Ambivalent Relationships and Stress
Matthew Trugman
Wake Technical Community College

Ambivalent Relationships and Stress Ambivalent, the term according to the site dictionary-psychology.com, is “1- The coexistence of contradictory emotions, attitudes, ideas or desires with respect to a particular person, object or situation. Ordinarily, the ambivalence is not fully conscious and suggests psychopathology only when present in an extreme form.2- The simultaneous holding of strong positive and negative emotional attitudes toward the same situation or person.” This is only a start after a little more fumbling through papers on the correlations of the four attachment styles three names seem to come to mind after researching this a little deeper: Sigmund Freud (1901) the father of psychoanalysis had skimmed the surface on attachment theory to reach the meat of the topic of attachment theory and ambivalent relationships John Bowlby (1950) and later in his collaborations with Mary Ainsworth (1956). Developmental psychologist and psychoanalysts Bowlby changed the way we think about the bonds between guardians and the children they protect. Mainly Bowlby (developed his theories after WWII working in hospitals with children and observing the patterns of attachments. Later he worked with Mary Ainsworth and came up with systems for classifying three basic relationship patterns; reunited children with parents after prolonged sanatorium stays. The children observed with strong positive feelings toward their mothers. The second group of children observed in the hospital with markedly ambivalent relationships. A grouping of children with no expressive, indifferent, or hostile relationships with caregivers Although it seems that the issues dealing with ambivalent relationships are tangled in a dense web of unmentionable possibilities, the traits of early childhood development throughout the personality developmental stages and eventually adulthood all have ties to the process and behaviors of the vastness of time and aging.

Four Attachment Styles There are four attachment styles that have been identified within the attachment theory as by Mary Ainsworth (1967) are: Secure, avoidant-insecure, ambivalent-insecure, and later disorganized. The effects of a child with anxious-ambivalent attachment reveal itself typically in children that anxious of going into the world on explorations and of strangers, with disregard of the mother being present. This was observed in “the strange situation” an experiment involving children from 11 months-18 months old. When the mother departs the child is extremely distressed. The child becomes ambivalent less inclined to show attention to the caregiver upon return. The child will seek to remain close to the mother but resentful, and also resistant when the mother attempts to reestablish attention. (Ainsworth, 1970) the ties of ambivalence and overall well beings can be though social relationships by gender, generation, psychological by personality traits, neurotics and by interviewing of positive and negative feeling the stress due to ambivalent relationships encountered as a child can rarely be reason for serious alarm but as stated cause difficulty in forming and maintaining ongoing relationships both physiologically and psychologically causing stress in the partner. (Birdit, Miller, Fingerman, Lefkowitz, 2009) The traits of neuroticism as a personality trait seems to have a higher relevance in intergenerational ambivalence a study reported that parents reported greater ambivalence when they or their child scored higher on neurotic behaviors and tended toward negativity and emotionality. The parents of this study also may have experience sensitivity to relationship experiences. (Fingerman, 2006) The study and effects of this ambivalent-insecure on early childhood development manifest themselves in relationship problems as adults. There seems to be a correlation to the relationship of children with