ATTACHMENT AND MENTAL HEALTH: SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/psy-2024-3-16Keywords:
attachment, secure attachment, unsecure attachment, mental health, mental disordersAbstract
The article focuses on the relationship and interdependence between attachment and mental health. The theoretical foundations of the psychological study of attachment in childhood, the typology of attachment in children were highlighted. It was found that an unsecure style of attachment becomes a risk factor for mental health problems in children only in interaction with other factors, in particular, socioeconomic ones. There are also correlations between the type of attachment and psychological trauma in children. On the one hand, unreliable attachment can result from a child’s repeated, traumatic experience of separation from the caregiver. On the other hand, a psychotraumatic situation can actualize the type of attachment formed in the child. The extrapolation of the theory of attachment to relationships in adulthood, as well as the significance of the style of attachment for the mental health of adults, is also considered. It was made an attempt to determine the main ways of influencing the style of attachment on the mental health of an adult: in particular, it is an effect on the emotions and cognitions, behavior in various spheres of human life. In other words, the presence of unsecure attachment can be a factor of self-doubt, difficulties in the emotional sphere, problems in interpersonal relationships, etc. The results of the research allow us to conclude that an unsecure attachment style is an intermediary factor between a person’s mental health and various internal personal factors (in particular, self-criticism). A high level of self-criticism reduces the level of psychological well-being and quality of life in people with and without mental illness (depression, social anxiety, eating disorders, non-suicidal self-injurious behavior, PTSD, BAR, borderline personality disorder). That is why clinical interventions aimed at increasing the reliability of attachment can help mitigate psychopathological symptoms, as well as retaining therapeutic relationships with different categories of clients in order to preserve their mental health.
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