Melanie Klein's Theory: The Theory Of Attachment

The theory of attachment was developed by Melanie Klein. Attachment is defined as the formation of a psychological and emotional relationship between a primary caregiver and a child, not necessarily the child’s biological parents. In Melanie’s theory, she reveals that the attachment style a child develops for their caregiver can be Secure, Avoidant, Resistant/ambivalent/Anxious, and disorganized. These connections children develop for their caregiver will be the primary template for all future relationships. She further emphasized that children can be attach and partially attach to more than on caregiver; therefore, “parents” must attempt to form a well-developed and nurturing relationship with their children in order to protect the child’s …show more content…
These caregivers are cold towards the child and tend to overlook the child’s distress or cries for attention. They are vigilant to the child material needs, nevertheless, they are emotionally and physically neglectful. Therefore, in resistant/ambivalent/anxious attachment, the primary caregivers are fickle in responding to their child’s distress. The child is left with not knowing whether their needs will be attended to. Additionally, these children tend to display and escalate their behaviors in bids for the caregiver’s attention. In all, in disorganized attachment, the caregivers are verbally abusive, or too overtly sexual toward the child. The child shows a breakdown in attachment strategy when they are in distress such as entering trance-like state, moving away from their parents or shows an odd like behavior that does not serve as a clear goal when the child is in distress. These children, as said, are often physically and sexually …show more content…
In Malika’s case, both parents are equally detrimental toward Malika’s up- brings. Both parents are scrambling and cruel towards Malika’s. They both develop a disorganized attachment with Malika by using illegal drugs in her present and expose her to prostitution. Malika’s parents never protected her. Instead, they involve Malika in their worthless behavior, by accepting money from a customer to have sex with their daughter. Malika is forced to perform acts against her wills, and suffers the consequences for her refusals. She is young and couldn’t defend herself. Therefore, her parents take a great advantage of her. Neither one come to her rescue; but thanks to her Gym teacher who was vigilant enough to see that something is wrong. Malika’s parents mentally, emotionally and sexually debilitate her