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Attachment Patterns and Preverbal Developmental Trauma
Another major area of preverbal developmental wounding or trauma occurs during the process of attachment. Attachment is the biologically-based instinctual system of bonding that occurs between parent and child primarily during the first eighteen months of life. The ability of the mother or caregiver to sensitively touch their infant is a key ingredient in the attachment process, but it is not the only aspect. Attachment is the way the caregiver responds to the infant's arousal and emotional cues and from there the child will mirror or respond back.
Healthy attachment or what is known as "secure attachment", is a phrase first coined by psychoanalyst John Bowlby and then elaborated on by other developmental psychologists. Secure attachment develops through a reciprocal bonding process whereby the caregiver (usually the mother) and the newborn are in a "dance" of emotion and arousal allowing the infant to experience and express feelings and physiological states that are then mirrored and "regulated" by the healthy parent. The child learns not to be too "over" or "under" stimulated as the parent naturally reads, reacts, and mirrors their baby's cues.
However, when the parents or caretakers are not capable of mirroring or reading their baby's cues, an "insecure attachment" occurs. This then leads to pronounced, or even severe, over or under arousal. Perhaps, most importantly, the infant does not learn to "self-soothe" or modulate their emotional and physical states. This ability to moderate response of the autonomic nervous system, is what psychologists and neuroscientists call "affect regulation". Instead, the infant is constantly seeking to fulfill its' needs (albeit unsuccessfully!) that are either being neglected by an avoidant parental style or overwhelmed by intrusive parental style.
Research, by neuroscientists and developmental psychologists, in recent years has consistently demonstrated the long term and highly damaging and toxic effects of insecure attachment. In adults; pervasive relationship problems, social isolation, anxiety disorders, depression, intimacy issues, and addiction of all kinds are highly correlated to attachment problems and parental attachment styles in infancy and early childhood. Once again, a primary factor that manifests in later teenage and adult problems, is that the brain and neurophysiology of the individual develop abnormally. One of the primary "players" is the orbitofrontal cortex which comes "on-line" at about three months of age and matures around eighteen months of age.
The orbitofrontal cortex is critical in the development of the child as its primary task is to place or assign "meaning" to external situations, outside cues, and incoming stimuli. The reason this is so important is that orbitofrontal cortex is the first modulating "device" for the amygdala and helps regulate the autonomic nervous system's response to outside stimuli. When there is healthy attachment, this part of the brain can go a long way towards healing birth or any other preverbal trauma. The orbitofrontal cortex appears to be directly connected to the attachment system and hence is instrumental in self-soothing, modulation of intensity of affect and body states, and social recognition and processing.
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