Internal Working Models of Attachment Relationships as Related to Resilient Coping

Abstract

Adaptive coping in stressful situations turns, in part, on an individual's inner resources. There are at least two ways in which these inner resources are linked to secure attachment relationships. First, the confident knowledge that an attachment figure is available for emotional support when needed tends to increase an individual's ability to consider alternative solutions when faced with difficult and stressful situations (Bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973). Second, a secure relationship with one or more attachment figures affects successful coping more indirectly through the impact of such relationships on the organization and quality of an individual's representational system. Secure relationships, under this view, facilitate the development of well-organized, adequate, flexible internal working models (representations) of self in relation to important others, and thereby also of the world as a reasonably trustworthy place. Insecure attachment relations, under this view, lead to ill-organized working models that are distorted and disrupted by defensive processes that frequently stand in the way of successful coping.