Our Stories
Attachment Theory
By Stew | posted 01/28/2010
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:36-40)
Attachment theory says that our early attachments to our parents were important for achieving physical and emotional security. Early experiments in attachment theory involved monkeys who were deprived of contact with mothers and so failed to thrive, or of orphaned ducks who "imprinted" their attachment to a human figure as their mother. More recent Attachment Theory has had some clinical success (see Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson) in repairing relationship attachments so that the physical and emotional security provided initially in a marriage is restored.
The gist of the theory is that the character of your early attachments will persist throughout your life. Each of us starts out with an experience say, of an all encompassing love for a mother or of a powerful awe of a father. These primal attachments change dramatically as a child progresses from infant to child to adolescent to adult, but the need for physical and emotional security remains constant. Although these powerful attachments to parents weaken over time, attachment theory tells us that we will end up seeking similar attachments, whether we want to or not, because these early attachments that achieve physical and emotional security and safety are what characterize the attachments that really matter to anyone human.
As children we are weaned away from our parents with the expectation that we will use our loving attachment to our parents as a template for attachment to a marriage partner, thus achieving physical and emotional security. Sometimes such a template works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we have bad parents or one is missing or abusive. Or sometimes we are abandoned. Sometimes our template just doesn’t work. Obviously, an imperfect attachment template created in childhood can complicate future attachment to others, including one’s own spouse and children. Indeed, if one’s ability to attach is impaired - out of frustration, ignorance or fear - an individual may end up giving up on a deep satisfying attachment to another and settle for a simple attachment to the world and one’s self
My opinion - for what it’s worth - is that attachment theory is consistent with the example of a God who sends his Son to earth and who provides for our emotional and physical security – in the here and now, and in the hereafter - through his death on the cross. As Christians we are commanded (I paraphrase loosely) to attach to God and to attach to others as we would attach to ourselves. God has a high standard for this attachment. He calls it love.
Now it just so happens that orphans and the poor are often the people most in need of the combination of both physical and emotional security that attachment theory says is so important. Imagine the need in Haiti right now. It’s no surprise that the Bible is onto this:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27, NIV)
That’s my understanding of attachment theory and how it relates to life as a Christian. I may have over-simplified it or misunderstood what the theory really is, but then again I’m kind of attached to it.
Stew can be reached via email here.
