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Attachment and the Emotional Unit
Author(s) -
DONLEY MARGARET G.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1993.00003.x
Subject(s) - dyad , psychology , unit (ring theory) , dimension (graph theory) , social psychology , developmental psychology , natural (archaeology) , outcome (game theory) , cognitive psychology , mathematics , geography , mathematics education , archaeology , mathematical economics , pure mathematics
Until recently, the mother‐child relationship was assumed to be the primary relationship affecting the outcome of an individual. This resulted in the mother‐child dyad being seen and studied as separate from the family system in which it is embedded. This article asserts that, in order to understand this dyad adequately, one must understand “how” the family functions as an emotional unit that is guided by processes found in evolution and in relationships between living things. It goes beyond describing the family as a system of influence and seeks to account for the universal processes that occur in natural systems. It posits that the triangle is the basic building block of the emotional unit, and proposes a new theoretical dimension for understanding how attachment extends beyond dyads (such as parent‐child) to include the emotional unit as a whole. Through triangles, the parent‐child relationship is continually influenced by relationship forces operating within the system as a whole.