How To Deal With Attachment Problems? Traumatic Childhood Issue
Trauma can be emotional or physical. You cannot say for sure, either it is going to cost you mental health or not. Different people handle traumatic effects in various manners. After-effects of traumatic incidents can be fear from a particular thing, anxiety towards someone or post-traumatic stress (PTSD). Without proper support and emotional help, it is difficult to overcome the traumatic experience.
Every individual faces a traumatic incident in their life; not necessarily all react in the same way. As a child, it might look easy to forget harmful incidents but the things that one experiences in their early childhood root deeply inside them, which becomes visible later. As an adult, we do not know how long a child will process stress conditions like broken marriage or death of a parent, etc. Attachment-based therapy, talk therapy and EMDR therapy are helpful as a healing therapy.
What Is Attachment-Based Therapy?
As a child, we always see life from our parents’ perspective. Our attachment as a child to our parents describes our future decisions. Attachment Based Therapy is a psychological therapy. The counseling process is mainly built upon the patient’s early life with their parents, specifically. In attachment therapy, the therapist tries to create emotional stability for the patient.
Attachment-based therapy was invented in the 1960s by John Bowlby. He was a psychological therapist for the mental health of children in London. He proposed that early attachment of the child to their parents or caregivers can build a sense of security and confidence in the child. He suggested the fact that child bonding with mother is the strongest bond throughout their life. Child needs supportive bringing up for proper cognitive behaviors.
Types of Attachment Based Therapy
Attachment therapy revolves around the idea of the consequence of children’s early bonding, particularly the initial six months of a child’s development to the rest of their life situations. Past episodes of parent-child separation or non-adequate child treatment can cost mental health issues to a child. According to John Bowlby, the attachment can be of four different types:
1. Secure Attachment:
Type of attachment where a child feels secure by the surrounded people. This attachment style helps to build confidence in children. Those who feel safe and loved by their parents and caregivers develop a better sense of relationship in forthcoming life and do not think about getting abandoned. Children who grow under the proper attention and warmth of parents, especially mothers, have dominated, loving nature.
2. Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment
Under this attachment style, children are horrified by their caregivers. They often face the feeling of being abandoned by their parents. The feeling of anxiety always surrounds them, and it is caused because of a horrific or strict environment. A child who faces anxious ambivalent attachment feels unloved by their parents, and consequently they never trust themselves.
3. Avoidant Attachment
Those houses where both parents are working brought up a child with avoidant attachment style. In this style of attachment, a child faces the scenario where his/her feelings remain unanswered. The child always kept waiting for their parents’ attention. Resulting in them to hide their sense, and when they become adults, they cannot express their grown-up feelings. These kinds of children result in a lack of ability to build intimate relationships later in their life.
4. Disorganized Attachment
Children who are brought up in a distorted and ambivalent environment face a disorganized style of attachment. This type of children carry grudge and rage inside them. At the beginning of their childhood, they display their anger and anxiety by breaking toys. They are easily stimulated and over-reactive. They cannot often build an intimate relationship in their adulthood.
Uses Of Attachment Therapy
Attachment based therapy is especially for those who have faced attachment issues, specifically with their parents or early childhood caregivers. People who suffer from Parent’s separation or troubled Parent to child relationship, often child raised by abusive, addicted and depressed parents, suffer trust-building issues in their future life. Attachment-based therapy can be conducted between client and therapist solely or in groups, often carried as a couple or family therapy to pick up the broken fragments back.
Attachment based family therapy (ABFT) is mainly used in adolescents to get over the negative mindset toward life, and Adolescent attitude is different from other phases of life. This mental phase can be impulsive and can result in suicidal attempts in adolescents. The therapist will look into the emotional connections and talk through the moving gaps between family and adults to heal the trust issues and rebuild them.
Reactive Attachment Disorder
The result of all distorted relationships cause child Reactive attachment disorder. In this disorder, children do not react to the comforting behavior of the caregiver. These children often look up to others for getting shelter emotionally but never ask for help. They usually smile less and show no sensitivity to a relationship. RAD children often feel unexplained sadness, anxiety, and emotional distress.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
This therapy supports the idea that when a person experiences any traumatic situation, they felt a high disturbance level, and many memories remain unfiltered and get saved deep into the mind. This memory can be sad, anxiety and Reactive. These memories later affect the cognitive abilities of a patient while facing the same scenarios in later life.
Post-traumatic stress symptoms might include anxiety, depression and emotional distortion. People might look reasonable from the outside, but inside, they felt difficult to interact. In EMDR, we stimulate eye movement and other integration psychic features to make patients speak about their past unsolved incidents. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Association of psychiatrist also pointed out EMDR therapy as an effective psychiatric therapy. Talk therapy alone shows better results when combined with EMDR therapy.
How to Choose the Therapist For Your Attachment Issues?
Mental health is a vast field. An attachment-based therapist is a psychologist that works on psychological issues. Try to find a psychiatrist or therapist that has certification in Attachment therapy. We have the best qualified and skilled therapists that know best how to solve your child’s problems. We have strategies and treatment lined up to build trust and relationship value in your children.
We first build an emotional relationship and trust with your child, and later give a solution to the mind troubling problems. Meet our specialists and find a solution for your problems.
Conclusion
Psychology is the most critical factor in every person’s life. It may remain hidden on the practical level, but evident when it comes to the emotional level. As Parent, the best investment you can give to your child is your time and love. It builds your children’s inner character. Attachment based issues originate from early child development. Try to be supportive of your children when they want you most.