ABSTRACT
The brain’s preference for learning within a relationship means that each of us has grown up with a unique set of survival skills because all human relationships are different. Nevertheless, through extensive observations, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth identified three common patterns of ‘attachment’, which can be divided into one secure and two insecure attachment styles – anxious and avoidant. Infants who develop a secure attachment style have a primary carer who is reliably responsive and matches their response to the infant’s needs, rather than their own concerns. This carer helps to soothe and regulate the infant’s emotional arousal and interacts with the infant in a warm and loving manner, responding contingently to the infant’s communications. Infants who develop a disorganised attachment style are in a ‘double bind’ situation because their carer is both the ‘hardwired’ source of safety and the source of harm or danger.
