolve or dissipate: Security. Security allows the child--or adult to venture out, using the attachment bond as a home base, and to become independent or self reliant. New attachment bonds may then be created that become primary over the old bonds as in the parent child bond becoming secondary to the spouse bond.
There is a natural tension between attachment and independence. It seems to correlate with the opposition in all things idea. We crave independence and need to be independent, but we are also biologically programmed to develop attachment bonds. Knowing both of these things, we may want to be careful. Attachment bonds, once created are not easily escaped--and if not developed can leave us feeling insecure and vulnerable--they can effect our actions and reactions to people in our lives.
Just thought I'd share the knowledge--You might want to ponder on the implications in your own lives, or even do some more research on the subject. I'd be happy to share some of the articles I found most helpful.
