Attachment, Behaviour and Learning

Mental health is a critical issue for every society and people with mental health problems can be challenging – broken relationships and families, self-harm, aggressive responses, offending, are just the tip of the iceberg! Society responds with psychological treatments and medication but can also be punitive and exacerbate the problems.

However in terms of intervention, in my experience as a teacher and educational psychotherapist, the place where vulnerability can be easily identified is in early school years. All children in our society (UK), pass through the education system from age 4/5 years. Within this children are involved on a daily basis with education staff; teachers and support workers whose task is to enhance learning which plays a significant part in later engagement in work and society.

So, why are some children more vulnerable than others? The capacity to be resilient in the face of adversity is thought to be rooted in the experiences of early infancy. attachment theory helps us to understand the implications of early experience in relation to later life outcome, including learning. Attachment Theory originated with John Bowlby ( and has been extensively researched since. It traces the experience of early attachment with a significant carer, the negotiation of separation from that relationship and consequent capacity to experience loss and absence of that person. So let us examine the characteristics of attachment experience which have such significant implications.

The Secure Base

Human infants are very vulnerable for a long time and need the presence and protection of carers providing safety and survival. Within the close and intimate relationships with early carers, characteristics of the infant develop, which persist into adulthood and can be related to later educational engagement and achievement.

Within the context of the early one to one, intimate relationship the infant begins to experience who they are. Their bodily feelings and emotions are understood, given names and so become available as a vocabulary of sensations and emotions which are origins of self-awareness and enrich the possibility of understanding and communication - the basis of social interaction. And so by becoming known and understood by someone, over time, we come to know ourselves and so have the capacity to understand others – empathy – a core aspect of social interaction.

But infant experience can be beset by new and often fearful experiences. Responses by carers, to the arousal of fear and uncertainty, reassure the infant that their fear and alarm will be noticed and that they will be safe. Through the sensitive and empathic understanding of carers, fear becomes recognised, understood and transformed into words and thoughts. Anxiety is “contained” by being understood. Brain development responds to experience and the pathways of thought and language become available when fear and panic are aroused - the origins of a coping mechanism which in later life is the basis of resilience in the face of adversity, the capacity to respond to challenge and uncertainty with the capacity to think. Contained anxiety can facilitate thinking and learning. Excessive uncertainty can inhibit thinking and learning.

The future pupil has thus developed the capacity to cope with uncertainty and so to experience the unknown and to explore what they do not know – the basis of learning. In order to learn you have to tolerate not knowing.

Extensive follow-up studies of the samples of cases observed and studied in the early attachment research clearly indicated that secure attachment is the factor linked to children’s more successful engagement in school, - in terms: social competence, curiosity, effective play and investigation, sympathy towards others and so a secure enough start prepares the child to become the pupil. The pupil can engage with the teacher and the learning task in the context of the social interaction of the classroom group.

Insecure Experience

However such reliable secure enough experiences are not always available and many children experience insecurity in early relationships. Adverse experience of early attachment not relieved by more positive relationships with others is likely to have negative implications for communication, behaviour and learning and for self-esteem, coping with adversity and expectations of adults – with implications for learning. Ainsworth’s research (1969) identified a range of attachment behaviour patterns that can be identified in the classroom in terms of responses to the teacher and learning.

Avoidant Behaviour in the School

Avoidant behaviour reflects a relationship in which the primary carer finds intimacy and closeness difficult and the infant does not experience the reliable sensitivity associated with secure attachment. The infant can perceive this response to their need for closeness, as rejection and so the teacher can become imbued with the expectation that they will be rejecting and remind the pupil of their unmet need for affection and closeness but associated with strong feelings of anger.

By avoiding interaction with the teacher, the pupil can seem independent and self-reliant – characteristics which we could find attractive in the classroom - but which may disguise their difficulty in approaching and relying on the teacher. The pupil remains focused on the task as a safe and concrete area of engagement and almost an emotional safety barrier protecting him from strong feelings about the relationship. Self-reliance is at the core of their coping mechanism but the strong underlying anger may be directed at others. There is also a tendency that such repressed feelings can inhibit creativity and affect drawing and writing as if open-ended tasks were a threat. There is a tendency to prefer structured, concrete tasks for which there is a clear and unambiguous solution.

