Sol Angel Oliveros

 

                                                         Theory of Attachment

In nursing practice, attachment theory is a psychological, ethological, and evolutionary concept regarding associations among individuals, such as the nurse-parent relationship. The attachment philosophy emphasizes the significance of a baby’s responsive connection with their primary care providers. According to studies, the distraction of this connection can impact the child mentally and emotionally as they grow up and also affect their future associations (Perez, 2019). Also, a child that endlessly experiences open and thoughtful care develops anticipation that other individuals are supportive and present in their time of need.

Usually, children get attached to care providers because they are the ones they spend the most time with and are mostly fed by them. The standpoint here is that attachment theory is educational conduct. The nurse-patient affair is important during clinical practice and might be impacted by the nurses’ attachment technique and responses toward sick individuals’ attachment approach. Also, nurses’ attachment styles play a significant part in the type of relationship that could form with other individuals. Therefore, there are a few behaviors that nurses would attempt to stimulate when working with the parent to support health attachment. For example, parents are provided with a child healthcare clinic template where nurses monitor a child’s health with the parents’ collaboration. This template aims to promote healthy growth for the child regarding their mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

When working with parents, nurses can educate parents on a lot of things to establish a bond with their children in different ways to promote healthy attachment. For example, nurses promote a maternal-newborn connection by encouraging breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, and eye contact. Nurses educate the parents, promoting health attachment because the parents learn how to bond with their newborn babies in various ways (Ali et al., 2021).

In line with Bowlby, care providers must keep close to defending the child if there is any psychological or physical threat (Ali et al., 2021). Therefore, nurses educate parents on keeping a close connection with their children to protect them from any danger. Also, studies depict that a well-loved child protests separation from parents but later develops self-reliance.

Conclusively, nurses understanding their attachment styles and personal needs help them be conscious about their contributions to their bonds with the patients and become more thoughtfully attuned to them. Also, nurses understanding their attachment styles hinder them from experiencing difficulty during clinical practice; hence, they easily establish bonds with patients and other individuals in the healthcare facility, promoting health attachment.

 

References

Ali, E., Letourneau, N., & Benzies, K. (2021). Parent-child attachment: A principle-based concept analysis. SAGE Open Nursing, 7, 23779608211009000.

Perez Jr, J. R. (2019). Precis: The origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Peer Relationships.

Mirtha Marelis Castaneda Álvarez

 

 The attachment theory primarily focuses on relationship bonds, especially long-term, between two parties. The behavior that nurses should attempt to stimulate while working with parents to cultivate a healthy relationship is very critical. It includes the relationship between the parent and a child. The first behavior that is vital for nurses is effective communication. The nurses must understand and train themselves on the best communication that is required for effective for developing better attachment between family members and patients. The nurses are required to draw a boundary between professional and personal life. Good communication also includes good listening skills. The nurse should be attentive when communicating with family members and patients. Another significant component to implement is the management and care theories. The theory of attachment theory requires that nurses must adopt the behaviors that enhances safety and care of patients. Overall, there are two significant factors in the attachment theory including the care setting and professional communication. The nurses must implement them in the nursing practice (Shoghi et al. 2019). The care setting entirely depends on various factors such as the environment of healthcare institutions and effective communication with the patients. The environment include the room and infrastructure should have minimum disruption such as noise.

The second behavior that nurses should strive to stimulate is empathy. Empathy is essential to ensure good relationship is built between the two parties. It is worthy to note that when the nurse show empathy while working with parents, they are more likely to build a healthy relationship between the two parties. Also, empathy is good because it enhances the relationship between the nurse and patients. Empathy is good because it makes the other party feel the situation that another party is going through. For this reason, it builds it enhances the attachment between both parties.

Also, stimulating pro-social behavior and self-regulation is also very crucial component in the attachment theory (Sutton, 2019). The nurse should develop social desirable behavior when engaging another party. For instance, the nurse should show care and understanding when speaking or interacting with family members and patients. The nurse should be open whenever he or she talks with the clients. Openness entails a person's desire to attempt new things and be open to think creatively and consciously. The openness trait enriches an individual's mental state, imagination, and experiences.     

References

Shoghi, M., Sajadi, M., Oskuie, F., Dehnad, A., & Borimnejad, L. (2019). Strategies for bridging the theory-practice gap from the perspective of nursing experts.  Heliyon,  5(9), e02503.

Sutton, T. E. (2019). Review of attachment theory: Familial predictors, continuity and change, and intrapersonal and relational outcomes.  Marriage & Family Review,  55(1), 1-22.

