CHAPTER 32
Insecure Attachment
This chapter discusses the development of attachmentpatterns,whichisa
process that should occur in all young mammals. There are a variety of
common attachment patterns, some of which are referred to as insecure
rather than secure. As described later in this chapter, at least some forms
of insecure attachment are risk factors for psychopathology. Whereas
insecure attachment is common and is not necessarily associated with
psychopathology, full-blown attachmentdisordersare rare and necessarily
involve psychopathology. Attachment disorders are considered separately
in Chapter 17.
The nature of attachment
For over 25 years, clinical and scientific thinking about attachment has
been strongly influenced by the theories and writings of John Bowlby
(1907–1990), a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who moved well
beyond the traditional limits of those disciplines, drawing heavily on
ethology and cybernetics. Though many disciplines study behaviour,
ethologists study animal behaviour (including human behaviour) from
a perspective that emphasises ecological and evolutionary considerations.
Ethologists consider the function and not just the form of a particular sort
of behaviour, asking why that behaviour is adaptive in the ecological niche
that the species has evolved to fill. In this context, attachment can best be
understood as regulating the balance between security, on the one hand,
and exploration and play, on the other. At one extreme, a young primate
who always clung to a parent would be relatively secure from predators
but would not learn vital independence skills. At the other extreme, an
over-independent youngster might acquire many useful skills but meet a
premature death. Key adults act as a ‘secure base’ – the child sets forth
from this base to explore, and retreats back to this base when threatened
and in need of protection.
According to Bowlby, a child’s need to be attached to protective fig-
ures is as basic and as important as the child’s need for food. This
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Third Edition. Robert Goodman and Stephen Scott.
©c2012 Robert Goodman and Stephen Scott. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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