Ambivalent Behaviour in the Classroom

Behaviour identified as ‘Ambivalent’ describes a very different experience. The experience of unreliable attention can leave the infant feeling unsure of maternal attention and their behaviour reflects their need for constant and often physical contact in order to be assured of the attention of their carer or of the adult. Separation is threatening because absence can feel like being forgotten – a dangerous void. Such pupils may be very anxious about the separation involved in attending school and illness may be used to stay at home and maintain physical contact between infant and mother, meeting mother and child’s needs for a constant presence as reassurance in the face of fear aroused by separation and autonomy.

Behaviour in the classroom can reflect the anxiety of the pupil whose fear is aroused by the loss of teacher attention. The task is rejected as a threat to the relationship with the teacher and the pupil can become expert at directing attention towards themselves by their apparent helplessness and dependence. Responses in the classroom are to focus on the relationship with the adult rather than attention to the task – the task is a threat and intrusion into the need for adult attention.

Disorganised Behaviour in the Classroom

The most challenging behaviour in school is often that experienced with pupils whose attachment behaviour reflects Disorganised characteristics. This pattern was identified by researchers as a small minority whose behaviour seemed to have no coherence or consistency. Such behaviour is often identified as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and associated with exclusions, off-site units, specialists Behavioural Difficulty provision and often looked after children; and later many seek the relative “protection” of peer groups and gangs. The prison population may also reflect this pattern. Early life experiences reflect severe adversity and trauma; profound uncertainty, neglect and often abuse, drug and alcohol misuse and domestic violence. The behaviour reflects little capacity to cope with fear and uncertainty and a poorly developed ability to communicate verbally about emotions and feelings - which leads to acting out as a way of communicating experience. Acting out becomes the most active form of communication of unprocessed experience.

They may confront and defy the teacher and ignore their authority. Such omnipotence involves denigrating what they don‘t know – learning is rubbish. Lack of emotional awareness of self and others can lead to relentless and unresolved conflict with others. In the face of challenging behaviour, we need to think before we react. We need to step back and de-escalate the tension by removal to a safe space with concrete, routine activities which shift the brain from reactivity to a calmer state. Only then can actions be put into words and the possibility of reconciliation be possible. We need to avoid our instinct to punish and exclude when we are faced with such overwhelming challenges to our capacities to think.

The processes of intervention in response to such profoundly uncertain children may have to begin from the outside in, rather than from the basis of a relationship and involves a reflective process that can think about them rather than react to them.

School as the Secure Base

Safety is at the heart of intervention and school is often the first experience of a safe place, and such pupils can be ‘persistent attenders’. Non-reactive responses are essential. In well supervised, calm classrooms, with predictable routines and consistent discipline and responses, such pupils can begin to feel safe enough. Separations and endings can feel like being emotionally dropped and reminders of previous absences and abandonment and need to be carefully planned and anticipated. Any changes need to be anticipated, thought about and planned. Consistent teachers and other relationships, mean that the pupil experiences being held in mind over time and begin to experience feeling known and understood. Tasks which are do-able, concrete and focus on eye-hand coordination can be calming. Metaphor and stories can begin the process of developing the language of emotional expression and self-awareness, without triggering the pain of personal history.

Schools can and do make very significant contributions to the experience and stability, consistency and sense of being known and belonging, that can begin to make a difference to the sense of self for such profoundly vulnerable children. School can begin the first consistent experience of safe and thoughtful containment – and surely a more hopeful investment than prison. School will be the first experience of a secure base.

This brief discussion of the insight afforded by attachment theory to an understanding of pupils’ behaviour and responses, to the challenges implicit in learning, indicate the enormous potential in school systems to changing negative internal working models of vulnerable pupils whose early beginnings have been less than secure enough and a significant contribution to the well-being and mental health of the community. It is predicated on an understanding that social and emotional experiences that can inhibit learning in school. In particular the awareness of the teacher to the meaning of pupil behaviour and responses which enhances their role and skills - as a teacher. Schools can and do make a significant contribution to the well-being of society.

Dr Heather Geddes is an Educational Psychotherapist and has worked in a variety of settings in education and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, concerned primarily with pupils presenting challenging behaviours. She is the author of ‘ Attachment in the Classroom: the links between children’s early experience, emotional well-being and performance in school ’. (Worth Publishing 2006). She currently works as supervisor, trainer and consultant and is an active member of the Caspari Foundation which provides training to teachers and others working with children whose learning is affected by social and emotional experience.