Stop Catastrophizing and Get on With Your Life – The Attachment Theory Personified!

Quotation

 “A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself — to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.”

— Leo F. Buscaglia

Reflection

 In the fairy tale based on the original story first collected by Danish librarian Just Mathias Thiele, Chicken Little runs through the farmyard shouting, “The sky is falling!” after an acorn falls on her head. This example of someone catastrophizing is well known to most of us. Can you think of a “Chicken Little” you have met, who always seems to think the worst will happen after they experience actions or events in their life? Does Chicken Little demonstrate to us an insecure attachment style?

 

Attachment theory focuses on relationships and bonds between people, including those between a parent and child and between romantic partners. The British psychologist, John Bowlby, was the first attachment theorist, who described attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings." The word “attachment” in this context means, the emotional bond that forms between infant and caregiver, and it is how the helpless infant gets primary needs met. This attachment provides the infant with a coping mechanism that can be accessed to comfort him during stressful moments that occur in the infant’s life.

 

Today, neuroscientists believe the primal need for attachment creates networks of neurons in the brain dedicated to setting into motion the process of attachment via a hormone called oxytocin. Researchers have identified basic patterns of attachment in children, including secure attachment, anxious-resistant attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. It has been found that secure attachment tends to occur in children from sensitive, responsive caregiving, whereas the more problematic patterns of attachment from the lack of such caregiving.

 

Attachment styles in adults have similar labels as described in children as follows:

·      Secure

·      Anxious-preoccupied (high anxiety, low avoidance)

·      Dismissing-avoidant (low anxiety, high avoidance)

·      Fearful avoidant (high anxiety, high avoidance)

 

During your lifetime journey, you need to find ways to increase enjoyment in your life. Learning about the attachment effect may help each individual move toward secure attachment. By doing this, we can develop a healthy self-image, learn to treat others with respect, learn to resolve conflict for mutual benefit, become more compassionate, become selfless, become a good neighbor, and become a good, loving, world citizen!

 

Petition:

Creator God, help me discover my attachment style, so I can begin to relate to others in a more sincere and healthy manner, and ultimately, in my journey here on Earth, discover a genuine relationship with my loving, Creator God!

 

Recovery by James Arthur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9DO3zpdWqw

 

Barry