Attachment theory has been researched by John Bowlby M .D. (video), and Mary Ainsworth Ph.D. observing infants beginning at about 1o months of age discovering the significance of the formation of early childhood attachments having lasting effects throughout a person's life. Photo
Attachment is an emotional bond to another person. Psychiatrist, John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings" (Bowlby, 1969, p.194). Read moreNothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. These close emotional bonds what we call love were the focus of Mary Ainsworth's work. Her work can be described as the scientific study of love and how it develops. Her primary focus was on the infants developing love for its' primary caregiver. She saw this as the early form of a lifelong emotional bond. (quote from the video clip)
Additional resource the International Attachment Network
For the heterosexual boy at the same age in early childhood years has hopes and aspirations of wanting to marry his mother. These innocent childlike expressions of love for his mother are affirmed and are experienced as acceptable to the mother and the other adults in the child's life at the time. The child is told that he cannot marry his mother but that some day he can meet someone like his mother who he can marry.
This same situation for a gay male child, who is raised in a social environment that is influenced by antigay social and religious norms, his signs of affection for his father will be in a number of ways rejected, even scorned. In addition, not only will this boy be suffering from this kind of emotional abuse but he could also be physically abused, as well. When this male child expresses his desire to marry his dad he is likely to be told most emphatically in a shaming tone of voice that he cannot marry his dad that boys do not marry boys. The shock of this unforeseen forceful rejection of this male child’s most authentic and sincerest desire to express his love for his father can be quite traumatizing for him. Because it is an attack on the core of a human being most basic need to love and to be loved. This male child’s hopes and aspirations are not affirmed as acceptable, in fact they are considered unacceptable and offensive. Any child of either sexual orientation at this early age in childhood development will experience this kind of rejection as confusing and depending on intensity even traumatizing. This male child throughout his early childhood years is likely to experience this kind of rejection multiple times having different levels of severity because he does not understand what he is doing wrong. To a gay male child this kind of reaction is not only extremely hurtful but at the same time it most confusing, it does not make sense to him. There is no one who can help explain the overwhelming flood of emotions he experiences every time he reaches out to love. Ultimately a child will realize that he is not to trust his inner feelings to love and to be love that in fact he will ome to the conclusion that he is "always wrong" about love. This is one of many defenses any child would enact as a form of protection from what is experienced in a child’s mind as a horrific onslaught of rejection. This leaves the child living in an "implicit" form of isolation from human connectedness or bonding. Photo
They’re writing songs of love - But not for me ...A lucky star's above, but not for me,... With love to lead the way I’ve found more clouds of gray… Gershwin, 1960 Grammy Award Listen
According to Bowlby and Ainsworth, the attachment process would be seriously altered for this child realizing that his basic human need to be connected to another human being is somehow terribly wrong and unacceptable. If he persists he is threatened with the overwhelming fear of being abandon, which for a child at this early age of child development can be severely traumatizing. This is a form of "implicit" child abuse because for this child’s very basic need and expression to love and to be loved is inhumanly being denied. Photo
For a child will realize that his future well-being depends on how well he can suppress his need for love and human connectedness forever. And like with all traumatized victims, the child will instantly try to suppress as completely as possible any trace from his memory of his most innocent attempts to express his desire to love and be loved. Because he experienced this overwhelming feeling of disappointment and abandonment each time he has tried to do so. A child experiences overwhelming feelings as never ending.
Henry Krystal, M.D., in his book Integration & Self-Healing, Affect, Trauma, Alexithymia, explains the effects of abuse and trauma caused to children in the early childhood development years beginning in infancy. Such as a child who suffers severe disappointments tends to have difficulty being able to tolerate any kind of hopeful expectation of being fed or loved. This child as an adult tends not to be able to express any feelings or emotions other than anger. When a child’s contacts with a parental caretaker while growing up were consistently disappointing, the child soon learns that any expectations of his hopes being gratified will only provoke thoughts in the child of being hurt and feeling helpless. If, in early childhood developmental years, a child is not helped to feel that it is permissible to entertain that his hopes and wishes for future gratification are, in fact, acceptable, then this child will be pushed into a direction of hopelessness.
