The Four Stages of Attachment in John Bowlby

With his identification of the four stages of attachment, John Bowlby (1969) was instrumental in illuminating the changes in the development of attachment between mother and child. During the first phase of indiscriminate sociability, infants interact with most people with their cries, coos and smiles from birth to two months in order to receive attention. Between two and seven months, the infants begin to develop a preference for the responses of familiar caregivers such as the mother. With the third phase of attachment (seven to 24 months), the infants possess a strong attachment to their caregivers and suffer from separation and stranger anxiety. Their strong relationships with their caregivers are formed in tandem with the development of their motor ability to move towards their caregivers for safety and verbal skills that enable them to socialize with their caregivers on a more complex level than before. During the final phase that starts typically from age two, the young children have acquired representational and memory skills that allow them to relate to their environment in an active way. Thus, they do not require the constant attention of their parents. They also begin to adjust their perspectives of various situations and understand the points of view of their parents. At the same time, they are able to cope with short periods of separation from their parents.

Although Bowlby's model demonstrates the significance of attachment in the early years, it has a few

Related Essays

The bonding between an infant and Primary Care-Giver .... that all children go through these same stages of attachment .... that security is the driving force for attachment, giving an .... There appear to be four basic types of .... (3029 12 )

Attachment Relationships .... Phase Four: (approx. .... Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment. New York: Basic Books. .... The decades of life: Relocating Erikson's stages. Pastoral Psychology, 53(1), 3-32. .... (6621 26 )

Family Communication and Consequences .... The literature review will be presented in four stages of the family life-cycle: Parents-Infants .... The work of John Bowlby and attachment theory demonstrated .... (6525 26 )

Family Communication and Consequences .... The literature review will be presented in four stages of the family life-cycle: Parents-Infants .... The work of John Bowlby and attachment theory demonstrated .... (6707 27 )

A Theoretical Basis For Clinical Treatment .... the client the process and middle stages include the .... of Ainsworth helped to established four commonly accepted .... The origins of attachment theory John Bowlby and .... (4552 18 )

tterns that occurs between mother and child in normal circumstances (p. 542). According to Strage (1998), researchers have studied the social and cognitive development of children aged three and older in order to determine their attachment relationship with their parents. Attachment theorists have found that children who exhibit insecure-avoidant and insecure-ambivalent patterns of attachment possess low self-esteem and high dependence on others. In contrast, children with secure attachment relationships with their parents succeed in the academic and social spheres of their life. They enjoy exploring their environment and exhibit self-confidence. Furthermore, they are also able to form healthy relationships with their peers. Strage's (1998) research study on college students also demonstrated that attachment patterns with parents was a strong predictor of the sample students' attitudes and behaviors. The students who displayed the ability to set goals and achieve them had secure attachment relationships with their parents. On the other hand, the students from insecure-ambivalent families were not able to regulate their learning and attain their goals (pp. 20-2). Nonetheless, it is important to note that the results of this st

Category: Psychology - T