The Strange Situation procedure was formulated to observe attachment relationships between a caregiver and children between the age of nine and 18 months. It was developed by Mary Ainsworth, a developmental psychologist. Originally it was devised to enable children to be classified into the attachment styles known as secure, anxious-avoidant and anxious-ambivalent. As research accumulated and atypical patterns of attachment became more apparent it was further developed by Main and Solomon in 1986 and 1990 to include the new category of disorganized/disoriented attachment. In this procedure the child is observed playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives.
Separation anxiety 3.Reunion behaviour 4.Stranger Anxiety. One of the biggest weaknesses of Ainsworth’s experiment was that it may not just measure the attachment types of the infant but more so the quality of the relationship between the infant and caregiver. Second of all an experiment by Main and Weston found that infants behave differently depending on the parent that they are with. Therefore this could mean that SS doesn’t actually fully measure what it is meant to which automatically decreases the validity of the strange situation as a measurement of attachment type. On the other hand some may argue that the only relationship that is of relevance is your primary caregiver, which is the
Clinical Assessment “Mr. and Mrs. Lawson brought their 4-year-old adopted daughter, Clara, to see Dr. Mason, a psychiatrist. Clara was polite in greeting Dr. Mason, but did not smile and kept her gaze down as she took a seat. Mr. and Mrs. Lawson sat next to Clara and began explaining their concerns. They described Clara as a quiet child who has recently begun throwing temper tantrums, during which she is inconsolable.
They may have feelings of loss or guilt about the father not being in the home. The child may feel responsible for the parent’s leaving the home. Children sometimes accept blame for things going wrong at home when they really should not. While researching the literature on children from single-parent homes and juvenile delinquency some of the same factors presented regarding delinquent behavior. The literature also reports that without stability in their lives these children are at risk to be victims as well as perpetrators of violence.
On this test the abusing mothers indicated a high current level of attachment disorder, primarily anxious attachment, but with some tendency toward detachment as well. Thus the abusing mothers in the study demonstrated their overall sensitivity to separation, especially mild separation, and their feelings of helplessness anxiety, and anger in response to significant separation experiences. DeLozier suggest that these findings support the prediction that the abusing mothers in the study have experienced difficulty in their childhood attachments and in the development of internal representations of significant others as accessible and reliable, resulting in consequent adult attachment difficulties as well as in possible difficulties in the development of appropriate care-taking behaviour. There are implications that DeLozier perceives from her research and she summarises them as
Anxiety; the child may worry constantly about the situation at home. He or she may fear the alcoholic parent will become sick or injured, and may also fear fights and violence between the parents. Embarrassment; parents may give the child the message that there is a terrible secret at home. The ashamed child does not invite friends home and is afraid to ask anyone for help. Confusion; the alcoholic parent will change suddenly from being loving to angry, regardless of the child's behavior.
The family can be put under a lot of stress and people’s emotions get minimized as the pain of what they live in is denied. The family support system breaks down and children lose sense of what is ‘normal’. As the adults around them struggle to regulate their emotions, the child learns abnormal ways to deal with the chaos around them and struggle to make sense of what is happening around them. The family’s routine begins to revolve around the addict and the children end up fending for themselves. Children in an environment of addiction often find themselves taking on the roles of the adults and take on the stress of dealing with the addiction.
People with antisocial disorder will act instead of feel; they find it difficult to talk about their personal emotional experiences. The feelings of helpless and a scared victim during childhood stage makes them want to scare and victimize others when they grow up (Hansel & Damour, 2008). Furthermore, the psychodynamic aspect also delves into analyzing early childhood attachments of individuals with antisocial personality disorder. Gabbard (2000) stated that “normal parent-child attachment paves the way for the internalization of a morally guiding superego and the ability to empathize with others. People with antisocial personality disorder show abnormal superego functioning and a lack of empathic ability to imagine how others feel, presumably due to disrupted parent-child relationships” (Hansel & Damour, 2008, p.
When the child realizes that this type of behavior is wrong and unacceptable, those internal feelings of violation never fade. Children that come from abusive homes often go to school or child care without showing any signs of abuse or neglect; perhaps living with the fear that if they “tell”, it will anger both the parents if their family secret is revealed, which could lead to more abuse inside the home. Children with ages ranging from infancy to adolescence have a tendency to feel lost or vulnerable. These kids strive for attention in negative ways, as well as seeking an approval from others by any means necessary. For example, “The emotional responses of children who witness domestic violence may include fear, guilt, shame, sleep disturbances, sadness, depression, and anger (Domestic Violence Round Table, 2015).” It is evidently clear that children who come from abusive families may incur problems later in life as they establish and build personal and private relationships.
According to Massaro, family is an area that is intimate where people will cooperate, it is how children learn about themselves, identify who they are, and how to socialize with society. (Massaro, 2012, p. 87) If a child is growing up in a home where domestic violence occurs, their safety in the family is jeopardized. Children learn firsthand from their parents what is right and wrong, a child sees violence and may think, “Daddy is hitting mommy so it is okay for me to hit too.” Another part of family would be the isolation that an abuser sometimes causes the victim from other people in their family such as parents. Many times the abuser wants full control of the victim and does not want other family members involved. It is a control issue for the abuser and most of the time they want the victim all to themselves, and even children being born will cause the abuser to feel his victims attention is no