Given the impact attachment can have across the lifespan, knowledge about attachment theory can be of particular value. Early attachments to caregivers can affect many relationships encountered throughout the lifetime. Attachment influences stress regulation and emotion management, and even the impacts that the process has on the human form. Attachment organization has been associated with protective resilience on one end, with secure organized attachment patterns, and a vulnerability to psychopathology, infant insecurity and disorganization on the other end.
Regardless of the issues a client presents with, understanding and addressing the client’s attachment patterns can be a helpful element in the therapy process. Therapists, who are versed in attachment theory can utilize knowledge of attachment theory to predict or make sense how client’s might use the therapeutic relationship as well as how the client’s issues might play out with significant others in their lives. Disorganized attachment has been associated with dissociation and antisocial personality disorder later in life. Thus, according to this approach, there is great value in utilizing the therapeutic relationship to heal unhealthy attachment patterns before they turn into more serious problems. A healthy attachment can be at the core of emotional and physical well-being.Did you know?