Adult Attachment Theory- CPM view

According to the Cognitive Principle Matrix, if a child experiences dysfunctional attachment with its caregivers, then four basic personality styles will develop and continue into adulthood, unless the dysfunction is resolved. The amount of awareness and resilience that a child has will determine the degree to which the dysfunction occurs.

Cognitive Principle Matrix is based on an adaption of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It defines the four main relationship needs as trust, respect, acceptance and commitment experienced in an atmosphere of love.

The four personality styles are:

• Normal. There is a high level of awareness and resilience, greater than the dysfunctional behavior.
• Overly controlling: Lacks awareness and or resilience to fix the unresolved issue. However, forces others to adapt to his/her unresolved issue. Mainly a lack of trust or respect.
• Overly responsible: May have awareness and resilience, but not sufficient to resolve the issue. Forces self to try harder. Mainly a lack of respect and acceptance.
• Overly Avoidant: May or may not have awareness, but has low resilience and avoids unresolved issues. Mainly a lack of commitment.

 HOW DOES DYSFUNCTIONAL ATTACHMENT OCCUR?

Dysfunction occurs when the balance between support versus challenge gets disrupted. An example of balance in support versus challenge is:

• A child is asked to pack away their toys [challenge] and the parent/carer shows them how to do it [support].
• The teenager has a split up [challenge] with their partner, and the parent/carer provides emotional support.

A baby will have a inherited personality style as a defense mechanism, which will increase if they experience dysfunction. The following 4 diagrams show how dysfunctional personalities are developed in child/teenage years

Note: This chart is not to be used to diagnose a condition, because individuals are more complex than shown below. It is provided as a method of understanding.

The following two charts explain how the dysfunctional attachment affects the adult. The first chart is the theory of the cognitive principle matrix. It highlights two points relevant to this topic, firstly, you can experience negative outcomes personally or not personally [behaviorally]

The second chart shows how the above information is used to explain the dysfunction of support versus challenge:

Note: The emotions in the column aren't meant to be hierarchical, but reflect the types of personality styles. As you move through the columns from left to right, you work your way out of the dysfunction [eg. rage, anger, assertive, respect], using higher levels of support provided by spiritual principles.

Column 1, shows dysfunctional emotions, experienced personally. A general interpretation is as follows;

Overly avoidant: This would represent the depressed person experiencing low challenge and low support. Their emotions are apathy and hopelessness.

Overly responsible: This would represent the anxious person experiencing medium challenge and low support. Their emotions are shame, panic and rejection.

Overly controlling: This would represent the aggressive or abusive person, experiencing high challenge and no support. Their emotions are rage and or paranoid fear.

Note: Because fear is the most dominate emotion, all personality types would experience high levels of fear, if they take things personally and they get no support.

Note: Spiritual principles are used to move the person to higher levels. For example, at column one the person is taught how to forgive themselves, by splitting the person from the behavior. Forgive the person, but deal with the behavior in a non-personal way. That is, they move to column 2.

Cognitive Principle Matrix's uses the Head brain and the Spiritual brain to control the Heart Brain [negative emotions] and the Gut brain, which intern supports the direction of the Head brain.

If the goal is to restore balance between challenge and support, the 4 brains work together to achieve this outcome.