Divorce, Attachment, and Loss Research Paper

Bowlby observed a series of common phases in children’s and adults’ emotional responses to loss of an attachment figure. These periods were marked by times when a person had difficulty acknowledging the loss, began protesting against the loss, lapsed into despair over the loss, and later reorganized the loss into everyday life. For Bowlby, the process of grief involved the integration of the lost attachment bond into the emotional and cognitive patterns that constitute an individual’s attachment system. This integration is evident when a person’s attachment behaviors, including proximity seeking, are reorganized to integrate the loss. Bowlby identified two problematic responses found in two extreme responses to bereavement. At one extreme is chronic mourning, the individual’s struggle to resolve the loss of an attachment figure, and at the other extreme is the absence of grief, when an individual shows little or no emotional response to the loss. Although much of the focus on attachment theory and loss has been informed by bereavement associated with death, Bowlby considered the same psychological mechanisms relevant to loss by estrangement or separation, which characterize divorce.

Phases of Bereavement

Bowlby used attachment theory to explain the varied emotional responses he observed in bereavement. The primacy of the attachment system for survival provided a guiding premise for understanding how children and adults respond to loss. In attachment terms, the perceived absence of an attachment figure prompts a series of proximity-seeking responses, and these persist until all efforts have been expended. Bowlby observed that the inability to regain contact with an attachment figure led to a series of predictable emotional and behavioral responses. In the first phase, grief is marked by a period of numbing, when those in mourning find it difficult to acknowledge their loss. Protest reactions describe the second phase, when yearning and searching for an attachment figure often include anxious and intense emotional reactions such as anger. As these efforts fail to secure a response from the missing attachment figure, the individual’s attachment-related distress turns to depression and despair. This third phase involves sadness and loneliness, which are more expected emotional responses to loss of an emotionally salient relationship. In the final phase, Bowlby initially identified a pattern of responses consistent with a suppression of attachment responses that he called detachment. In his later writing, he underscored the importance, particularly for adults, of reorganizing attachment bonds in the face of loss such that a bond with a lost attachment figure may be changed rather than relinquished altogether. Bowlby’s model of loss provided a descriptive framework for understanding the varied responses in mourning but was not intended as a prescriptive stage model of grief resolution.

Problematic Grieving

In attachment theory, two problematic responses to loss include chronic mourning and the absence of grief. Chronic mourning describes an extended period of emotional distress in response to an attachment figure. Often these responses include both intense and extended protest responses that can result in a preoccupation with the lost attachment figure and a disruption in everyday living. Chronic mourning may result in prolonged periods of depression and anxiety associated with ongoing preoccupation with the lost attachment figure and an inability to resolve this loss. Resolution of the individual’s loss is complicated by intrusive memories and thoughts that can be triggered by unanticipated events or situations. Intense negative and pervasive experiences of anger, sadness, and fear persist as the bereaved person struggles to regulate these prominent emotional experiences. Chronic mourning is more likely among persons who possess a more anxious history of relating, particularly in their relationship to the lost attachment figure. Their experience of grief can be complicated by a long-standing insecurity and negative self-perception. These negative views can be compounded by a loss of hope and greater insecurity, given the absence of a relationship that had primary significance to a person’s self-understanding.

Bowlby identified the absence of grief as a second problematic response to loss. This form of grieving is characterized by a lack of emotional distress, sorrow, or grief in response to a loss. For Bowlby, these muted responses represented a delayed grief reaction that would complicate a person’s future adjustment to an experienced loss. More recent studies of limited grief reactions have raised questions regarding possible differences in the emotional expression of grief. Researchers have indicated that the absence of these emotions can be associated with personal resilience in the face of a loss. Many questions remain with regard to when and whether a more suppressed loss response is simply an indication of a defensive form of emotional suppression or a more adaptive response associated with resilience.

