How do affective ties affect our mental health?

If we look at the first days of our existence, babies are already prepared, from birth, to fully develop on a physical, psychological and affective level; even so, its growth is influenced by different determinants. Among those factors that affect child development, the prominence of the environment that surrounds the baby and, above all, the influence exerted by those closest to him stand out..

For this reason, the family constitutes a central element for the healthy maturation of the baby and, in particular, the reference figure to which the baby is linked, the so-called attachment figure. This reality explains why the first interactions and experiences generate a great impact on this little being, who is in an extremely sensitive state.

In short, affective development begins at birth and is part of our family interactions, so that adults have learned to relate to our environment and respond emotionally from the patterns and models experienced and acquired as children and, especially, from the relationship developed with our figure of attachment.

These primal influences from early childhood stay with us into adulthood., that is, they interact with us throughout our lives, and mediate our ways of relating to others and, primarily, to our closest or loved ones.

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What is the importance of our family environment?

The family environment intervenes substantially in the development of the baby and the greatest influence is exerted by the reference figure to which the baby is attached, the so-called attachment figure.. In the field of mental health, there are numerous scientific papers that suggest that establishing a link Secure attachment is essential for the healthy development of the baby, both physically and biologically as well as psychological. The baby builds a secure attachment bond when he feels comforted, loved and cared for by the father, the mother or the main caregiver. On the contrary, he develops an insecure attachment when his needs, especially affective ones, are not covered by his reference adult.

The theories that have studied our bonding interactions come from fields as different as neurodevelopment, attachment, biological or psychosocial approaches. As a species, we develop in an interpersonal, relational, or affective context. Hence the importance of highlighting the influence exerted by the baby's first interactions and with the baby. In fact, the answers that the referent adult gives to the baby affect how the baby will understand the world.

If the baby experiences a healthy bonding relationship, in which her physical and affective needs are covered, she will tend to to integrate this relationship centrally in her development and that, in turn, will influence her way of relating to others. the rest. It's more, the consistency of those first interactions will not only affect the baby in a relational or affective way, but it will affect the development of the structural and functional networks of your brain, since it is in an extremely sensitive stage.

Therefore, children who have been cared for by their parents with sensitivity, in an environment welcoming and with help to regulate their emotions have the bases to be able to generate an attachment sure. In this environment, children have had the opportunity to express their feelings and needs, which have been addressed with receptivity and sensitivity.

Consequently, these children will tend to express their feelings more easily, whether they are happy, sad or uncomfortable, as opposed to those children who have developed an insecure attachment, because, as babies, they may have experienced some (or many) deficiencies in attention from their figure of attachment. Parents may have been insensitive to your affective or emotional needs, they may have responded to those needs inconsistently or they may have offered unadjusted reactions to what the baby or child formulates.

Attachment in our life

If the attachment figure's response to the baby's needs is substantial for her stability and correct development, so are the experiences lived and interpreted by the child from his figure of attachment. That is to say, in the relationship that occurs in the mother-child or father-child relationship, the way in which the that the adult referent interacts with the baby as well as the interpretations that the child makes of the behaviors of his potatoes.

Thus, studies in these areas ensure that affective development is essential during the early years of life and that the bond that the baby establishes with her attachment figure is constitutive for the mental health of the child. In addition, these bases not only affect this initial stage, but the way in which our first relationships influenced us also become constitutive of the person's mental health throughout their vital development, from birth to adulthood, through adolescence and youth.

Consequently, this stage can be considered as an essential stage to cultivate a positive and sensitive parenting, which promotes the establishment of a secure attachment between the baby and the bonding figure and that can encourage their correct development. This is how parents or referents have the important task of providing their son or daughter with the basic needs for their survival and satisfying adequate personal development..

If we think that feeding is essential for the baby's life, we must bear in mind that it is also essential to feel safe, comforted and loved. That is, the baby needs to be emotionally nourished through the healthy interactions in her environment, which helps to build that secure attachment. This implies that it is not enough to attend to the physiological needs of the baby, but that, in addition, the emotional or affective ones must be satisfied.

Echoes in adult life

In general, the patterns that influenced us in childhood continue to operate in our subconscious and are familiar to us. How many times have we caught ourselves doing or saying something that our parents did and that we really dislike? Sometimes, they are patterns that we have identified and that we try to avoid or that we work on not to reproduce them and, other times, on the contrary, we promote them because, for us, they constitute a good example or way of being in the world.

At other times, these patterns are expressed in a way that we are completely unaware of, and perhaps someone outside of us. we share a comment or observation that makes us realize that we are repeating those schemes in a way evident. Be that as it may, our way of expressing feelings has a lot to do with what we were taught explicitly or implicitly our parents or adults of reference, in addition to the impacts or important experiences that we live in the childhood.

As adults we may be repeating these patterns with the people around us and with whom we interact.. In particular, they may be mediating the way in which we relate to our loved ones, with those people with whom we establish important affective ties, such as our partner or our children. Or they can intervene in the way we choose a partner, perhaps in a search to fill a lack or to have a person structure that is familiar to us.

In these environments we can play familiar roles and express our emotions in the way our referents taught us or in which certain events affected us. And if we want to go further, these patterns become more evident when it comes to being parents, either because we repeat with our children, in a very faithful way, how we were raised or because we deal, precisely, with the battle of not repeating certain Models.

Sometimes this can confront us in our way of relating. For this reason, it is important to stop and reflect if some of the circumstances we experience or the actions we carry out are influenced by our first relationships or if these primal relationships affect us in the way we relate, and in the event that they cause us pain, review how we can heal them.

A therapeutic accompaniment can help us bring these patterns to consciousness in order to relate in a more assertive and fully conscious way, not only with our environment, but also with ourselves. From this perspective, it is not difficult to understand why adults can find it difficult to understand our own feelings and reactions to different situations and, even more, knowing how to show how we feel or control our responses when we find ourselves involved in circumstances or contexts that affect us emotionally.

Sometimes, even, there can be a lack of connection with ourselves that makes it difficult or prevents us from identifying why we are feeling this way, why we respond in a certain way and what needs we are not covering.