ATTACHMENT

Because of Trump's border policy, we will be hearing a lot more about "attachment theory" and what removing a child from its mother or caregiver will do to that child.  Indeed, attachment theory has a lot to do with why Trump turned out to be such a deformed human being.  So it's good to review the basics.

First a simple definition.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

"Attachment theory in psychology originates with the seminal work of John Bowlby (1958). ... The behavioral theory of attachment stated that the child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant.   Bowlby defined attachment as a 'lasting psychological connectedness between human beings."  Harlow's research established that it is not the food that creates the attachment, but rather the holding, gazing, cleaning, and other interactions that form mammalian empathy and warmth, the way a cat enfolds her kittens.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-attachment-theory-2795337#ainsworths-strange-situation  

Based on the responses the researchers observed, Ainsworth described three major styles of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent-insecure attachment, and avoidant-insecure attachment. Later, researchers Main and Solomon (1986) added a fourth attachment style called disorganized-insecure attachment based on their own research.

A number of studies since that time have supported Ainsworth's attachment styles and have indicated that attachment styles also have an impact on behaviors later in life.

1. Re-attachment stage: From birth to three months, infants do not show any particular attachment to a specific caregiver. The infant's signals, such as crying and fussing, naturally attract the attention of the caregiver and the baby's positive responses encourage the caregiver to remain close.
2. Indiscriminate attachment: From around six weeks of age to seven months, infants begin to show preferences for primary and secondary caregivers. During this phase, infants begin to develop a feeling of trust that the caregiver will respond to their needs. While they will still accept care from other people, they become better at distinguishing between familiar and unfamiliar people as they approach seven months of age. They also respond more positively to the primary caregiver.
3. Discriminate attachment: At this point, from about seven to eleven months of age, infants show a strong attachment and preference for one specific individual. They will protest when separated from the primary attachment figure (separation anxiety), and begin to display anxiety around strangers (stranger anxiety).

From my own experience, which is novelistic rather than scientific, I would add two more kinds of attachment.  The first is antagonistic attachment, which is the idea that people can attach to other people by opposing them, or even hating them, so long as there is contact, which is primary.  

A human being that never attaches to anyone, a person who is indifferent even in infancy, will die.  This is called "mirasmus"  "Following the Korean War, Major (Dr.) William E. Mayer, found that half of these soldiers died simply because they had given up. They had completely surrendered, both mentally and physically."  It is a cause of death in orphanages where no one has time for cuddling and rocking babies.  Even toddlers who need attachment can scream, smash things, refuse obedience -- which will force contact with other humans.  This desperate attempt to force attachment, this vital need for attachment, can be see even in primates.

The other kind of attachment is more problematic in a sense.  It is a resource for humans, not primates.  It is what I call internal attachment, based on memory or fiction.  Imagined relationship is better than none at all.  Being well-attached to another human and then losing that point of relationship with the world can be painful and terrifying.  Losing not just a parent but any loved one is traumatic.  Maybe religion uses this replacement-of-reality idea, allowing a person to believe they are enfolded in the wings of an angel even as poverty forces them to be rough sleepers.  But it can be so seductive that it prevents the formation of new attachments.

Thinking and research would be needed to separate attachment to someone not present from other tricks of the human mind that are meant to preserve a kind of sanity: the confidence to keep on living. Dissociation, when the brain takes the person to a whole different world for a little while -- just to have a little safety and rest -- is related.  

Antagonistic attachment helps to explain S/M relationships where argument (Hello, Virginia!) or even physical pain has become the neural content of the relationship -- one wanting pain or willing to endure it in order to keep the proximity of the other.  And the other, relishing the permission to hurt and possibly feeling via empathy what the victim feels, is more alive in that moment.

The idea of antagonistic attachment is demonstrated all around me.  I see married people yelling at each other but devastated when permanently separated.  Often a second marriage is to the same adversarial type as was just left behind.  I've seen a little boy on his mother's lap, feeling that she was distracted from him, grab her face and force her to look at him.  The kind of shared engagement that comes from what people are making or watching together never forms.  Even the sharing among a sports team is overwhelmed by the adversarial attachment to winning over the other team.

Attachment, positive attachment that opens the way to love and empathetic sharing, that creates families with true relationships, is one of the great goods that makes human life bearable.  Attachment is what gives us "home," pets, art and all the other humanities.  Sometimes it is mistaken or painful, but more often it ennobles and expands us.  It's part -- maybe the biggest part -- of what we call "love."

The Enlightenment, science, and rationality declared attachment, emotion, resistance to new ideas off-limits when exploring the world.  They wanted to be objective.  For a while it was a new way of seeing clearly.  But after a while, objectively, it became a good idea to kill and burn "defective" people.  Attachment would have provided scientific evidence that is quite different.  It was those in power who had failed to develop attachment to anything but their own lives.  The great irony of our enlightened age with all its measured opinions turns out to be that attachment is physiologically valid, a step forward in evolution.  

People who have no attachment cannot go to the next step beyond apes, because even apes have attachments to relatives and place that help them survive.  It is a foundational capacity for maturity and the formation of cultural alliances.  It may be that our political confusion and anguish, our separations and wars, are simply a refusal to attach to other human beings in any way but domination.  How else can politicians justify taking wailing babies from their caregivers?