How Attachment Theory Affects The Diverse Range Of...

As an aspiring professional counselor, it is important to have a solid understanding of the growth and development of children can be affected by attachment to primary caregivers within the first years of life. Attachment theory, which was developed by Erikson and Bowling, describes how the first year of interactions with caregivers serves as model, which heavily influences how children navigate in the world, even into adulthood (Broderick Blewitt, 2015). In this week’s assignment, we are challenged to think through the implications of attachment theory as it relates to children who are adopted and children who are raised by their biological parent(s). With the help of various research articles, textbook readings, and case studies, I†¦show more content†¦Interestingly, none of the children who were institutionalized showed signs of avoidant attachment, even though it would be normal to observe such with children who are raised by their biological mothers (Marcovitch et al., 1997). Although the study is thorough in describing findings among those who are adopted from institutions, specifically orphanages, the study falls short of describing attachment patterns with children who are adopted at birth and had no experience with institutions. Therefore, I do not believe that the study conducted by Marcovitch et al. (1997) describes attachment among all adopted children, but it does describe how children who spend a considerable amount of of their first year of life in orphanages are more likely to have issues later in life since attachment theorist believe that attachment or lack thereof can affect cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development (Broderick Blewitt, 2015). In fact, the outcomes of children who spend a majority of their early years in an institutional setting can be attributed to the â€Å"lack of an attachment figure† (Marcovitch et al., 1997, pp. 19). Initial Thoughts Based upon my understanding of the findings from the aforementioned research, I believe that attachment patterns of adopted children and their mothers would be very similar to mothers who are raising their biological children. The reason why I believe this is