Chapter 10 - Addressing Attachment and Problems of Intimacy: How to Build Healthy Emotional Connections

Abstract

Feeling safe and secure in loving relationships is a difficult challenge for many children with problems of dysregulation. Disorders of self-regulation that often impact the formation of healthy emotional connections are mood disorders including depression, anxiety, OCD, and bipolar disorder. Constitutionally based individual differences including ADHD and sensory integration disorder may also affect the way in which the child interacts with people and how they process social cues. Often the regulatory disorder is coupled with relational disturbances and may represent long-standing problems of attachment. Since there are both biological and emotional underpinnings to the attachment disorder, interventions for children with regulatory disorders should address both of these aspects in developing safety in relationships and emotional intimacy with others.