Attachment Theory and a 47-year-old woman's case

Laura is a 47-year-old woman. She lives with her common-law partner of 15 years and they have no children. Laura described a good relationship with her partner, but she admitted to “keeping her distance” and being uncomfortable opening and sharing her private thoughts and feelings with him.

Laura has a Bachelor of Arts and a Law degree and has a successful job as a partner in a law firm. She is prone to depression. He childhood history involves a mother who physically punished her by hitting her very hard with boards because she thought she was sneaky and a bad child.

She recalls her father as an emotionally distant and cold person. She had no physical affection from him. She was terribly saddened after his death because she felt that she had lost the opportunity to really get to know him. Laura wrote in her diary, “I never got the message that someone would love me, that I was loveable. I never got that latter message.

” Laura suspects that her mother might have suffered from depression but is unsure. Recently, Laura stated that she has not been able between personal life and work. She reported that she was saddened this summer when her family doctor advised her that she is currently in menopause.

Attachment Theory and Depression

Laura indicated that she has been increasingly involved in her 86-year old mothers care, which has been causing a lot of conflict. The theory I would like to apply for Laura would be Attachment Theory.

Get quality help now

WriterBelle

Verified

Proficient in: Attachment Theory

4.7 (657)

“ Really polite, and a great writer! Task done as described and better, responded to all my questions promptly too! ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

I chose Attachment Theory because I feel that Laura’s depression started from her childhood which has caused her to develop mental health problems. As a child she did not get the emotional security, comfort, and protection from her parents as she should have.

The originator of attachment theory is recognized by John Bowlby (1907-1990). He came to view attachment not only as a primary social need for human connections but also as essential evolutionary survival behavior. Attachment theory holds that many mental health problems derive from failures of caregiving relationships in the early years to optimally meet the child’s need for emotional security, comfort, and protection. Interactions with inconsistent, unreliable, incentive, or abusive attachment figures interfere with the development of a secure and positive internal representation of self and others, reduce resilience in coping with stressful life events, and predispose a person to break down psychologically in times of crisis (Hartling, 2008).

In the attachment theory, the therapist becomes an attachment figure and the therapeutic relationship becomes an opportunity to experience a significant relationship differently and thereby revise internal models of self and others. The primary goal of attachment-informed therapy is to enhance the client’s capacity to establish and maintain increasingly secure attachment relationships. This also increases client’s sense of attachment security. One of the least recognized aspects of attachment theory is the importance of fear in the development of mental health problems (Slade, 2008). Laura has reported experiencing anxiety, mainly when she is speaking to someone or holding a conversation. She has fears that she will not have anything to say, she will appear boring, socially inept, or foolish and that may bring others to become upset, grow defensive, and reject her. She had recognized that these fears are excessive. This has caused her to believe that her anxiety is interfering with work and keeping her from having more friends.

Adult Attachment Interview

One suggestion for applying this model to Laura’s depression would be to give her an Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). It was created manly by Mary Main and colleagues to operationalize Ainsworth’s patterns in terms of adult attachment categories which are secure or autonomous, dismissing, preoccupied, and unresolved or disorganized. The AAI focuses on how attachment processed are revealed through language and speech patterns. This taps into the unconscious cognitive and emotional processes. As the interviewer, I would ask Laura to describe her childhood relationships with her parents and to provide specific biographical episodes that support more general descriptions. Laura is asked about experiences of rejection, being upset, ill and hurt, and experiences of loss, abuse and separation and to then reflect on the effects on early experiences on her development.

The greatest strength of attachment theory is the strong empirical support for its tenets (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008; Shilkret & Shilkret, 2011). It is a well-supported proposition that the ability to be an adequate parent and ability to relate to others in satisfying ways are transmitted from one generation to another through experiences beginning in early life. Another benefit is that attachment theory has made clearer the relationship between certain kinds of early experiences with caregivers and attachment strategies commonly seen in adult clients. Other benefits include accessibility, focus on strengths versus pathology, and acknowledgement of the influence of environmental factors, and recognition of the prime importance of the worker-client relationship. Attachment theory has been criticized for insufficiently acknowledging the role of the temperament in human development, as well as the effects of racism, poverty, social class, and other environmental conditions; it has also been argued that the theory places too much importance on the relationship between the mother and child and consequently supports “mother blaming” ideologies (Birns, 1999).