The Purpose of Attachment

What is the purpose of Attachment anyways?

Last week I defined the attachment system as a set of motivational drives and capacities designed to maintain proximity between trusted loved ones.

This brings us to the next logical question: 

“What is the purpose of the attachment system?”

The quick (and incomplete) answer is to meet the needs of the dependent member of the attachment relationship (the child).

Humans have many different levels of needs and internal motivational drives to obtain those needs.
I like to summarize these drives as the:

1. Survival drive
2. Relational drive
3. Maturational drive

Which of these needs are thought to be the goal of the attachment system?
This depends on who you ask and what their view of “a fully developed human being” is. (And here is where I encourage you to begin reflecting on your view of  “a fully developed human being” because it will impact how you relate to your children, and in turn impact their development. To do this, picture someone who you most admire as a model human being and reflect on the qualities they seem to possess.)

Here is an oversimplification of the situation that I find to be useful:

Evolutionary biologists think that the attachment system exists primarily for the survival and safety of the infant. Without it, the mother would be off doing her own thing while the baby starved or was eaten by a lion or ________ (insert your own modern day fear.). They feel attachment is all about the physical needs.

“True enough” say the psychologists, “but do not overlook the importance of attachment on the child’s learning about the world, the culture, and the insides of people (often referred to as a ‘theory of mind’).” This is how we humans have passed on information across generations and how we have maximized not only our survival, but also enhanced the quality of our lives over time. Psychologists generally feel that the attachment system is focused on relational and maturational needs in addition to physical needs.

At Essential Parenting, our view is that the attachment system exists to ultimately help people become “fully themselves” — to grow and mature into their fullest potential.
This potential includes two primary elements:

1. Discovering, growing into, and expressing the unique gifts we have to offer this world
2. The development of the highest level of our general human potentials (compassion, resilience, curiosity, wisdom, self-insight, empathy, and kindness to name a few)

Attachment supports our children by helping them survive and temper a limbic system with feelings of safety rather then priming it with experiences that create fear and reactivity. This supports our children’s capacity to stay connected with others and not close down emotionally. When we are fearful and reactive we tend to withdraw from others or get aggressive with them. These reactive patterns of behavior, which we all have to some degree, tend to make life more difficult and less pleasurable. When the attachment with the parent is “secure,” the adult is modeling the capacities necessary for intimacy and social interaction and providing the child with a secure base from which to explore and learn about her world and the people in it. This neuroception of safety is the optimal biological condition from which to mature throughout the life span.

But this requires us as parents to temper our own reactivity and fear-based patterns when interacting with our children so that we don’t model fear and aggression as desirable strategies to their impressionable minds.

Take home: The attachment system serves to support human maturation across the lifespan. Deficits in attachment lead to deficits in maturation. We should do all we can to make sure that we are not the limiting factor in the attachment relationship and in the developmental potential of our children.

The best way to help our children grow into their own full potential is for us as parents to continue our own process of maturation, to model the full breadth and depth of possibilities for this human life, and provide the security of  attachment our children need to flower into their fullness.

Try: Reflect on what qualities you would like your child to embody as they mature into adulthood. Sit down with a journal and make a list of these qualities. It can sometimes be helpful to have an image in mind of someone whom you really admire and to reflect on which of their qualities — or “ways of being” — you find desirable. After you have compiled your list, take a few moments to reflect on which of these qualities you are modeling for your children. Also reflect on which areas you might want to start modeling more.  Since our interactions with our children get downloaded into their brains unconsciously, it becomes important for us to get conscious about our “way of being” in this life.

Check out the 3 Ways we Can Make Attachment Parenting More Powerful