It is important to note that a male child who grows up to be gay but is “not” raised in social environments that are influenced by antigay social and religious norms does not experience problems connecting to others as those who do. The attachment process is not disturbed in this regard of experiencing rejection and abandonment for the expressions of the basic human need to love and to be loved. Also important to note that there are numerous factors of degree and kind that effect early childhood psychological development causing an infinite number of possible variations. Photo
The question to be answered is what kind of person is likely to be formed who is brought up by antigay social and religious norms and is taught that it is acceptable to live in an "implicit" form of isolation from human connectedness. Always depending on the kind and degree of
intensity of rejection experienced as child, though not always, as an adult this individual is likely not to be able to tune into the most essential part of bonding with another or other human beings. This is possible sometimes no matter how hard he may try to do so. He is likely to unknowingly treat others the same way he was treated as a child, which was “implicitly” inhuman. Observing this person from the outside, he is likely to appear picture perfect, productive, successful and even engaging interacting with many different groups of people. However, he may unknowingly be perpetuating his “implicit” form of isolation from any human contact, living a very lonely and depressing life. He may be suffering these symptoms and not have a clue why. He would tend not to know of any other way to live or that a happier life is possible, even for him. Photo
Through no fault of his own, his inability to attach to others may also be expressed in the lack of attachments in other meaningful areas of his life, schooling, career, job, etc. He may unknowingly love others from a distant, unconsciously attach to others and at the same time be pushing them away. For some like anyone fearful of attachments, it will seem like he has one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, sporadically alternating between the two, however, never seemly to get ahead. There may be a tendency that as soon as any relationship becomes too close and starts to feel anything like the most basic form of love that he felt as child, he is likely to push it away then to allow himself to feel the love. If this is true it will make prefect sense. Because as a child every time he allowed himself to experience this love, he immediately experienced such horrific pain. The protective defenses he put in place as a child, as an adult these early childhood defenses are likely to have become unconscious, remaining strong, intact and automatic, a reflex reaction to any hint of love.
It may follow that he will likely be quite confused why others are so rejecting of him. At the departure of someone he treated on the surface as almost insignificant, but unconsciously had been very attached to, he may find himself severely depressed or hurt by this person’s departure. He might even be quite angry at the person’s insensitivity for leaving, though this other person would have had no possible previously indication of any kind that he meant anything to him.
Lasting Psychological Harm of Antigay Religious Norms
What makes this “implicit” form of child abuse so insidious, as opposed to other types of child abuse is that (1) this type of child abuse will tend though not always to stem out of genuine parental love for the child and fear of the child’s well being in the future, as a gay adult. The child is likely to perceive the love as well as experience to pain and shame of rejection coming from his parents. It is different than other forms of child abuse because this “implicit” child abuse is not done knowingly, it is done out of real love for the child’s well being, as opposed to other forms of child abuse which are inflicted knowingly on a child and have no consideration of the child’s well being.
In addition, (2) it is likely in families with strong religious ties to a particular faith that has antigay religious norms similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church that the parents will feel the added pressure beside the antigay social norms to discipline their child’s same sex tendencies in early childhood development. This causes many unsettling ramifications for both the parents and the child throughout life yet to be explored, researched and studied. Even in the most benign cases of this kind of “implicit” child abuse, adding the dimension of God, can be most damaging to the child. Because unlike other forms of child abuse that are distinct, separate episodes of abuse that may be inflicted on a child multiple times, this form of “implicit” child abuse though has distinct episodes of abuse, tend to be continuous in nature with the added dimension of God.
“Continuous” Child Abuse of Antigay Religious Norms
This child learns or is told that same sex tendencies are offenses against God, which causes this form of “implicit” child abuse of having the potential of being a “continuous” form of abuse without end. If the child is taught the attributes of God, similar to that of the Roman Catholic faith that God is everywhere, all knowing, etc. (Catechism of the Catholic Church) as the child matures then any thought or any feeling of closeness towards another same sex human being that this child experiences naturally, a normal part of human sexual development for any child is however for this child taught to be serious offenses (mortal sins) against God and that God sees all. Because the child will learn that God sees everything, knows everything and is everywhere that there is no escape to be in secret or away from God. The child will try in earnest to stop having any sexual thoughts or feelings, which is humanly impossible to do.
Sexual Impulses Are As
Regular & Natural
As Breathing or A Heart Beating
Harmful Effects of Family Rejection of LGBT Youth
There is research that validates the harmful effects of family rejection of LGBT youth. Dr. Caitlin Ryan (video)of the Family Acceptance Project has presented the findings from her research in her paper “Groundbreaking Research on Family Rejection of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Adolescents Establishes Predictive Link to Negative Health Outcomes” published in the journal; the American Academy of Pediatrics Read more
Effie Malley is a senior prevention specialist at the national Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). She is one of the authors of SPRC’s Suicide Risk and Prevention for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth, and has given numerous trainings on the topic. Read more