Divorce and Loss

Losses associated with divorce have both similar and unique effects on attachment ties when compared to losses by death. A primary difference in divorce or estrangement is the voluntary nature of the loss. The process of mourning may begin much earlier for the partner initiating a divorce, whereas the partner being left may experience the divorce as a traumatic loss. In adult romantic relationships, attachment bonds form quickly; the loss of this relationship and consequent reorganization of this attachment bond may take much more time. Difficulty in resolving this emotional attachment complicates the process of divorce adjustment for former partners and their children. For divorced parents, the process of reorganizing the emotional bonds they share with a former partner is necessary for developing a productive and emotionally secure environment for their children, particularly one that recognizes and supports the caregiving of each parent. For children, the experience of divorce can heighten attachment insecurity through a loss of confidence in their parents’ availability. Loss through estrangement can increase the risk that a child may see himself or herself as less valuable to parents or in jeopardy of losing the parental relationships altogether.

Divorce adjustment is an emotionally demanding process for many separating couples. The enduring effects of the residual bonds found in a former intimate relationship can complicate the process of reaching a new emotional balance in the changing family system. Feelings of distress and disappointment may obscure deeper emotional ties that remain at a more unconscious level for former partners. Significant changes in spousal roles and identity loss leave partners more vulnerable to these underlying emotional attachments. Prior to detachment, the return of a former attachment figure can prompt the reactivation of attachment emotions and behaviors, resulting in a prolonged period of divorce adjustment. Divorce may trigger unresolved attachment-related distress from each partner’s attachment history, prompting escalation of more insecure patterns of relating. Those responding with more anxious attachment strategies typically express increased distress and difficulty in coping with the loss or separation. Others who rely on more avoidant attachment strategies are more likely to respond to relational distress with hostility and isolation. Those using more a more avoidant approach to coping are less likely to seek social support in response to the loss. Either of these secondary attachment strategies compromises a person’s ability to express and work through the varied emotions associated with loss in divorce.

Parents’ availability to their children may be negatively impacted in postdivorce adjustment. Children who experience parental loss through divorce and physical separation fear the potential loss of their custodial parent. Patterns of fear in the parent–child relationship can heighten the attachment insecurity in these relationships, decreasing a family’s capacity to regulate negative emotional experiences that are predominant particularly in the early stages of divorce adjustment. Family patterns ranging from parental neglect, emotional intrusiveness, and inflexible control reinforce a child’s felt insecurity. However, a number of other factors are likely to moderate the impact of the losses associated with divorce. Overall, a parent’s responsiveness and accessibility to a child’s needs functions as a protective factor in reducing the impact of divorce. Other protective factors include a child’s increasing cognitive capacity, family income, and maternal education, suggesting that the adversity families experience in divorce is buffered by contextual resources that exist in the family prior to divorce.

Resolving Loss

The resolution of the loss of an attachment figure involves a dynamic balance of two opposing desires. On the one hand, there is a desire to maintain a connection to the lost attachment relationship; on the other hand, there is a competing desire to detach from this person and seek new attachment relationships. This shifting balance has been described as an oscillation between processing the consequences of the loss and embracing changes that have resulted from the loss. Over time, the oscillation between loss and restoration brings a person to a new level of reorganization in his or her attachment system. For parents, this reorganization requires a shift in their previous relationship from a bond based on attachment to a bond based on affiliation, where the focus of their ongoing relationship is narrowed to shared caregiving responsibilities. These parents retain a relationship but no longer maintain an emotional tie that promises attachment security. Bowlby recognized a role for alternative relationships of support and care in the resolution of these losses. Former partners’ efforts to engage support from others and to increase supportive caregiving relationships for their children increased the likelihood of the resolution of loss.

Bibliography:

1. Bowlby, John. Attachment and         Loss. Vol. 3, Loss. New York: Basic Books, 1980.
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3. Reibstein, Janet. “Attachment, Pain and Detachment for the Adults in Divorce.” Sexual and         Marital   Therapy, v.13/4 (1998).
4. Stroebe, Margaret and Henk Schut. “The Dual Process Model of Coping With Bereavement: Rationale and Description.” Death Studies, v.23 (1999).