Understanding the importance of attachment: an interview with Cristina Cortés

Cristina Cortés is an expert in child psychology and works at the Vitaliza psychology center.

Attachment is one of the most important aspects of human psychology.. The emotional component of the affective bonds we establish has a great influence on the way we live and develop, both in our adult life and in our childhood. In fact, research suggests that the forms of attachment we experience during our early years leave an important imprint on us.

Therefore, understanding how attachment relates to parenting is very important.

Understanding attachment: interview with Cristina Cortés

On this occasion we interviewed Cristina Cortés, a psychologist specialized in child and adolescent therapy at the Vitaliza psychology center in Pamplona.

Attachment is often confused with other terms such as love, but what is attachment in reality?

We can consider the attachment theory developed by John Bowlby as an attempt to conceptualize and explain the tendency and need of human beings to become attached, that is, to create affective bonds, and at the same time, an attempt to explain the emotional pain that occurs as a consequence of the separation and loss of these relationships.

According to attachment theory, infants tend to create an emotional bond with their parents, a bond that will be associated with their self-confidence as they grow up. An inadequate establishment of this bond in infancy can lead to later psychological difficulties.

We are imminently social beings, we need the contact of the other, of another brain to properly develop our own. Attachment is mediated by biology, we are genetically prepared to become attached to our mother as soon as we are born. It will be the quality and quantity of these affective interactions that will develop attachment and bonding.

Several researchers have contributed valuable knowledge on attachment, some as well known as John Bowlby. Although his theory has been interpreted by many authors, he was one of the first theorists to focus on the affective bonding with our parental figures at an early age. When does attachment begin to develop?

We can say that the first social bonds are formed during pregnancy and birth, which is when we have the most imperative need to depend on others. Social bonds will be strengthened during infancy and parental interactions from a very early onset.

Oxytocin, the love hormone, or the shy hormone, as it is known, mediates the Biological processes that favor attachment behaviors. Shy hormone because it is only produced in security contexts. Therefore we can say that security is the preamble to attachment. All this implies that we are talking about biological processes and not about romantic love.

A few months ago you participated in the "Ist Attachment Conference" held in Pamplona. During your talk you talked about the different types of attachment, could you explain them briefly?

Yes, in short we can say that the function of attachment is to guarantee the safety of the baby and the child. This implies that when the baby, the child, experiences discomfort it is attended to and calmed. This is what any baby expects, that his or her attachment figures attend to his or her needs. As this happens, first the baby and then the child develop the neural circuits that lead them to regulate their state of mind, that is, the child learns to calm down by being calmed down.

The secure attachment will be the one in which the child has the certainty that whatever happens, he will be calmed and soothed. He is fortunate enough to grow up and develop a secure image of himself and that he can trust others. Parents are good enough and sensitive enough to see the child's needs, not just the physical ones.

Insecure attachment is one in which the child does not come to experience his or her caregivers as a secure base. This may be because attachment figures have difficulty connecting with emotions, do not attend to them and focus on action, avoiding contact and emotional content in the interaction: this model is known as avoidant attachment. Or the caregivers are not consistent enough in their care and regulation of affection. In this case, the child grows up with the uncertainty of whether his parents will be there for him or not, sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. This type is called ambivalent or preoccupied attachment.

And at the other extreme to security is disorganized attachment which occurs when the infant or child has neglectful or frightening caregivers who do not meet physical and affective needs and when the caregivers are at the same time the source of terror. These caregivers do not calm the child and thus the child is unlikely to achieve healthy emotional regulation.

In the book Look at me, feel me: strategies for the repair of attachment in children using EMDRpublished by Desclèe de Brouwer, I make a tour through the different models of attachment. Secure attachment was presented through Eneko, the child protagonist who accompanies us throughout the chapters. From his gestation until the age of 7, Eneko's parents become a model of secure attachment for the readers.

Why is attachment important to develop a healthy self-esteem?

Children who have a secure attachment model have sensitive parents who are able to read their minds and attend to their needs. Such parents do not hold their children responsible for the breaks in connection that occur in everyday life. They are always ready to repair the ruptures, to encourage reconnection. And when they introduce no, attention calls and limits, they do not focus on the behavior and do not devalue the child.

Self-esteem is the affection we feel towards ourselves and is the result of the image we have been creating of ourselves. This image is a reflection of the messages and affection that caregivers have transmitted to us when we are inexperienced, inexperienced and insecure.

Much is said about the link between attachment and well-being, but what is its relationship with trauma?

Attachment and regulation go hand in hand. As our caregivers calm and soothe us, they help us to regulate ourselves, so that the neural systems associated with regulation are formed and these circuits and this super capacity, as I like to call it, are created. This super power is very important when things go wrong.

And trauma is precisely that, "something has gone wrong, very wrong". If we talk about attachment trauma, the trauma has occurred in the relationship with the caregivers and the regulation has blown up, we do not count on it. And if we are talking about an external trauma, in a catastrophe for example, our response, our capacity to recover will depend on our capacity to regulate our fear, our emotions, our capacity to trust, to hope that things can go well again. And curiously enough, families that repair and repair their screw-ups, transmit this faith that things can be solved.

Secure attachment is not about being a super parent. Perfect parents do not allow their children to grow. The most desirable characteristic of secure attachment is to know and be able to repair, not to feel attacked in that unequal power relationship between parents and children.

How can failure to maintain a positive attachment style during childhood lead to problems in adulthood?

According to Mary Main, the most important evolutionary function of attachment is the creation of a mental system capable of generating mental representations, especially representations of relationships. Mental representations that include affective and cognitive components and play an active role in guiding behavior. How I see myself, and what I expect from others.

These mental representations that we create in childhood, in the interaction with attachment figures, are projected into future relationships both personal and professional and guide our interaction with others.

EMDR therapy and Neurofeedback seem to work very well in these cases. Why?

In Vitaliza we have been combining both therapies for more than 14 years, especially they are synergistic when we have had very early traumatic experiences whether they are attachment or not, or when our system has exploded due to the overload of chronic stress maintained over a long period of time. Both interventions lead to improvement in many aspects.

Neurofedback will help us improve our capacity for emotional regulation, and this increased regulation allows us to process trauma. Having a greater regulatory capacity facilitates and shortens the duration of the stabilization phase required to process the trauma, and allows us to process through EMDR the traumatic situations that are activated by present triggers.

What advice would you give to parents concerned about their children's parenting style? How can they be more likely to maintain the optimal balance between protection and allowing them freedom?

Most parents want to foster the best possible relationship with their children, and if they don't do better it is usually because they lack knowledge and time. The lack of time and the stress that we families carry nowadays are incompatible with a secure attachment, where time stops and the center of attention is not only the baby but also the child. Babies, boys and girls need and require full attention not divided with the mobile or smartphone.

We need to look face to face with our children, feel them, play with them, propitiate interactions, play, laugh, tell them stories, free them from extracurriculars and spend time, as much as we can with them. Let them not spend more time with multiple screens than with us, there is no computer that sits you down and smiles at you.