Attachment Theory and the Impact of Loss: A Personal Perspective

Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth are the pioneers of the attachment theory, they described
attachment as a lasting emotional tie between human beings. (Winokuer & Harris, n.d.) They
confirmed that the human being is social being and relationships are indispensable during the
life span, people develop robust and profound bonds not only with each other but with the
lands and possessions as well. These attachments involve an exchange of love, care and
pleasure. (Schachner, Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005).
Bowlby claimed that all individuals have a deep need of care and protection and on these
needs, people build their attachment style. (Greenspan & Bowlby, 1974)
Reflecting on Bowlby s attachment theories, I classify myself as having an avoiding style.
Considering my childhood, my parents used to leave me alone at home because both were
working long hours, so from early child hood I learnt how to overcome my deep need of care
and love.
In order to evaluate the different responses to loss, counsellors need to discover the client s
attachment style. Stroebe and Schut assert that clients with avoidant attachment style will
think more on the restoration of their lives, while the clients with anxious – ambivalent
attachment style will be encapsulated in their losses.
In conclusion, these authors emphasised that the attachment styles forge the pattern of
grieving and its strength after the decease of a loved one or the loss of a safety or security
environment. Thus, Grief is the involuntarily reaction that we have set in our personality from
our early childhood. (Stroebe, Schut & Stroebe, 2005)
Everyone on earth, at one time or another, confronts the events that can be considered as
main losses, they are stroked by grief. Grief and loss are two faces of the same coin.
(Thompson 1998; p. 21)

Susan Lendrum and Gabrielle Syme argue that human being experience many kinds of losses,
development losses are the first losses and they are vital for the growth of a person. As a baby
the person loss a womb, a tooth.
(Lendrum & Syme, 2004.)
Likewise, losses can be functional, like losing the vision or hearing or mental ability, or
interpersonal like social losses due to persecution, change of identity associated to
widowhood.
My mum was hearing impaired, she suffered from this disability a lot. Though she had a
hearing aid, but I noticed that her suffering was more psychological. The more she got older
the less the hearing aid could help her. I remember that when she found out that she was
about to lose her hearing completely she went through denial and anger. She bargained it a lot
and she went to depression as per Elizabeth Kubbler – Ross’s stages of grief but she could
never accept it till she passed away.
Kubler and Kessler explained that the five stages of grief are just tools that help people to
understand what they may encounter in their loss events, but they are not linear timeline in
grief. Grief is a personal journey; each person experiences it differently. (Gross, n.d.)
Primary losses are the main losses that happen in our lives, the consequences of these primary
losses are known as secondary losses not because they are less important but because they are
the results of the main ones (Winokuer & Harris, n.d.)
In my life, I experience many losses, losing my husband in a young age is my biggest loss. I
was 29 and my two kids were 18 months and 3 years old. Bowlby stated that the loss of an
attachment figure usually affects the development of the assumptive world any individual
would form when they were young. Bowlby stated that the loss of an attachment figure
usually affects the development of the assumptive world any individual would form when
they were young. I assume when I got married that I will have a normal life, and I will have

control over my life, that’s why the death of my husband shocked me, and I was very
anxious. I really experienced what Weenolsen claimed that after the death of a beloved
one , people may feel that they don’t have control over their lives as before this event, they
are no more sure of what will happen in the future as the change of role in the family system
will destroy all dreams and future plans, and that a deep change has occurred in their
personalities, they will be no more like before. (Weenolsen, 1988)
Many other losses were folding by my widowhood, my role in the family changed , I
became the main source of income so financily I had to work long hours to support my
family, socialy I became single so I was excluded from almost every events held for
couples.My friends start to come to visit me without their husband as they used to do.
While I needed to adapt to my conjugal broken bond , I found that I suffer not only from a
social loneliness but an emotional loneliness a well
Raphael defined the grief as being the emotions that accompany the loss, and described it as
a combination of anger, sorrow, weakness, blame and hopelessness. grief transform people
lives as it helps to overcome sadness and to move on for life. (Raphael 1984; p. 33).
Many scholars claimed that the grieving process is displayed through stages, phases and
tasks. They argued that even time is considered as having an effective power of healing, still
the person who grieve needs to do something to overcome this period in life. (Gross, n.d.)
Although, the grief experience is very individual, yet scholars such as Elizabeth Kubler,
John Bowlby, Colin Parkes, Therese Rando and William Worden have classified different
models of grief. They outlined it in five models of grief, four tasks of mourning and the dual
process model.
Kubler Ross claims that the bereave go thought renunciation, anger, bargaining, despair
and finally acknowledgement of the loss. While Bowlby found that the bereave might