Emotional Development

1. Emotional Development

2. Emotions • Exist for survival • To motivate behavior • Means of communication • Decision making • Overall mental health- balance of awareness, acceptance and expression

3. Development • Birth • Distress, contentment, disgust, interest • 5 wks- elicit care with smiles • 3 mo • Turn taking, response caregiver helps develop ER • 2-6 mo • Anger, surprise, fear, sadness • ~1 ½ years • Pride, shame, embarrassment, guilt

4. Emotional Regulation • Babies emotional states fluctuate extremely within minutes. Emotional are INTENSE and no ability to regulate exists. Adults must regulate babies emotions and help babies move to longer periods of positive states. • Infants use care givers emotions to interpret ambiguous stimuli • Other directed coping • Self directed coping • Depressed Mother • Infant Temperament, hormones, autonomic states

5. Attachment • Critical Period- Birth and Infancy, Rt Hemisphere is more mature than left • Psychosocial- Bowlby and Erickson • Early Relationships lay the groundwork for future relationships with: • Others • Child’s self concept • Outlook on life/ World view

6. Class Activity • How do each of you parents or primary caretakers view: • Themselves • Others • The world (ie safe, hostile, scary, unpredictable, etc) How do you view each of these areas?

7. Bowlby’s Attachment Theory • ~2 mo • Infant signals needs to anyone • ~2-7 mo • Infant shows stronger preference for caregivers • ~7-8 mo • Full attachment able to occur • ~ 8 mo • Infant shows stronger preference for ONE caregiver • Infant will protest being separated and glad upon return • Stranger anxiety occurs • ~ 18 mo • Attachment to more than one person

8. Attachment Purposes • Proximity • Protection • Safe Haven • Emotional bond FRAME

9. Stress and Attachment • Stress activates the attachment system to signal another to step in and help until the infant develops the ability to regulate and tolerate their own emotions • Not everyone develops this skill well • HALT

10. Good Attachment and Emotional Regulation • Learns • Has secure base • Distress is heard by others • Other’s can help him • Needs are legitimate and serious and will be respected • To respect other’s needs • Trusts future • Feels secure to handle new challenges • Elicit and maintain positive interactions • Faith in power of relationships

11. Four Styles of Attachment • Securely Attached • Anxious/Ambivalent Insecurely Attached • Avoidant Attachment • Disorganized Attachment • Reactive Attachment Disorder

12. Other Influences in Attachment • Infant Temperament • Goodness of Fit • Class • Culture • Length of attachment • Buffering Relationships • Parental Attachment Styles

13. Parent Attachment Styles • Secure Parents • Value relationships, talk openly and honestly@ both good and bad experiences, ideas coherent and reflective, have faith in the power of relationships • Insecure Parents • Attachment relationships not recalled, valued or seen as influential, preoccupied with own parents; confused, angry, or very passive; making irrational or inconsistent comments (especially around trauma)

14. Why does it Matter to Therapists • Not all responsibility for social/emotional development rests on the mother’s shoulders • Therapists, partners and friends can help ‘realign’ originally problematic early relationship by becoming another secure base • Memories of past experience are not pure, but reconstructed at least in part on the basis of current attachments (and mood, other events, culture, etc.) • Disruptive experiences in child’s life affect attachment (Prevention/Early Interventions)

15. Human Growth and problems occur in relationship • All Behavior is originally functional as it helps individuals cope, however it may no longer be functional • Individual’s mental representations (& meaning) of relationships is more important than particular behaviors in relationship