1. Consultant Clinical Psychologist
ATTACHMENT
Dr. Elizabeth McManus
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
January 2018

2. A unique, enduring and affectively charged relationship
DEFINITION
A unique, enduring and affectively charged relationship
A set of strategies for protecting oneself
A pattern of information processing that underlies these strategies
Crittenden (2016)

3. SECURE ATTACHMENT
Develops in response to parents/carers providing sensitive and attuned care to their infants, babies, children and young people
Can be recognised by
Direct and proportionate signals from infants, babies, children and young people
Thought and feeling become increasingly sophisticated, differentiated and connected to one another
Emotional regulation and resilience develop (over time!)

4. ATTACHMENT INSECURITY
Develops as a CONSEQUENCE of what parents/carers do or don’t do
Infants, babies, children and young people distort their signals to others
Indirect and disproportionate signals
Tendency for over-reliance on either thought or feeling
Thought and feeling are poorly connected
Restricted/poor emotional regulation and resilience

5. CAREGIVER UNPREDICABILITY
An unpredictable caregiver creates HUGE anxiety in infants, babies and children
If the caregiver responds unpredictably to the child, then the child won’t be able to work out a connection between what they do and how the caregiver responds
They won’t be able to work out what to do to get the caregiver when they need them
This makes them intolerably anxious and unsafe and they need to find a solution…
Hold on to them ALL the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6. CAREGIVER UNPREDICTABILITY
Leads to distorted signals
Exaggerated
Coy-coercive patterns
Exaggerated vulnerability
An over-reliance on what is felt because thought has failed them
A preoccupation with relationships
Rapid changes of emotional display
Intense and pervasive lack of self worth – the self is experienced as inherently unloved and unlovable

7. PREDICTABLY GETTING IT WRONG
Caregivers who predictably
fail to respond to infant signals
respond punitively
or whose interactions are responses to their own need(s), not the child’s

8. PREDICTABLY GETTING IT WRONG
Leads to distorted signals
Inhibited/absent
Faking good
Compliance
An over-reliance on thought
Disconnection from feelings – their own and others
Giving up on relationships
An intense and pervasive lack of self worth – the self is experienced as inherently unloved and unlovable

9. DANGER
Both unpredictability and predictably getting it wrong can range in severity
As they become more severe they become more dangerous to the child
Human beings, including infants, babies, children and young people, have characteristic responses to danger:
Avoidance
Control
Hypervigilence
Re-enactment

10. SO WHAT?
Childrens’ behaviours, even those we adults don’t like, are understood as their highly adaptive solutions to their caregiving environment, not as the result of defect or disorder within the child
If we try to remove them we make the child less safe
New learning is always possible, so if caregivers change the way they relate to their children their children can learn new solutions