Bonds That an Infant Forms

¶ … bonds that an infant forms with its caregivers, and particularly its mother, have been long standing and well-known hallmarks of humanity from time immemorial. It is only relatively recently in the course of human history and civilization, however, that this phenomenon has actually been studied from a scientific perspective, and that various specific factors in the formations and effects of this bond have really come to be understood. In this paper, Peter Fonagy details many of these aspects, collecting the results of several decades of research and analysis into the subject in a well-organized, coherent, and comprehensive article. His perspective is exclusively psychological, and even psychoanalytical, failing to incorporate any of the physiological and hormonal aspects of attachment that have been suggested by contemporary research, but his conclusions are still very well grounded in accepted theory and an examination of empirical evidence.

The classification of infants and the individuals into which they develop into only four categories based on their particular levels of attachment and attendant behaviors could cause some eyebrows to raise, and no doubt some hackles in certain situations. The fact that this categorization appears to be based on only a handful of studies, few of them even conducted by the same researchers, also tends to weaken this assertion. Fonagy does not even suggest that there could be any equivocation, though doubtless there is both somewhat conflicting and largely amplifying and clarifying evidence available. In general however, despite the blithe generality presented in this particular instance, Fonagy seems to ground most his conclusions in very solid and research and evidence.

There are two apparent methodologies at work in this paper. Primarily, Fonagy has reached his conclusions through extensive research and study. This is, of course, a necessity for any researcher; a background understanding of the issue and the current and past research is needed before any original experimentation or studies can be carried out. Fonagy obviously has the breadth of research needed to come to some fairly conclusive findings, especially regarding the long-term effects of both proper attachment bonding and adverse attachment relationships in infants. In this latter instance especially, however, Fonagy has conducted a great deal of his own research, as evidenced by the author's not-infrequent self-citations. The fact that his own research efforts seem to match so neatly with that of the other sources he cites could be taken as evidence that his approach was not as entirely skeptical as is generally desired, as there is no contrary opinion here.

This does not diminish the logic of his arguments, though. Fonagy is very clear and direct when making a link between aspects of the infant relationship during the attachment phase and later adult behaviors and personalities, and these show a clearly observable and empirically founded cause-and-effect relationship, for the most part. The development of the theory of mind," for instance, is clearly established by the experiments Fonagy details in the article, and its implications on the parent-child relationship -- especially in the sense that the parent's observational capacity of the child's mind is important to the formation of the theory of mind -- are clearly drawn. So, too, are the recommendations Fonagy makes for adjusting parenting styles based on his findings.