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Attachment and the child in

school. Part I
Attachment theory and the dependent child

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HEATHER GEDDES Caspari Foundation, London, UK

ABSTRACT Using the framework of Attachment Theory and related
research and the research and experience of the author, a particular
pattern of behaviour is described which can be identified in the classroom. This pattern, known as the Anxious Resistant/ Ambivalent
Attachment Pattern, is described from a teaching and learning perspective and is illustrated with examples from educational practice. Possible
opportunities for intervention are discussed aimed at facilitating
change in the pupil and enhancing emotional well being and educational opportunity.
This article will be followed by another (Part II) describing other
patterns of attachment which have been identified, with the aim of
extending the teachers understanding of the meaning of pupil behaviour and increasing the resilience potential in the learning situation.

E
B
D
Emotional and
Behavioural Difficulties
2003
SAGE Pu blicat io n s
London,Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi
8(3) 231242: 034737
1363-2752 (200308)8:3

KEYWO RDS

attachment
theory;
educational
therapy;
insecurity;
psychoanalysis

Introduction
It is apparent from evidence and experience that a significant number of
children underachieve in school or seem unable to learn despite expert
remedial intervention and curriculum changes and developments. Often
these children go on to become the disenfranchised adults in society to
whom we can apply the term social exclusion. These children are often,
though not always, identified by their behaviour, which can range from disruptive and confrontational, to preoccupied and distressed, and to withdrawn and inaccessible. They may be children who become excluded or
who might exclude themselves by absence. The behaviour we encounter as
teachers can evoke concern and compassion but can also be experienced as
deskilling and disturbing, and provoke anger and despair.
In a variety of educational settings from intermediate treatment and the
behaviour support service to child guidance units, I have experienced this
spectrum of pupil behaviour. As an educational therapist, informed by
psychoanalytic theory, I believe that behaviour has meaning and that much
of the behaviour we experience in the classroom is a form of
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communication by children whose capacity to let us know about their

experiences in any other way has been perverted and impaired. Many such
children are helped by practices which enable communication to develop,
and circle times, nurture groups, the emotional curriculum and opportunities to work creatively are direct attempts to do this. However, for some
children acting out has become their only form of communicating distress
and anxiety, and paying attention to behaviour and its possible meaning
becomes our only source of understanding.
In this article and the next, I hope to present some ways of understanding the behaviour of those children whose early experiences of care
have adversely and negatively affected their sense of themselves and their
expectation of others in ways that have implications for learning and for
relating to the teacher. This article is framed by a psychoanalytic perspective but by attachment theory in particular, because attachment theory and
research, now linked to brain development, have led to an explosion in
understanding about the implications of early attachment experience on
social and emotional development and consequently on teaching and
learning.
I will briefly introduce attachment theory and then explore examples
of children and their responses, in ways which help us to make sense of
their behaviour and so open up the possibilities of change for these children
and their opportunities in education.

