Insights from Attachment Theory for Adult Children of Divorce (Part 2: The Psychology of Attachment and the Implications for Mental Health)
Photo by Yan Krukau from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-carrying-her-baby-while-looking-at-her-husband-guiding-their-child-5792897/
“A Woman Carrying Her Baby while Looking at Her Husband Guiding Their Child”
As we continue this series on Attachment Theory, building upon the key concepts we explored in Part One, we now turn our attention to how attachment facilitates human development and the ways secure and insecure attachment impact mental health. In order to understand the deep wounds of attachment injury, it is helpful to first understand the significant benefit of healthy attachment from a psychological perspective. I would like to highlight three main benefits of secure attachment: the safety that allows for personal exploration, the foundation for emotionally fulfilling relationships, and the development of social-emotional skills associated with positive mental health. As we consider these three points, I will invite you to reflect on your own experience.
1.) Healthy and secure attachment creates safety and allows for exploration.
The first and primary benefit of secure attachment is creating the proper environment for human development and flourishing at all stages in life. Healthy and secure attachments provide the necessary safety which allows the child to “explore and develop fully based on his interests and capacities.” (Daniel Hughes, Attachment Focused Parenting, 20). The implications of such exploration are profound because each person has a unique temperament, personality, intellectual capacity, and vocational path that develop and emerge over time. (For a Catholic perspective on temperaments, see The Temperament God Gave You).
Secure attachment is a catalyst for developmental growth. When considering the developmental milestones that a child passes through on the way from infancy to adulthood the role of attachment is crucial. Daniel Hughes, in Facilitating Developmental Attachment highlights the research of Margaret Mahler and Stanley Greenspan, developmental psychologists, who saw attachment as a developmental process. Regarding Greenspan’s research, Hughes writes,
“emotional responsiveness (regulation and integration), behavioral purposefulness (initiation, inhibition, and organization), and cognitive understanding (differentiation, planning, and integration) all occur within the meaning of the attachment with the caregiver. Language, too, emerges naturally as a means of communicating one’s wishes, desires, and emotions to the caregiver… Attachment with one’s parents is the setting in which these developmental patterns occur.” (16)
Among famous developmental psychologists, Erik Erickson proposed eight stages of development from childhood to mature adulthood.
Image from Brandi Wells, Teachers Pay Teachers,
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/FreeDownload/Erik-Eriksons-Developmental-Stages-Poster-4741150
At each stage, certain themes or tasks emerge, including building trust, establishing autonomy, discovering identity, and pursuing intimacy (https://www.simplypsychology.org/erik-erikson.html). It is impossible for a person to successfully complete any of these developmental stages without the positive influence of a significant attachment figure. For better or for worse, attachment relationships have a profound impact on personality and the trajectory of human development. The attachment relationship can either help or hinder the child. The lack of a secure attachment can be so detrimental to a person as to stunt or derail the developmental trajectory.
Reflection: How did my parents’ divorce impact my sense of safety and my ability to explore and develop based on my personal interests and capacities? What developmental stage was I at when my parents divorced and how might that have impacted my further development?
2.) Secure attachment provides the fertile ground for emotionally fulfilling relationships.
A child’s social life is initially formed by the caregiver through non-verbal communication and the progressive acquisition of language (upon which future relationships will depend). Thanks to ongoing positive interactions, the child grows in awareness of self and other (necessary for the development of empathy and of healthy boundaries), and through the attunement of a responsive caregiver, the child learns how to regulate emotions (a critical skill for making and sustaining friendships). As the child matures and becomes an adult, healthy relationships are characterized by mutual care and concern. The child, well-cared for, learns how to care for others. John Bowlby noted that, “the capacity to make intimate emotional bonds with other individuals, sometimes in the careseeking [sic] role and sometimes in the caregiving one, is regarded as a principal feature of effective personality functioning and mental health.” (1988, #120, accessed online at increaseproject.eu).
Reflection: How did my parents’ divorce impact my social life and relationships with others both in and outside my family? Which relationships in my childhood were the most emotionally secure and fulfilling?
3.) Loving relationships and attachment security bear good fruit.
