A Secure Base

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As Bowlby himself points out in his introduction to this seminal childcare book, to be a successful parent means a lot of very hard work. Bowlby’s work showed that the early interactions between infant and caregiver have a profound impact on an infant's social, emotional, and intellectual growth. During the earliest years of our lives, indeed, emotional expression and its reception are the only means of communication we have. Whilst Bowlby's background was in psychoanalysis, he eschewed the Freudian concepts of developmental stages and of the inner 'fantasy' life being more crucial in psychopathology than the effect of real-life events upon a person's 'developmental pathway'. Whilst a counsellor working in the classical client-centred approach may not feel the need for this blank to be filed, it's something I've found fascinating and which I intend to read into further.

This may make them a source of anxiety rather than comfort for the infant, but does not mean that they are necessarily neglectful or abusive. Secure: Secure attachment occurs when the infant or child is cared for by available, sensitive and responsive caregivers, who are accepting and co-operative, promoting trust and competence. Children's behaviours become organised around their expectations of themselves and others and, as they grow older, these expectations tend to influence the way in which others relate to them.The ensuing relationships will provide a secure base, from which children can develop and be supported to explore and maximise their potential. Initially the infant may simply make demands almost constantly to attract and keep the attention of the caregiver or may become rather helpless in the absence of a predictably successful strategy.

This is the book that has opened my eyes about what makes a good theory and how to build a strong scientific argument. A very readable looking into the thinking of an important contributor to psychology and psychoanalysis.An internal working model is a set of expectations and beliefs about the self, others and the relationship between the self and others. A bit disheartening, but gives hope for important parenting practices to build a healthy relationship. The risk, then, is that feelings and behaviours might become fixed in destructive loops and the damage of the past will not be healed. In doing so, the baby begins to understand and make sense of his inner experiences and feelings and gradually to manage and express them appropriately.

At the time it was widely held that the reason a child develops a close tie to his mother is that she feeds him. Each of the five caregiving dimensions can be associated with a particular developmental benefit for the child, as shown in the table below and positive caregiving guidance for each dimension is outlined in this guide to Positive caregiving approaches.The caregiver may draw on their own ideas about what children need or what makes a good parent from their own experiences or from what they have learned from training. Through the process of attachment behaviours being responded to promptly and appropriately, therefore, the baby's survival is ensured, and also, his emotional, social and physical development is enhanced and maximised in the context of the relationship. But over time the pre-school child starts to develop controlling behaviours to enable them to feel some degree of predictability and safety. There are, in fact, no more important communications between one human being and another than those expressed emotionally. The author presents attachment theory in a historical fashion each time by first stating what psychologists used to think and how new findings changed it.

Over time, the infant tends to become needy and angry, a ‘clingy', but distrustful and resistant child. Some children with unpredictable or frightening care may try to make their environment more predictable through role-reversing and controlling behaviour. At the other end of the spectrum, a response that is unavailable or cold will lead to an internal working model of the attachment figure as rejecting, the self as unworthy of care and others as not to be relied on for help and support. Also of interest is the idea that these symptoms may be relayed or passed from one generation to the next as behavior is learned and absorbed and displayed again.Rhesus macaques - infants show a marked preference for a soft dummy ‘mother’, despite its providing no food, to a hard one that does provide it (Harlow and Zimmermann 1959). This course will develop participants' knowledge of the Secure Base Model as well as their competence in using it during the assessment process, in preparing applicants, and in evidencing and analysing prospective carers' potential to meet the needs of children and young people.