Attachment theory
Bowlby (1969; 1973; 1980) and others (Ainsworth, 1982; Ainsworth and
Wittig, 1969; Ainsworth et al., 1978) have proposed, theoretically and
empirically, that the primary relationship between the infant and mother
or primary carer affects the behaviour of the infant in ways which pervade
later relationships and interactions with the environment, including education (Barrett and Trevitt, 1991; Sroufe, 1983). A distinct pattern of attachment response is established by the time the infant is 10 months to 1 year
old, whether derived from a secure or an insecure attachment relationship.
An outcome of the primary attachment relationship is the childs sense of
self in relation to others an internal working model.
In Bowlbys terms, a person who has experienced a secure attachment
is likely to possess a representational model of the attachment figure as
being available, responsive and helpful and a complementary model of the
self as a potentially loveable and valuable person (1980, p. 242) and is
likely to approach the world with confidence and, when faced with potentially alarming situations, is likely to tackle them effectively or to seek help
in doing so a secure internal working model. On the other hand an infant
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whose needs have not adequately been met in this respect perceives the
world as comfortless and unpredictable and responds either by shrinking
from it or doing battle with it (1973, p. 208) an insecure internal
working model.
What is hopeful is that the sense of self which is derived from this early
contact is open to revision and to change. In these two articles about attachment and learning I would like to present the outcome of research supported by work with children in which it is possible to see the attachment
processes at work and also the opportunities that educational settings can
offer for hope and change in other words the resilience potential in the
educational setting. The children I am concerned with here are those who
find it difficult to be thoughtful and to access the potential helpfulness of
the teacher. Their learning appears to be impaired by their interpersonal
difficulties. I relate these interpersonal difficulties to early attachment
experiences in the infant/ mother dyad and in particular to insecure attachment patterns.
An outcome of attachment research is the challenge of how to change
insecure internal working models into secure ones. Some suggestions about
how this can happen have come from the work on adult attachment interviews (Grossman and Grossman, 1991) and these indicate the importance
of relationships with emotionally significant others. The implication of this is that
relationships with significant others can mitigate adverse maternal attachment experience and change internal working models.
In any learning situation two necessary components of learning are the
relationship with the teacher and the presence of an educational task. There
is thus a dynamic triangular relationship between the pupil, the teacher and
the task. In this article I am thinking of the potential that the relationship
with the teacher and the task can offer in terms of changing internal
working models and so providing resilience potential. The teacher is
imbued with attachment potential and so evokes the attachment behaviour
pattern that the child has learned. The educational task is affected by and
affects this relationship. Experience of these two characteristics of learning
provides an opportunity to begin to experience the self differently and so
begin a process of hopeful change.

Patterns of attachment
Fundamentally attachment theory describes the development of a relationship defined in very early infancy between an infant and the primary carer,
usually the mother. The adaptations that the infant makes in order to secure
the protection of their carer are affected by the carers
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availability
attunement
responsiveness.

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The models of attachment behaviour that children adopt and develop were
defined by Ainsworth and Wittig (1969) through observations in the
strange situation procedure a repeated experience of relationship rupture
and relationship repair which exposes the pattern of attachment behaviour. This procedure identified distinct categories of attachment behaviour
which was basically secure or insecure. In the case of insecurely and
anxiously attached children the categories of attachment behaviour are
known as
insecure resistant/ ambivalent
insecure avoidant
disorganized/ disoriented.
I will present and discuss examples from these insecure attachment groups,
focusing on the interactions between the child, the teacher and the task and
accompanied by comments about resilience. I will begin with the pattern
of behaviour which involves a close and relatively undifferentiated relationship between infant and carer. In the second article I will describe the
avoidant and disorganized attachment profiles in detail with reference to
looked-after children.

The resistant/ ambivalent pattern

The attachment behaviour of these children is organized around an attachment figure who finds separation difficult, and whose own needs tend to
lead the relationship so that there is little sensitivity to the separate and
differing needs of the child. In the research sample that I investigated such
a carer tended to have very weak boundaries and little parental control, as
if not confident of their own adult authority. They described their significant life events as accidents, illnesses, injuries and showed a tendency
towards drug and alcohol misuse a tendency to somatizerather than endure
emotional distress and perhaps, as Holmes would say, to experience the
hospital as the surrogate secure base (2001, p. 29). With a high level of
separation anxiety these children are often identified by poor school attendance or may even be non-attenders, and they can be particularly vulnerable
at transition to secondary school.
From the perspective of the children, they experience the attachment
relationship as one in which separation and autonomy are denied in favour
of enmeshed and anxious involvement with the primary carer. Their
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attachment behaviour is dominated by uncertainty that their attachment

