Mental health articles

Attachment theory—hypotheses Holmes (2001, p. 6) lists several hypotheses arising from attachment theory. To paraphrase here: • Universality hypothesis: In all known cultures, human infants become attached to one or more specific caregivers. • Normality hypothesis: About 70 per cent of infants become securely attached. Secure attachment is numerically and physiologically normal. • Sensitivity hypothesis: Attachment security is dependent on sensitive and responsive caregiving. • Competence hypothesis: Social and emotional competence is predicted by attachment security. • Continuity hypothesis: Attachment patterns in childhood persist and have an impact over the lifespan. • Mentalisation hypothesis: Secure attachment is based on and leads to capacity for reflection on states of mind of self and other (Fonagy & Target, 1997). • Narrative competence hypothesis: Secure attachment in childhood is reflected in adult life by the ways in which people talk about their lives (as reflected in the Adult Attachment Interview, Main & Goldwyn, 1994). Attachment theory then, developed initially by John Bowlby from the integration of information from a range of previously separate and diverse areas of knowledge, remains an integrative body of theory and practice that enables links to be made between outer behaviour and inner representations of relationships and between the experiences of one generation and the care they will provide to the next, that is, the transgenerational aspects of parenting. It provides an explanatory link between observed parenting behaviour, the quality of parent and infant relationships and the later functioning of the child socially and emotionally. Most importantly, attachment theorists have developed established scientific methods to elicit and evaluate aspects of the inner representational world of the infant, child and adult. Initially, Bowlby’s work was taken up by researchers on child development and not by clinicians. Recently, this has changed, with the increasing application of the understanding and knowledge that comes from attachment theory and research being applied to therapeutic interventions with parents and infants, and also informing a range of other therapies with adults, children and families.