{"id":1478,"date":"2015-11-29T10:27:55","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T17:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2015-11-29T10:27:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T17:27:55","slug":"ambivalent-attachment-in-childhood-and-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/ambivalent-attachment-in-childhood-and-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambivalent Attachment – In Childhood and Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth conducted what may be the most important psychological study ever. \u00a0It was the Strange Situation Stu\"ambivalent\"dy<\/a>\u00a0and this link describes it clearly. \u00a0Basically, Ainsworth and her associates observed mothers and babies in the first year of their lives and then brought them into her lab where a room was set up for them – a chair for mom and toys on the floor for baby. \u00a0There were a few steps to the procedure, but basically, mom would leave the room and then return. \u00a0Ainsworth noted the reactions of the babies when mom left\u00a0and<\/em> when she returned. \u00a0Those reactions varied, but could essentially be classified into three categories, each of which described the “attachment” bond that existed between mother and child. \u00a0\u00a0The great majority of babies were “securely attached” and they responded with great distress when mom left the room, but were able to be comforted by her upon return. \u00a0A smaller group were termed “avoidantly attached” and these babies didn’t display\u00a0outwardly<\/em> any distress at mom’s exit and seemed to be engaged more with their toys than her, so it seemed like they hardly noticed when she came back in the door. \u00a0Another group of babies were “ambivalently attached” and they, by far, showed the greatest distress, both upon their mother’s leaving and upon her return. \u00a0When mom came back to the room, she could not calm her child. \u00a0The baby would lean into her for comfort and then arch away from her, crying intensely. \u00a0The child would kick at her and be very hard to comfort. \u00a0Observations of these ambivalently attached babies also reflected that when mom was sitting in the room, they were often preoccupied with her continuing presence, making sure periodically that she was there.<\/p>\n

Ainsworth and her associates found there to be a connection between the highly activated, anxious and distressed behavior of these babies and the quality of parental care and “attunement” they had received at home. \u00a0More specifically, what they had observed in the previous year of spending hour upon hour in each parent’s home was that the “ambivalently attached” babies experienced very inconsistent attutnement. \u00a0Sometimes they would be lovingly cared for when distressed and other times ignored or even rebuked.<\/p>\n

Now comes a\u00a0New York Times article<\/a>\u00a0which describes numerous current studies that demonstrate that the same inconsistent care and connection in marriage results in ongoing baseline, high levels of anxiety and distress. \u00a0It turns out that inconsistent,\u00a0trustable,\u00a0<\/em>love correlates to high blood pressure, lowered immunity and other indicia of a chronic keyed-up, insecure state. \u00a0What we find so painful as babies is the same thing that undermines our well-being as adults, as we relate to our primary care-giver – be it a parent or an adult intimate partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the 1970s, Mary Ainsworth conducted what may be the most important psychological study ever. \u00a0It was the Strange Situation Study\u00a0and this link describes it clearly. \u00a0Basically, Ainsworth and her associates observed mothers and babies in the first year of their lives and then brought them into her lab where a room was set Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,5],"tags":[34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1480,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}