Our Knowledge Base

Our knowledge base on the making and breaking of attachments

We believe that the way in which children are currently moved from foster carer into adoptive families is out of step with our collective knowledge base on attachment and loss in childhood.

What follows is a summary of what we believe are some of the most crucial guiding principles about separation and loss in young children.

​We believe that these principles should be informing all our policies in this area, whether it is from foster care into adoption, or indeed any situation where a child has to move from one attachment figure to another. 
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  1. Losing a parent figure in childhood is traumatic at whatever age it happens but particularly in the first three to four years of life (Bowlby, 1980; Brier, et al., 1988; Rutter, 1971; Winnicott, C, 2004). Children who have had a good first attachment may well be better able to form new attachments in time but their loss will be just as profound. 
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  2. Children experiencing such a loss – particularly those who have already suffered from loss, neglect or mistreatment – are likely to experience acute feelings of confusion, mis-trust, fear and a profound sense of abandonment (Burnell, Castell and Cousins, 2009; Hindle and Shulman, 2008; Sinclair, et al., 2005). 

  3. How the loss is planned for and managed, how gentle or how abrupt the separation is and how much emotional support and understanding is given to the child at this time are all crucial factors in deciding how traumatic this loss might be and how well the child can recover from it (Aldgate and Simmonds, 1988; Brier, et al., 1988; Winnicott, C, 2004). 

  4. As long as it is handled sensitively, the ongoing presence of an existing attachment figure, remaining available and continuing to have a supportive role, can reassure and help children rather than adding to their confusion; it can also reduce the trauma of sudden and unaccountable loss (Bowlby, 1980; Robertson and Robertson, 1989).2 

  5. The grieving process, which includes the expression of distress and anger, is psycho- logically crucial if the child is to recover from significant losses and go on to make deep and trusting relationships (Bowlby, 1980; Fahlberg, 1994; Freud, 1917; Hindle and Shulman, 2008; Klein, 1940; Lanyado, 2003). As Vera Fahlberg explains, ‘Unresolved grief interferes with forming new attachments, thereby inhibiting positive growth and change . . . the more abrupt the loss the more difficult it will be to complete the grieving process.’ (Fahlberg, 1994: 133–34).

  6. As adults it is hard to witness a child’s distress. This is true even in an ordinary setting, let alone in situations of such profound loss. Our capacity to be emotionally attuned and responsive to children suffering from loss will have a big impact on their capacity to mourn and to seek comfort. Conversely, adults who cannot bear the children’s pain can become cut off themselves and unwittingly send out a message that the children’s feelings are unwanted. Although planning carefully to minimise the pain of a move is crucial, we have to be careful not to be lulled into believing that with enough continuity and planning the pain of loss can – or should – be avoided altogether (Dozier, 2007; Fahlberg, 1994; Robertson and Robertson, 1989; Romaine, et al., 2007, Sellick and Thoburn, 1996; Sinclair, et al., 2005). 

  7. Children react to loss in a variety of ways and do not always show their distress overtly. Even in infancy children who are already vulnerable because of early neglect, abuse or separations are particularly prone to defend themselves by cutting themselves off from their emotional state, becoming outwardly compliant and apparently unaffected, suggesting avoidant attachment patterns (Ainsworth, et al., 1978; Howe, et al., 1999). It can be very easy to mistake avoidance and over-compliance for genuine ‘resilience’. 
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  8. Research and practice show that one of the most distressing aspects of being in the care system is the experience of broken attachments, leaving children with an underlying sense of impermanence and low self-esteem (Sellick, et al., 1996) – what Donald Winnicott called a ‘breaking of the continuity of the line of an individual’s existence’ (Winnicott, D, 1986). Maintaining contact with people they care for has been cited by young people themselves as increasing self- worth and a sense of ‘mattering’ to people (C. Freeman, personal communication, 2009). This may particularly apply to children who remain in the care system, but it also applies to adopted children, who – however much they are loved – with their history of broken attachments are also vulnerable to underlying feelings of being displaced, unloved and insignificant. 

References
  • Ainsworth, Mary, et al (1978), Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale, NJ
  • Aldgate, J. And Simmonds, J (eds) (1988), Direct Work with Children, BAAF 
  • Bowlby, John (1980), Attachment and Loss, Vol 3: Loss, sadness and depression, New York: Basic Books
  • Brier et al (1988), Early parental loss and development of adult psychopathology. Archives of General Psychiatry  45
  • Burnell, A et al (2009) ‘Planning Transitions for children moving to permanent placement: what do you do after you say hello?’ Family Futures Practice Paper
  • Dozier, M (2007), ‘Caregiver commitment in foster care’, in Attachment Theory in clinical work with children: Bridging the gap between research and practice, Guildford Press
  • Fahlberg, V (1994), A Child’s Journey Through Placement, BAAF
  • Freeman, C (not yet published), Now and Then: reflections on relationship from adults who were in care and their carer
  • Freud, S (1917), ‘Mourning and Melancholia’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XIV (1914-1916)
  • Hindle, D and Shulman, G (eds), (2008) The Emotional Experience of Adoption: A Psychoanalytic Perspective. London: Routledge
  • Howe, D and Feast, J, Adoption, Search and Reunion: The long-term experience of adopted adults The Children’s Society, 2000; republished by BAAF, 2003.
  • Howe, D et al (1999), Attachment Theory, Child Maltreatment and Family Support: a practice and assessment model, Macmillan
  • Klein, M, (1940), ‘Mourning and its relation to manic-depressive states’, in International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 21
  • Lanyado, M (2003), ‘The Emotional Tasks of Moving from Fostering to Adoption: Transitions, Attachment, Separation and Loss’ in Journal of clinical child psychology and psychiatry,  London, Sage Publications
  • Robertson, J and J (1989), Separation and the Very Young, Free Association Books London 
  • Romaine, 2007, Mary Romaine et al, 2007, Preparing for Permanence, BAAF
  • Rutter, M (1971), ‘Parent-child separation: psychological effects on the children’, in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, vol 12 
  • Sellick, Thoburn et al (2004), ‘What works in adoption and foster care?’ Barnado’s Policy and Research Unit 
  • Sinclair, I, et al (2005) Foster Children: Where They Go and How They Get On, 
  • London, Jessica Kingsley
  • Wakelyn, J (2011) ‘Therapeutic observation of an infant in foster care’ in Journal of Child Psychotherapy, Vol 7, Routledge, 2011
  • Winnicott, C (2004) ‘Face to Face with Children’ in Working with children, London: Karnac
  • Winnicott, D (1986) Home is where we start from: essays by a psychoanalyst, New York: W W Norton & Company, p22
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