Attachment Styles and Personality Disorders | What is Attachment Theory?

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today I have a couple questions the first is what is attachment theory and the second is how does attachment theory relate to personality disorders so attachment theory is mostly based on a child's relationship with their mother now this can also include a caregiver other than the mother but almost all the time when we see in the research literature it's specifically talking about the relationship with a mother now some researchers believe that attachment theory may be able to partially explain the development of anxiety depression personality disorders as well as other factors like marital problems poor academic performance and other negative outcomes so essentially attachment may be a major determining factor in the organization of personality and it may be ideological to psychopathology meaning it may contribute to the cause of mental disorders now considering what we know about personality and psychopathology this is a fairly bold claim those that really kind of support attachment theory in this role this is giving attachment theory a lot of influence and in essence minimizing the effects of other environmental factors and genetic influences even still it is hard to deny that attachment is critical it seems to have effects across a few different domains although the research literature is really mixed in terms of specifics we don't get a lot of specific connections from attachment theory over to psychopathology I'll talk about some of the findings that we see in the research literature in a moment now attachment theory really isn't talking about one theory there are actually many attachment theories and each have different attachment styles one of the main challenges with attachment theory in terms of understanding it really has to do with the separate theories and all the attachment styles that they have we see the same words or similar words used in different ways to mean different things with all these attachment styles it can become confusing quite quickly for example if we look at the work of a researcher named Bowlby who developed really the first popular theory of attachment we see in this theory there is both secure and insecure attachment so that's something that really continued on into other theories and with this theory specifically insecure attachment itself is actually divided in two types so essentially we can look at all attachment as either secure or insecure and then we can further divide the insecure type into anxious and avoidant attachment styles now here's where things get a little more confusing anxious is also referred to as preoccupied resistant anxious ambivalent and anxious preoccupied avoidant is also referred to as dismissive so really way too many terms that mean the same thing looking at the attachment Styles delineated by researchers named Main and Goldwyn we see it doesn't get a whole lot less confusing here we see four Styles secure autonomous insecure dismissing insecure preoccupied and unresolved with respect to loss of trauma also referred to as disorganized so this is a bit more straightforward but still a little confusing and it is a fairly popular attachment theory another fairly popular model comes from researchers named Bartholomew and Horowitz this model is somewhat similar to the prior model and both of these models are widely used in the research literature this model has four Styles now I'm going to explain these in a little more detail secure attachment this is considered healthy attachment we see a capacity to maintain close relationships without losing a sense of autonomy we see that somebody places value on intimate relationships and they are thoughtful when discussing relationships the second style is dismissing attachment with this style we see someone who has restricted emotions flat effect they downplay the importance of close relationships they place a strong emphasis on being self-reliant and independent and they're not clear and trustworthy when they discuss relationships moving to the third attachment style this is preoccupied attachment here we see someone who needs other people to accept them they tend to idealize others they are over involved in close relationships and we see exaggerated emotionality and incoherence when discussing relationships and that brings us to the fourth style fearful attachment here we see someone who avoids close relationships because they are afraid of rejection they tend to distrust other people and they feel insecure so most of the confusion occurs between the last two models I talked about probably because they're so similar and they are each the basis for separate popular psychometric instruments so both theories have tests that were based on their respective attachment styles so this can make it a little tricky when comparing research because one article might use one of the tests based on one theory and another article could use the test based on another theory and of course this means it could be challenging to try to compare them now moving toward this relationship between attachment Styles and personality disorders I'll first start with research that looks at attachment styles and all of psychopathology and a few other factors now as I mentioned before we see mixed results in the research literature some studies have found that there's really no association between attachment style and psychopathology right just nothing there other studies have found some relationships many of the associations are related to the insecure attachment style in general and not necessarily the individual insecure attachment types we see a positive association between insecure attachment and criminality as well as violence we also see the insecure attachment has a positive association with cluster B personality disorders so cluster B has four personality sorters antisocial borderline narcissistic and histrionic Personality Disorder now the dismissing attachment style is related to conduct disorder substance use disorder as well as narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders and preoccupied attachment increases the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia borderline histrionic and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders now there's something interesting about the attachment styles and the relationship to psychopathy one of the outcomes from some of these measures of attachment Styles is cannot classify meaning somebody takes the test and the test cannot determine what type of attachment style they have it would appear perhaps they don't have any attachment style at all not secure and not insecure this particular finding cannot classify is actually associated with psychopathy I find this interesting because one of the observations I've made when working with people who score high in psychopathy is they don't tend to have an appreciation for the importance of attachment as a general construct so they might look at a mother who is being very distant from a child like she's being extremely rejecting kind of cruel and they don't really think anything about that they don't feel a certain way about it whereas individuals who are not psychopathic would react strongly to that it's almost like those high and psychopathy are just indifferent to the whole issue of attachment in general as I indicated now another way to view this model is to think about the distinction between self and others so the way somebody thinks about themselves and the way somebody thinks about others but I think this is a really interesting way to conceptualize the attachment styles so with secure attachment we see a positive view of self and a positive view of others so everything's positive with the preoccupied attachment style we would see a negative view self and a positive view of others so a person doesn't feel too good about themselves but they like other people right that makes sense when you think about the preoccupied attachment style now the dismissing attachment style that person would have a positive view of