3.2.5—Attachment

Attachment is an enduring relationship that provides security and a base for exploration. Consistent sensitive care can support regulation, while deprivation or disrupted caregiving can increase risk for later difficulties.

Outcomes depend on timing, duration, quality of replacement care, temperament and later relationships. Correlation between early experience and later behaviour cannot by itself establish one pathway or eliminate resilience.

A child separated from a primary caregiver may show distress and later difficulty trusting adults, but stable alternative care and supportive relationships can change the trajectory. Risk is not a sentence.

Attachment is not the same as constant contact and one early event does not determine a person's future. State the mechanism, developmental window and protective factors.

Attachment can contribute to development of self through repeated co-regulation and expectations about whether the self is worthy of care and whether others are available. These internal working expectations can guide emotion regulation and relationships, but they are revisable through later supportive experiences and should not be treated as fixed personality types.