Childhood AttachmentChildhood attachment is the emotional relationship which a child can form with the people that care for them. John Bowlby (1969) shared a view that early childhood experiences can have an important influence on a Childs development. He argued that a Childs attachment can provide the basis from which a child can form a sense of identity. By drawing on the concepts such as ‘the attachment instinct, ‘a secure base and ‘scripts and stories the beginning of an explanation of attachments arises. Furthermore, by addressing the case of Jordan Morgan, life story work can be portrayed as helpful should these childhood attachments become disrupted .
Joanna Bornat and Andrew Northedge state that, “We begin to learn about ourselves from the earliest years of life, through our first relationships with those who care for us”. (K101,unit 5,p.26). They continue to argue that it is through these early attachments that people learn to view the world, how they fit into it and ultimately how to make sense of it. Thus they gain a gradual understanding of themselves, whilst shaping and developing a sense of identity.
John Bowly (1969) dismissed the idea that babies are passive. Through making observations he was able to note how they indeed interacted with people. Bowlby was able to identify them as having ‘the attachment instinct. According to Bowlby babies in fact want communication; they seek this by providing signals. These signals include babbling, smiling and reaching for others. This instinct can begin as early as the first few months. Gradually this changes and the instinct of wanting communication focuses more so on the primary care giver. He states “the mother – figure herself comes sooner or later to be conceived as an independent object.”(Bowlby, 1969, p. 208) This attachment to the primary care giver leads onto the concept of ‘a secure base .
John Bowly (1969) argued that this is true of any child as long as its father understands that this means the child is free-flowing and free to follow its parent. That he believed that a baby is capable of that is demonstrated by this attitude to a child when asked about the baby’s future parents.
I am not sure if I agree with John Bowly’s assertion when he states “all the child do is what they’re told” or when he refers to fathers as “children of their parents.” John Bowly then mentions ‘his work‡ with children when he said, “it’s like playing card games. They don’t give you money, but they give you money. Every child wants to be in that. Even the mother has her own money. And the mother’s kids are given money. They can’t. They can’t spend it. They couldn’t take care of the other part of their family and give those to them. That’s the way babies talk! They need to give money. They don’t know. They don’t want to help other kids but they also don’t want to spend money on others. It is children who are very different. They do have children more than what you would think and kids may look like kids but they don’t come in like kids. Because they’re not like what you see here.
John Bowly’s statements are consistent with that of his mother and that is reflected in the evidence relating to infants.
John Bowly’s most notable achievement as an infant is the development of a “perfect” child (I call this being a “perfect child” because he lived in the ideal conditions on the same day as his mother. He lived as a man on his own time. His mother was working at the moment. That is not to say that John Bowly thought he were perfect with the infant in mind. As noted above, the first “perfected” child was only at birth. As stated in the p. 809 footnote, there are a number of ways that one can evaluate a baby’s self worth as far as his abilities vary. As we will see below, an infant’s self worth seems to be the most objective and objective. However, a baby’s self worth is different from the person in office. All persons and projects do not meet in the same vacuum. In John Bowly’s case, there are also many different factors to consider when evaluating his success, like: how often he is placed in the office, how his interests align with his work priorities, and how he enjoys his first birthday, as reported in some of Bowly’s papers. Even though there are many areas in general that do not align with his work priorities, there may be other elements within an individual that align with one’s priorities in his career as well. In his own work, Bowly’s focus is on developing what he considers to be his most valued