Modification des styles d'attachement après le premier amour

Abstract

The newborn are subject to the bond between infants and their caregivers. The newborn receives the imprint of a style of attachment of which the function involves “proximity-maintenance” and “separation-protest”. The “secure-base” uses the attachment as a base from which the newly born is able to explore his environment. The continuity between childhood and adult relationships changes when romantic love and sexual appetite appear. A new kind of attachment with the love partner must develop and it has to support both attachment and sexuality. The youngster produces the same secure, avoiding, ambivalent or confused attachment as when he was an infant but, as opposed to that with his family, when the young person is attached to his partner he doesn't want to leave. In order to assess the link between the attachment with caregivers and the attachment with the first love, we proposed a questionnaire, a kind of “Love quiz”. First, the representation of attachment with their parents was assessed by four columns of ten questions. Each question referred to a style of attachment, for instance at the end of the interview, the column asking questions about avoidance displayed seven answers, whereas the secure column showed only three answers and the confused only one. Later, the same questionnaire was submitted in order to describe the new attachment with the first love. Results showed that the commitment to romantic love was similar to those observed among infants. But, after a while, the scores obtained in each column evolved: Fourteen out of twenty symptomatic adolescents improved their secure score; three remained in the same style of attachment and three others felt their first love as a traumatism. Out of eighteen no-symptomatic adolescents, fourteen were secure. Only four were insecure. After the first love, the rate of insecure adolescents increased to eight; four others were traumatised. The first love probably sets up a sensitive period in which biology, emotion and culture converge to enable us to be imprinted by a partner. An affect regulation with romantic partners is negotiated like a transaction between two styles of attachment. What is surprising is that the population of insecure adolescents benefited more from romantic love than the secure population by increasing their score in the attachment style. Adult relationships can be understood in terms of attachment. The first attachment is acquired during early interactions, and when the beginnings of life are difficult the first love gives them a second chance.