The basis of Bowlby attachment theory is on the infant and caregiver relationship. The foundation of this theory is the kind of attachments the child experiences in their early childhood years will manifest later in adulthood in either healthy or maladaptive behaviors and attachments (Van Rosmalen et al. , 2016). These behaviors will continue until the child can change or adapt to a new psychological environment or routine . The Bowlby theory states children who are secure in unfamiliar or new surroundings are a result of keen parents who are always attentive to the needs of the child. In contrast, to children who seem insecure in new surroundings, they have parents who neglect or inconsistent towards matters concerning their children. Therefore, this results in anxious-resistant or avoidant attachment styles.
Although Bowlby main focus was on understanding the relationship and connection between the infant and caregiver, he believed that the attachment one gets since childhood contributes to shaping the characteristics and behaviors of a human being. The emotional bond that is formed between adult romantic partners is similar to the attachment that is felt between an infant and caregiver (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2018). These two types of relationship share the same characteristics which include, both feel secure when they are together, they share discoveries with one another, both indulge themselves in baby talk, and they feel insecure when one is not around. Therefore, the type of love one exhibits is a property of the attachment style one experienced when they were an infant.
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There several types of adult attachment styles. Secure attachment style, here adults are more satisfied and pleased in their affairs and relationships with people (Fraley et al. , 2015). They will even offer support to people and their partners during times of need. The anxious, preoccupied attachment, adults who have this kind of affection, are always desperate even to create an imaginary bond. Rather than them feeling love for someone they tend to feel emotional hunger. Dismissive-avoidant attachment, people who experience this attachment always like distancing themselves from their partners. Finally, the fearful avoidant attachment, adults with this kind of affection stay in a dilemma state; they have a fear of being firmly attached to someone or being too distant.
According to Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, he discusses three components of love. These components are passion, intimacy, and commitment ( Anderson, 2016). According to his opinion, he describes passion as the intense feeling one usually has when you love or like someone. This is in connection with both sexual attraction and romantic love. Intimacy is that feeling of closeness and attachment to someone. Commitment is the decision to remain dedicated to someone and be together. This theory explains the type of love that is mainly formed from the above components of love. These forms of love include friendship, infatuated love, romantic love, empty love, non-love, consummate love, fatuous love, and companionate love.
The manifestation of these types of love differs because of the presence of the components in them. In the infatuated love passion is the only component present. However, intimacy and commitment are absent. This occurs mostly in a situation of crushes whether a celebrity crush or not. For the romantic love, there is the presence of both passion and intimacy. These people are likely to end up in marriage but since there is lack of commitment they might break up when one has had enough of it. For the companionate love, passion is absent, but both intimacy and commitment are present. This type of love is mostly observed among close friend since it is stronger than normal friendship and among family members.
The styles of attachment significantly affects the ways in which people select their partners and the progress of their relashionships. As a psychology professional, it is essential to understand the patterns of attachments to be able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a couple’s relationship when counseling them on marriage matters. Also, a psychology professional can use the knowledge on attachment styles to understand how partners influence each other and how they react to each other’s influences in an effort to have a successful relationship. Furthermore, a psychology professional can use the knowledge of the three types of love, that is, infatuation, romantic and companionate love to prepare a couple for their love life and success in marriage. In explaining about these types of love, a couple would prefer the companionate love and make an effort to achieve it as a goal instead of living only in romantic or infatuations.
References
Anderson, J. W. (2016). S ternberg's Triangular Theory of Love. Encyclopedia of Family Studies , 1-3.
Fraley, R. C., Hudson, N. W., Heffernan, M. E., & Segal, N. (2015). Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? A taxometric analysis of general and relationship-specific attachment orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 109 (2), 354.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2018). Attachment orientations and emotion regulation. Current opinion in psychology .
Van Rosmalen, L., Van Der Horst, F. C., & Van der Veer, R. (2016). From secure dependency to attachment: Mary Ainsworth’s integration of Blatz’s security theory into Bowlby’s attachment theory. History of psychology , 19 (1), 22.