themself but a negative view of others right so they feel good about themselves but they don't like others and then the fearful attachment style we would see a negative view of self and a negative view of others so everything's negative without attachment style now somebody could clearly fit into one of those categories or they could be kind of in more at the same time for example somebody could have both positive and negative views of themselves but a negative view of others so they would be dismissing and fearful they would kind of be in both categories another thing that can happen is that somebody can have a positive and negative view of themselves and a positive and negative view of others we refer to this as disorganized attachment now when looking at the model this way we see that attachment theory can be connected to personality disorders conceptually now that means is that the research literature may not have findings that show that a particular attachment style is associated with a specific personality disorder but there can still be a way to think about that relationship between attachment styles and personality sorters essentially a way to bring the two constructs into alignment a better way that we can understand them now the way this is done is to look at each personality disorder and see what fits in terms of the attachment dimension so the attachment style that would relate to that person a sorter then look at the model of self how somebody views themselves look at the model of others how they look at other people as well as a central belief that they have that maintains the personality disorder I find that this is actually a really useful way to think about personality sewers from another angle right to use attachment theory to understand personality disorders a little bit better so I'm going to go through each of the ten personality disorders and look at the various factors that I just talked about so I'm gonna line up the attachment style the model of self the model of others and the belief to each personality sweater so starting with cluster a personality pathology we see paranoid person is wetter here we see a fearful attachment style the model of self would be special unique and different so almost seems like it lines up a little bit with narcissism in terms of others others can't be trusted in terms of the belief I am safer being alone because others can't be trusted right so all those kind of make sense in terms of paranoid thinking moving to schizoid person sorter the attachment style is dismissing the attitude towards self is passive and unaffected others are emotionally unresponsive and the belief is the world is unresponsive therefore I'm not going to bother creating relationships moving this gets a tipple person idea sorter we see two attachment styles are really represented fearful and dismissing in terms of the self this is really non-existent there's no sense of self and this is the only personality disorder like this in terms of others others do not have good intentions and in terms of the belief I am unusual now moving to cluster B personality pathology starting with antisocial personality disorder here we see a combination of fearful and dismissing the model of self at the core this is really unlovable but the appearance is entitled and we think that is defensive so if somebody has the sense of entitlement to protect themselves but again they don't feel like they can really be loved in terms of the model of others others will never love or care for me and in terms of the belief I need to be tough and powerful so no one will hurt me moving to borderline personality disorder the attachment style here is disorganized and this is the only personality disorder that has this type of attachment so with the model self of course we have both positive and negative and when looking at others we have both positive and negative in terms of the belief we see I can't tolerate things not going my way others are great and no they're not so again we see that back and forth that typifies borderline personality now moving to narcissistic personality here we see fearful and dismissing the model of self is extremely fragile but there's an appearance of koffice right so this is interesting because if we look at antisocial which I just talked about we see the model self is one way but then there's an appearance of something else we have the same thing with narcissistic personality in terms of the model of others others expect greatness from me and the belief I'm entitled to special treatment looking at histrionic Personality Disorder we see preoccupied attachment the model self insignificant and unimportant looking at others others are a valuable source of attention so notice how the model of self and the model of others really work together here insignificant and unimportant that's what they think of themselves and others are a valuable source of attention so that attention kind of satisfies those concerns of feeling insignificant and unimportant right so that relationship seems pretty clear and it makes sense how it progresses here when we look at history onic in terms of the belief I need the attention of others to feel valuable again quite consistent with what we already see here now moving to clusters see personality pathology and the first disorder here is avoidant personality we see preoccupied and fearful so the model self frightened of rejection and inferior in terms of others others are to be avoided and the belief even though people will reject me I want someone to like me now looking at dependent person is order we see a preoccupied attachment style the model of self fragile and inferior in terms of others others need to take care of me and the belief I am a weak person and I cannot survive without others and that brings us to the last person I disorder obsessive-compulsive personality sorter we see a preoccupied attachment style here the model of self unfailingly reliable looking at others others expect me to be perfect and the belief I must always be prepared to prove my competency so again I find this a really useful way to look at attachment theory and personality pathology at the same time it kind of brings them together it's kind of a quick yet still profound way to explore the personality disorders and how they function what people are kind of thinking if they have one those personality sorters it's sometimes difficult to relate attachment theory to personality pathology and a personality traits in general and this offers kind of a conceptual model that I think can be useful in clinical practice so if you're working with somebody with a particular personality disorder it gives you again kind of a fast way to say how could this relate to attachment theory is there anything going on with attachment theory and I need to pay attention to based on the personality pathology that I'm working with attachment theory is deeply rooted in psychoanalytic theory and psychoanalytic theory isn't necessarily really popular right now it always has a research base that's there but it's not again kind of exceedingly popular like we see with cognitive behavioral therapy for example so I think when psychoanalytic theory kind of became more minimized attachment theory went along with it and I think this is a little bit unfortunate because I think attachment theory actually does explain a lot but without a lot of research into it we're not going to find out what those connections really are I know whenever I talk about topics like attachment theory there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate early interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 135,549

Keywords: attachment theory, attachment style, personality disorder, secure attachment, healthy attachment, sense of autonomy, dismissing attachment, restricted emotions, flat affect, self-reliant, preoccupied attachment, tendency to idealize others, emotionality, fearful attachment, avoids close relationships, fear of rejection, insecure, anxious attachment, insecure attachment

Id: Ybs0TRoiByE

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 02 2020