needs will be met and by ambivalence expressed as both clinging and controlling behaviour often associated with overt hostility.
In the research sample that I investigated in detail, in the learning situation these children were very anxious and clung to the teacher, trying to
take over her role, ignoring the task as if the task was an intrusion into the
space between them. The children commonly demonstrated good verbal
skills which could be used to dominate and manipulate the teachers attention. Their educational achievement was often poor because they did not
attend to the task, being completely focused on the need to be attuned to
the teacher. They could also be hostile towards the teacher if their wishes
were not met. Teachers often describe them as dependent, but I think it is
more useful to think of these children as anxiously controlling.
Ainsworths interpretation of the clinging behaviour of these children
is as follows:
The conflict is a simple one between wanting close bodily contact and angry
because their mothers do not pick them up when they want to be held or hold
them for as long as they want. Because their mothers are insensitive to their
signals, these babies lack confidence in their [mothers] responsiveness. Thus
when the attachment system is highly activated, these babies are doubly upset
because they have learned to be frustrated rather than comforted. (1982,
p. 18)

Working with individual children as an educational therapist has given me

insights into the unconscious world of such children. Two children of
different ages will be described here to demonstrate the nature of the
struggle to learn and also to demonstrate how children can change through
the educational process.

Work with Len

Len was a well-built boy of 7 or 8 who had been excluded from school
because of aggressive behaviour towards the teacher. He seemed delighted
and comfortable in the one-to-one teaching situation, but gradually his
pleasant gentlemanly manner gave way to commands and attempts to take
over as I persisted in setting a task. For some time our work was dominated
by the struggle over who would be in control. Eventually it was possible to
attempt a shared task. His first squiggle picture seemed to depict his inner
struggle (Figure 1).
His squiggle put himself firmly inside my circle, and another mark was
transformed into the word me with me firmly inside. He wrote that it
was about me and mo who seemed to become muddled up into the same
word omeeo. It seemed a clear depiction of his undifferentiated state
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Figure 1 Len, me and mo

and hinted at the anxious feelings that the requirements of independent

thoughts and learning might involve.
In the accompanying text he says:
One day me and mo were looking at each other and he ate her up, he did not
like her. Because she bossed him around.

His energy seemed directed at controlling me and holding my attention.

The task was an irrelevant intrusion. Holding onto my role was difficult and
involved tolerating a great deal of resistance and hostility which seemed
necessary in order for Len to experience us as separate.
Once some degree of separation was achieved, he could then experience the task as an action outside the primary relationship the world
outside me and mo. He could experience the agency of having ideas of
his own. In this relationship, it seemed to be my role to contain Lens
anxieties as he experienced the world outside me and mo and so the future
possibilities of the outside world.
Interestingly, one of his later suggestions was that we should go for a
walk along the riverbank outside, as if he could contemplate existence in
the outside world. In my role as teacher, I felt like the resilience factor which
effected change in his capacity to engage with the task and, by implication,
with the outside world perhaps the beginnings of change in his internal
working model. In Lens case it was the relationship with a significant
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other that enabled him to find the potential in the task, to be able to find
interest in the outside world.

Work with Naomi

On the other hand, the following example shows how a teenage girl was
able to work through the metaphor of the task of story writing and to make
her own journey towards autonomy, to experience herself differently and
to have her own thoughts.
Naomi was 13 and had never attended secondary school. She was
described as school phobic. She remained at home with her mother and
younger brother who attended a special school for children with learning
disabilities. She did not go out alone. No mention was made of her father.
After initial meetings at home it was decided that we would meet at a small
family centre where Naomi would initially be escorted by me and then be
taken by taxi. She soon adapted to this. After some time, Naomi discovered
story writing and she wrote prolifically. I think that these stories demonstrate the separation and individuation journey very eloquently.
Her first story was about a girl called Z who found out that she was
adopted and did not know who she really was. She begins the search for
her true identity when she discovers a small box (Figure 2). Her father says
that now that she has found the box she must be told the truth. Her parents
tell her that they found her as an abandoned infant and have kept her as
their own. She wrote:
Z is confused by the feelings she now has, she feels hurt, angry and deceived
that they didnt tell her before. She feels shocked and amazed that the family
she knew and loved are now strangers to her. She feels frustrated by the loss
of her identity.

