Secure attachment develops when a caregiver is loving, affectionate, and attuned to the child’s emotional and psychological needs. Ainsworth expanded on Bowlby’s work in the ’70s and gave us what we know today as attachment theory.Īttachment theory suggests four attachment styles that develop in babies, which we then carry into our adult lives. Bowlby began to research attachment and how it manifests as health and behaviours in the 1960s. Our current understanding of attachment is based on the work of British psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. The greater the ACE score, the greater one’s risk of developing physical or psychological illness, cognitive and emotional impairment, and adoption of health-risk behaviours, such as smoking and substance abuse. The second is that exposure to ACEs directly impacts one’s health outcomes later in life. Given the socioeconomic status and availability of healthcare to the participants, the results highlight the worrying fact that ACEs must be significantly higher in lower socioeconomic groups without the same ease of access to healthcare. The first is that ACEs are far more common than previously known. Two important findings from the study have since informed researchers about the impact of ACEs. For example, a score of 3/9 means that a person had been exposed to three significant traumatic experiences. The score of the questionnaire, which ranged from 0-9, reflects the number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to which a person has been exposed. The study delivered a questionnaire in which participants were asked about their level of exposure to the experiences above. All were asked about their exposure to adverse experiences in childhood, such as abuse, domestic violence, incarceration or mental illness of a family member, neglect, and substance abuse in the home. 17,000 middle-class Americans participated in the study.

The ACE study was conducted in the 1990s by CDC-Kaiser Permanente. The importance of our early childhood (0-3 years) is emphasised in the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.

They are subject to more physical and psychological health issues in later life than children who have not experienced such trauma. In cases where a child has been traumatised, which may occur through emotional, sexual, or physical abuse, or neglect, they suffer from ruptured attachment. If the caregiver does not attune to the baby’s needs, then the baby’s growth and development are jeopardised.

Babies are born without the ability to self-regulate, so they need their caregivers to teach them regulation. The quality of this relationship has a significant influence on how we grow and develop in the years that follow.Īttachment trauma refers to a rupture in healthy attachment. When we are infants, our connection to the world around us is in our relationship with our primary caregiver, usually a mother. Attachment refers to the way we learned to relate to ourselves and others in our early childhood. Healthy attachment is essential for psychological, emotional, and social well-being throughout the lifespan.

Attachment trauma