Do you have a “Problem Child”? Are power struggles the norm in your home? Is your kid struggling, and you don’t know why? If nothing you’ve done is really helping your child, and you’re at the end of your rope, the Asheville Family Counseling Center can help.
Intro to Attachment Theory
A lot of people think it’s normal for kids to have tantrums and angry outbursts, but it’s not. These angry outbursts may be common, but they don’t have to be accepted. I can help you get to the bottom of them and create peace and harmony in your family. How? The Asheville Counseling Center helps by using the framework offered by Attachment Theory.
In the 1970’s John Bowlby created a completely new framework for understanding the emotional attachments between parents and their children. This new framework, known as attachment theory, is now one of the most influential theories of human development.
Bowlby’s work highlights the long-term effects early attachments have on a child’s ability to form healthy relationships. It also sheds valuable insight into the root of conflicts within the family system as well as outside of it.
Using the lens of attachment theory, we can understand how a child’s early experiences shape her thoughts, beliefs, and expectations of self and others. And also how this understanding influences her behavior in the future.
What Does Secure Attachment Look Like?
Securely attached children are able to manage their distress on their own with little or no support from their caregivers. If they need extra support they are able to give clear messages as to their needs. They can also accept soothing when offered. Finally, because they are so secure they can be more independent. They can explore their environment and other relationships with confidence.
What Does Insecure Attachment Look Like?
People who have insecure attachments, however, present a very different picture along two extremes: anxiety and avoidance. The unfortunate reality is that a family that has experienced any kind of persistent conflict, alienation, loss, trauma, depression, and/or grief will have family members who are more likely to experience insecure attachment.
If a child repeatedly experiences parents as unavailable, whether from an illness like depression or even unavailability because of work commitments, they will not expect her parents, or others, to be available for emotional support. The need to seek out a loved one for care and comfort in times of distress is undermined by fears of abandonment and betrayal. Children and adolescents with insecure attachments are simply less able to express or even understand their feelings. They also have less ability to regulate emotions in a healthy manner.
The unfortunate fact is that children and adolescents with insecure attachments are often not able to regulate their emotional states without resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms. These children and adolescents are likely to manifest very unpredictable emotional states, angry outbursts, persistent anxiety, or intense fears.
It follows that since these children and adolescents don’t feel safe expressing their needs and don’t trust that they will be met, that they would resort to challenging behaviors in order to get them met. It’s understandable that most parents, in the face of their child’s challenging emotional states, might express an avoidant attachment style of their own. They may focus almost all of their energy on controlling their child’s behavior rather than investigating the meaning behind it. It simply feels too hard and too exhausting to deal with their constant anxious bids for attention.
Asheville Family Counseling Can Help
Asheville Family Counseling can help by creating a safe space. Safety is the core of attachment theory, and safety is therefore the ideal basis for family treatment. Treatment, in fact, will involve using specific patterns of communication designed to create understanding between the family members. The long-term goal for family counseling is for everyone in the family to share their thoughts and feelings with the expectation that their needs will be understood, appreciated, and met.
If you’d like to find out more, click the button below and schedule a free, 15-minute call with me. We’ll discuss how counseling may help you and/or your family.