Understanding the importance of attachment: interview with Cristina Cortés

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

This is why understanding how attachment relates to parenting is very important.

• Related article: "Attachment Theory and the bond between parents and children"

Understanding attachment: interview with Cristina Cortés

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

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

We can consider the attachment theory developed by John Bowlby as an attempt to conceptualize and explain the tendency and necessity of human beings to attach, that is, to create emotional ties and at the same time, an attempt to explain the emotional pain that occurs as a result of the separation and loss of these relations.

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

We are imminently social beings, we need the contact of the other, of another brain to adequately develop ours. Attachment is mediated by biology, we come genetically prepared to attach ourselves to our mother as soon as we are born. It will be the quality and quantity of these affective interactions that will develop the attachment and the bond.

Several researchers have contributed valuable knowledge about attachment, some as well known as John Bowlby. Although his theory has been interpreted by multiple authors, he was one of the first theorists in put the focus of attention on the affective bond with our parental figures in ages early. When does attachment start to develop?

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

Oxytocin, the love hormone, or shy hormone, as it is known, mediates the biological processes that promote 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 speak of biological processes and not of romantic love.

A few months ago you participated in the “I Attachment Conference” held in Pamplona. During your talk you talked about the different types of attachment. Could you explain them briefly?

Yes, in summary 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, she is cared for and calmed down. It is what any baby expects, that her attachment figures attend to her needs. As this happens, the baby first and then the child develop the circuits neuronal that lead him to regulate his mood, that is, the child learns to calm down based on be calm.

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

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

And at the other extreme to safety is the disorganized attachment that occurs when the baby or child has caregivers. neglectful or frightening that do not meet physical and emotional needs and when caregivers are at the same time the source of the terror. These caregivers do not calm the child and thus it is difficult for him to achieve healthy emotional regulation.

In the book Look at Me, Feel Me: Strategies for Child Attachment Repair Using EMDR, edited by Desclèe de Brouwer, I take a tour of the different attachment models. Secure attachment was presented through Eneko, the child protagonist who accompanies us throughout all the chapters. From his gestation until the age of 7, Eneko's parents become a model of secure attachment for readers.

Why is attachment important to developing healthy self-esteem?

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

Self-esteem is the affection we feel towards ourselves and it is the result of the image that we have been creating of ourselves. This image is the reflection of the messages and affection that the caregivers have transmitted to us when we do not know how to do and we are inexperienced and insecure.

• You may be interested: "Child attachment: definition, functions and types"

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

Attachment and regulation go hand in hand. As our caregivers calm and soothe us, they help us regulate ourselves, as the associated neural systems to regulation, those circuits and that super capacity are formed and created, as I like call her. 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 caregivers and regulation has been blown up, we do not have it. And if we talk about an external trauma, in a catastrophe for example, our response, our ability to recover will depend on my ability to regulate fear, emotions, the ability to trust, to hope that things can return to Go well. And curiously, the families that repair and repair their gaffes, transmit that faith that things have a solution.

A secure attachment is not about being a super parent. Perfect parents don't allow their children to grow. The most desirable characteristic of secure attachment is knowing and being able to repair, not feel attacked in that unequal power relationship between parents and children.

How can failure to maintain a positive attachment style during childhood create 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, we project into future relationships, both personal and professional, and guide our interaction with the rest

It appears that EMDR therapy and neurofeedback work very well in these cases. Why?

In Vitaliza we have been combining both therapies for more than 14 years, especially when they have had very traumatic experiences. early, whether of attachment or not, or when our system has been blown up due to the overload of chronic stress maintained throughout long time. Both interventions promote improvement in many respects.

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

What advice would you give to parents concerned about the parenting style of their little ones? How can they be better able to maintain the optimal balance between protection and freedom?

Most parents want to promote the best possible relationship with their children, and if they do not do better it is usually because they lack knowledge and time. The lack of time and the stress that families undergo today are incompatible with a secure attachment, where time stops and the center of attention is not only the baby but also the boy. Babies, boys and girls need and require full attention, do not divide with the mobile or smartphone.

We need to look our children face to face, feel them, play with them, encourage interactions, play, laugh, tell stories, free them from extracurricular activities and spend time, as much as we can with they. That they don't spend more time with multiple screens than with us, there is no computer that will sit you down and smile at you.