She tries to open the box and a magic process begins which takes her to a
strange place, a planet where they communicate not by speaking but by
understanding each others thoughts. (I wondered about the room where

Figure 2 Z box picture

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we met and her experience of the thinking we shared about her story.) Z
is reunited with her true family. For a while she is confused by her new
identity and returns to earth for a visit to her old family, but as time goes
by she becomes accustomed to who she really is and decides to stay on the
planet and visit her earth parents occasionally clear about who she now
is and separate from them. There is a multitude of meanings in the story,
but it seemed that Naomi could now contemplate the journey from home
assured of a safe return she could tolerate her separate identity.
She next chose to write about a refugee girl who has to make a journey
alone back to her own country. The boat she is on sinks and she is washed
up on an island. She is cared for by the tribe who lives there and she makes
a friend. The friend helps her to overcome the fear of the sea and teaches
her how to swim. In return the girl finds that she can design interesting
hairstyles and jewellery and soon she is accepted as a member of the tribe
with skills that are valued. Naomi writes that She feels important and
valued and realizes how happy she is.
I felt that Naomi had permitted me to assist in her journey and had
begun to find the task/ world interesting and rewarding. She ended the story
with a letter:
Dear Mr and Mrs Brown [mum and dad]
I was in a shipwreck, but Im alive and well now, I dont know if anyone else
survived.
I love you and dont want you to think Im dead.
Im happy living here with a native family and Ive got a job designing things.
Ive got a best friend Natia, who taught me how to swim. I hope you get . . .
[this message].
Im not coming home.
Love always, Emma.
XXXX
THE END

This seemed Naomis separation obituary. She had survived the shipwreck
of separation with the help of a friend. She experienced her difference as
new and interesting.
Naomi continued to write this time in response to a play we had read.
She called her play Love, Hate and Murder. It begins with a woman
grieving for her lost husband whom she has just buried but feels he is still
with her. His spirit returns to her and tells her that he has been murdered.
In a clever and well-turned plot Naomi described how the husband had
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been killed by a woman with a psychiatric illness who was obsessed by

him. The woman, Marge, is now posing as her best friend. When she finds
out Marges true identity, she felt the rage and fury boil over her, she
grabbed the nearest thing and smashed it, the framed photograph of
beloved Stan across Marges face. As the battle proceeds, she is about to kill
Marge but the psychiatrist enters and takes Marge away. Stans spirit could
now rest.
What kind of oedipal drama this may represent, and to what it may
relate in real life concerning her absent father, are open to conjecture. It was
an intense drama of insanity, duplicity, rivalry and murderous rage. Naomi
reminded me strongly of an infant who has experienced overwhelming
feelings but has had nowhere to put them. In the presence of another whose
identity remained separate, and with a capacity to contain anxiety, Naomi
could experience the powerful feelings and rage in particular which may
have contributed to her passive inability to engage with others and the
outside world.
I have met this sense of passivity before in girls who are stuck in nonattendance and have felt their need to express their anger and rage. I would
conclude that for this group of children their classroom profile is likely to
reflect:

separation anxiety
anxious control of the teacher
perceived irrelevance of the task
underachieving because of the fear of independence and growing up.

To summarize, in the sample that I investigated, the behaviour profile in the

classroom looked as in Figure 3.

Remedial possibilities
The implication for this group is that engaging with the task is the step that
needs to be taken in order to begin the process of change. Recognizing the
pupils extreme separation anxiety helps to give the behaviour meaning and
to inform practice. Behaviour which can be experienced as dependent and
often irritating can be changed by recognizing the fear and anger that the
child experiences when the adults attention is not under their control.
Those engaged in individual support of such children need to be aware of
the powerful wish to achieve a merged state by seeming to need a very high
level of support and apparent dependency. Differentiation of the task can
include small independent steps and turn taking to model the experience
of two separate people working alongside each other rather than merging
with each other. An alliance between the teacher and the parent can also
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The R esistent/A mbivalent A ttachment Pattern

