Sept. 30, 2012

I was reading an article by John Bowlby, psychologist, and a section of the article mentioned how anxious mothers may make a child take care of her instead of the other way around, making the child anxious, guilty, and phobic. To me, this sounds like a sort of mother-child attachment inversion. Here are some excerpts: “Thus, a mother who, due to adverse experiences during childhood, grows up to be anxiously attached is prone to seek care from her own child, and thereby lead the child to become anxious, guilty, and perhaps phobic” (Bowlby, 1982, p.675).

“Some young children (especially those who are dispositionally fearful or inhibited) are prone to anxiety-related disorders, especially when their temperamental vulnerability is coupled with anxious or hostile attachment to their caregivers.”

 

“Young children who are abused or neglected by their caregivers can experience significant emotional and psychosocial problems, including the display of intense, maladaptive emotions, difficulties in understanding emotion in others, and social incompetence.”

All this makes me wonder if my mother had any anxious or guilty tendencies and transferred them to me somehow. Now I make these speculations with reservation since I’m wary of placing too much emphasis on early childhood attachment, especially on forming lifelong neuroses, but I do think it’s an interesting idea. I do have problems understanding emotions in others and exhibit maladaptive emotions, but I think I should explore this more before I make any conclusions. This also sparks an idea in me to talk to my mom about her childhood experiences, just to see if anything might have happened. I do have to be careful about confirmation bias and just looking for things to confirm my hypothesis. I know first-hand how people often just hear what they expect to hear or see what they want to see. Let me approach this with caution and we’ll see what happens.