ABSTRACT
Attachment theory rests on the view of children’s psychological development that was held by psychoanalysis in the 1930s and 1940s. Attachment theory breaks with Sigmund Freud’s stage theory about psycho-sexual development, as John Bowlby saw the satisfaction and frustration of attachment as the determining factors in the child’s subsequent ability to build and maintain relationships with others. The clear-cut attachment stage begins around the age of seven months. At this age level, children show an active form of goal-corrected effort to maintain proximity to a particular caregiver. The working models develop in the interaction process between child and caregivers and are shaped by the emotional contact and the quality of the attachment. The information that is internalised in these models will be based on mutual affirmation and become generalised models that become integrated aspects of the child’s personality. The internal working models are mental representations, which are updated in a natural, developmental process, as the child grows older.