of behaviour demonstrated in
the learning situation

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Stage 1. A pproach to school/classroom

high levels of anxiety and uncertainty
Stage 2. R esponse to the teacher
need to hold onto the attention of the teacher
apparent dependence on the teacher
expressed hostility towards the teacher
Stage 3. R esponse to the task
difficulties in attempting task unsupported
unable to attend to task because of concerns
about loss of teacher attention
Stage 4. Skills and difficulties
likely to be underachieving
language may be well developed
learning may be accompanied by hostility
Figure 3 Attachment profile in the classroom

divert the parental need for merging with the child into a more adult and
appropriate relationship engaging the parents possibility to change. My
experience is that these children have great difficulty in education because
of the fear of independence and autonomy that is implied by learning and
indicates growing up.

Summary
This particular pattern of response in the classroom can be identified as the
resistant/ ambivalent pattern of insecure attachment behaviour, initially
identified by Ainsworth and Wittig (1969) and investigated and demonstrated in the educational setting by Geddes (1999). This pattern can be
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recognized in the classroom, and behaviour in response to the teacher and

the task can be understood in terms of early attachment experience which
imbues the teacher and the task with particular significance. With this
meaning of behaviour in mind it is possible for the teacher to recognize
need and anxiety in response to the task rather than demand and dependency. It is then possible to respond through the task in a helpful way which
can bring about long-term change in the pupils internal working model
of the self and ultimately enhance the possibilities in the learning situation
and of engagement in the outside world. With an understanding of the
meaning of the behaviour induced by the challenge of the task, the teacher
can help the pupil to focus on engagement with the task as a way of
supporting the emotional and educational development of such an anxious
child.
In the second article, further attachment patterns will be investigated:
the avoidant attachment profile, in which the pupil finds it difficult to rely
on the teacher; and the disorganized attachment profile, which is prevalent
amongst looked-after children who have experienced early childhood
trauma.
Note

Dr Heather Geddes is an Educational Therapist at the Caspari Foundation, Caspari

House, 1 Noel Road, London N1 8HQ, UK. For more information please visit the
website: www.caspari.org.uk
References

Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1982) Attachment: Retrospect and Prospect, in C.M. Parkes & J.
Stevenson-Hinde (eds) The Place of Attachment in Human Behaviour. London:
Routledge.
Ainsworth, M.D.S. & Wittig, B.A. (1969) Attachment and Exploratory Behaviour in
One-Year-Olds in Strange Situations, in B.M. Foss (ed.) Determinants of Infant
Behaviour, vol. 4. London: Methuen.
Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar, M., Waters, E. & Wall, S. (1978) Patterns of Attachment:A
Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Barrett, M. & Trevitt, J. (1991) Attachment Behaviour and the Schoolchild. London: Routledge.
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss. Vol. 1:Attachment. London: Penguin.
Bowlby, J. (1973) Attachment and Loss. Vol. 2:Separation:Anxiety and Anger. London: Penguin.
Bowlby, J. (1980) Attachment and Loss. Vol. 3:Loss:Sadness and Depression. London: Penguin.
Grossman, K.E. & Grossman, K.(1991) Attachment Quality as an Organiser of
Emotional and Behavioural Responses in a Longitudinal Perspective, in C.M.
Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde & P. Marris (eds) Attachment across the Life Cycle. London:
Routledge.
Holmes, J. (2001) The Search for the Secure Base. Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy. London:
BrunnerRoutledge.
Sroufe, L.A. (1983) InfantCaregiver Attachment Patterns of Adaptation in

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Pre-School: The Roots of Maladaptation and Competence, in J. Perlmutter (ed.)

Minnesota Symposium of Child Psychology vol. 16, pp. 4181.
Correspondence should be addressed to:
8 Blagdon Walk, Teddington, London TW11 9LN, UK. e-mail:
angel@hgeddes.fsnet.co.uk

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