 

 

Number of replies: 0

John Bowlby was a British psychologist who is credited for being the first attachment theorist and in his works described attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings.” The theory of attachment focuses mainly on the long-term bonds formed between individuals, more specifically between parents and children or between romantic partners. As described by Bowlby, there are 4 stages to the theory of attachment (Bowlby 1982). These stages include pre-attachment, indiscriminate, discriminate, and multiple. During the pre-attachment stage infants between 0 and 6 weeks of life show no preference in attachment to specific caregivers, during the indiscriminate stage children between 6 weeks and 7 months of life begin to show a preference for their primary caregivers, during the discriminate stage children of age 7 months or more of life begin to show a preference to one specific caregiver, and finally during the multiple stage children of 10 months or more of life begin to grow bonds with other caregivers. While other theorists have previously proposed that attachment was a learned process, Bowlby on the other hand believed that children are born already with an innate drive to form attachments with caregivers.

It has been shown throughout history that children that maintained close proximity to attachment figures were more likely to receive comfort and that in turn leads to a higher probability of their survival to adulthood. Nurturance and responsiveness have both been determined to be the primary determinants of attachment and the philosophical underpinnings of this nursing theory. Those children who unfortunately do not have a primary care figure to provide nurturance in their lives, for example those who grow up living in orphanages, may fail to develop the sense of trust that is needed in order to form an adequate attachment with another individual. Furthermore, when a child’s primary caregivers respond quickly and consistently, that child will learn that they can depend on the people who are responsible for their care and wellbeing. These factors form the essential foundation for attachment throughout life.

Therefore, nurses and nurse practitioners should, whenever possible, attempt to stimulate both a dependable level of nurturance as well as consistent and quick responsiveness by the parents of a child in order to promote health attachment. Appropriate emotional and physical care on behalf of the parents can both be significantly augmented by a provider’s intervention and encouragement of healthy behaviors such as never delaying care in a child’s time of need and always having close proximity to the child at all times in order to provide quick responsiveness. As described by the works of American psychologist Harry Harlow, it is also very important to stimulate these behaviors early in the child’s life because failure to form secure attachments as early as possible can have a negative impact throughout the remainder of a child’s life (Harlow 1958). 

References:

1.     Bowlby, John. "Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect."  American journal of Orthopsychiatry 52.4 (1982): 664.

2.     Harlow, Harry F. "The nature of love."  American psychologist 13.12 (1958): 673.

   – 

Attachment Theory

Attachment refers to the emotional connection to a specific individual, featuring the pattern of seeking and maintaining close relationships, more so increasing stress. Separation generates significant distress among people, more so children. The attachment theory focus on the purpose of caregivers such as a mother in the development of children and providing emotional and developmental support.

The attachment theory dates back from 1969 when it was created by John Bowlby, who was a British psychologist to review the aggressive distress suffered by infants who were separated from their parents. The attachment theory was also further improved by Mary Ainsworth (Granqvist, 2021). The theory of attachment identifies as the changes of long-term relationships between people, more so in families.

The theory of attachment has various key concepts including information processing, developmental psychology, ethology, object relations model, and psychoanalysts, among others. There are long-standing adverse impacts on children due to short-term separations. There are four phases of the attachment theory, starting with limited discrimination whereby a baby’s natural signals attract their parent or caregiver. The caregivers should remain closer to the baby when they are responding positively (Bosmans et al., 2020). Limited preference is another phase that allows for the development of trust among caregiver and thus, responding to the baby’s signal. Infants should respond proactively to caregivers. Focused attachment is another phase involves the babies depicting anxiety and concerns over separation. At this phase, the babies usually express displeasure when parents are leaving. The fourth phase is goal-based partnership, which involves increasing the proper understanding of symbols and language of children. Thus, children learn that parents will eventually come back.

In nursing and research, the attachment theory is important in counselling. The theory suggests that patients seek therapy because of a sense of distress, psychological problems, and frustration that triggers an attachment system that calls for support and relief. The attachment theory will guide the nurses to influence behaviors of patients. The behaviors are feeling secure, fearful, dismissing, and preoccupied. The changes to these behaviors will improve empathy of the nurses and thus, provide proper psychological treatment and intervention to the nurses.

Attachment is basic needs that being people will always feel a sense of belonging to their family members. When a person is disconnected from the family, they will lack quality health and care services. The development of the attachment theory is important in bringing about behavioral changes (Slade, 2018). In research, the attachment theory will help in developing appropriate behavioral model to stimulate positive and emotional changes among the patients.

 All in all, the attachment theory is useful in recognizing the appropriate coping mechanisms and patterns that influence the emotional challenges facing the people. Behavioral changes include changing feeling of insecurity, fearful, dismissing, and being preoccupied. Attachment will provide emotional and developmental support needed to improve emotional health.

 

References

Bosmans, G., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Vervliet, B., Verhees, M. W., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2020). A learning theory of attachment: Unraveling the black box of attachment development.  Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews,  113, 287-298.

Granqvist, P. (2021). Attachment, culture, and gene-culture co-evolution: expanding the evolutionary toolbox of attachment theory.  Attachment & Human Development,  23(1), 90-113.

Slade, A. (2018). The place of fear in attachment theory and psychoanalysis: the fifteenth John Bowlby Memorial Lecture. In  Terror Within and Withou

550 words

·

Top of Form