In Attachment-Focused Parenting, Effective Strategies to Care for Children, Daniel Hughes writes, “A relationship that is characterized by attachment security facilitates many areas of development in the child,” including, “physiological and emotional regulation,” “empathy for others,” “intellectual development, communication and language skills, and self-integration and self-worth.” (10-11). Dr. Sue Johnson, in her book, Attachment Theory in Practice, writes that secure attachment “has been linked in systematic research to almost every positive index of mental health and general well-being outlined in social sciences,” including the following twelve characteristics:
Resilience in the face of stress
Optimism
High self-esteem
Confidence and curiosity
Tolerance for human differences
A sense of belonging
The ability to self-disclose and be assertive
To tolerate ambiguity
To regulate difficult emotions
The capacity for sensitive attunement to others, empathic responsiveness, and compassion
Openness to people who are perceived as different from oneself
A tendency to altruistic action (p.10)
As we can see, secure attachment is the optimal condition for human thriving. In reading through these characteristics of mental health, it reminded me of the twelve supernatural fruits of the Holy Spirit: faithfulness, joy, peace, faith, gentleness, goodness, self-control, modesty, chastity, kindness, generosity, charity. Here we see a glimpse of how grace and nature can work together. It is not surprising that having a secure or insecure attachment with a caregiver can also influence one’s relationship with God (more on that in part four).
Reflection: When I read through these twelve characteristics of mental health, which do I struggle with the most and which do I struggle with the least?
The negative psychological consequences of insecure attachment
Just as secure attachment is correlated with positive mental health, insecure attachment is associated with a variety of psychological problems ranging from aggression and self-harm to depression and anxiety. If a caregiver cannot meet the attachment needs of the child, insecure patterns of attachment emerge. The three types of insecure attachment patterns: avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized are all caused by attachment injuries and subsequent wounds that need healing. In Parenting from the Inside Out, Dr. Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell explain:
When a parent is repeatedly unavailable and rejecting of the child, a child may become avoidantly attached, meaning that the child adapts by avoiding closeness and emotional connection to the parents… An ambivalently attached child experiences the parent’s communication as inconsistent and at times intrusive. The child cannot depend upon the parent for attunement and connection… When children’s attachment needs are unmet and their parent’s behavior is a source of disorientation or terror, they may develop a disorganized attachment. Children with a disorganized attachment have repeated experiences of communication in which the parent’s behavior is overwhelming, frightening, and chaotic (109-111).
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score, summarizes each of these attachment patterns in this way: the avoidant child tries to not allow emotions and distress to surface outwardly, the ambivalent child anxiously seeks attention by maximum expression of distress, and the disorganized child freezes or shuts down. (118-123).
Reflection: How did my parents’ divorce impact my view of relationships and my attachment patterns? Do I tend to avoid and dismiss my need for close relationships, become prone to anxiety and clinginess, or feel so disconnected from myself that I lose my sense of self? Do I sometimes shut down in relationships with others and distance myself mentally and emotionally? Do I find that I care for others, but am unable to receive care in return?
Conclusion
Adult children of divorce may likely recognize insecure attachment patterns in their own lives. When a parent is unable to meet a child’s attachment needs, children will cope in whatever way they can: whether by consciously or unconsciously denying or suppressing their needs (avoidance), by acting out and seeking attention (ambivalence) or by zoning out and dissociating (disorganization). Depending on how old you were when your parents divorced, the trauma of divorce may have disrupted a developmental stage, causing deep psychological injuries. This could be an area in which to further explore through prayer, study, counseling and support groups. Even in the uniqueness of your own personal story, you may find that other adult children of divorce share common wounds and can encourage you on the journey of healing.
About the author:
Emily Rochelle graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville with a Master’s in Catechesis and Evangelization in 2021. Having experienced her parents’ divorce while she was in elementary school, Emily has a heart of compassion for those who suffer and a deep desire to bring the healing love of Christ into people’s lives. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
Reflection questions taken from Emily Jerger's article. Please comment ONLY if you feel comfortable sharing your reflections with the community.
How did my parents’ divorce impact my sense of safety and my ability to explore and develop based on my personal interests and capacities?
How did my parents’ divorce impact my social life and relationships with others both in and outside my family?
How did my parents’ divorce impact my view of relationships and my attachment patterns? Do I tend to avoid and dismiss my need for close relationships, become prone to anxiety and clinginess, or feel so disconnected from myself that I lose my sense of self? Do I sometimes shut down in relationships with others and distance myself mentally and emotionally? Do I find that I care for others, but am unable to receive care in return?