The Relationship Between Attachment and Depression

Abstract

Depression is an emotional disorder with low mood, lack of interest and pleasure. Depression lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems, reducing one's ability at work and at home. The incidence of depression is increasing dramatically, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression will be one of the most serious public health problems in the next 50 years. The cause of depression has always been the focus of researchers, and some researchers believe that depression is associated with insecurity attachment – whether it is in children, adolescents or early adulthood, depression is more related to insecurity attachment. Attachment theory aims to explore "interpersonal relationship" and believes that intimacy, including parental-kid attachment and adult attachment, is the basis of individual mental health. Individual attachment experience will gradually internalize, forming a unique internal working model, and individual interpersonal connection, which plays a lasting role to the development of emotions, personality traits and other aspects. In this article, we start with the attachment theory and discuss the effects of attachment on depression in different ages, and also focuses on the treatment of depression based on attachment theory. 1. The concept and classification of depression Depression is an emotional mental illness characterized by emotional symptoms, despair and sorrow. In addition to emotional symptoms, many people with depression have obvious physical symptoms. The three most common physical symptoms are loss of appetite, fatigue, as well as sleep disorders [1]. Depression can be divided into early onset depression and late onset depression according to the first onset of illness. It is generally believed that early onset depression refers to the first onset time is earlier than 60 years old, and late onset depression refers to the first onset time is later than 60 years old. However, some researchers claimed that the first onset of early onset depression should be before the age of 18, and late onset depression refers to the clinical population suffering from depression after the age of 60. It is currently considered clinically that there are different causes and neural mechanisms for early-onset and late-onset depression. In this article, we focus on early-onset depression, which includes childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and mid-adult of an individual. According to a survey in the United States, about 15% of children and adolescents have depressive symptoms, and children and adolescents with severe depression account for 3% to 5% [2]; 5% to 10% of children and adolescents in Italy have depressive symptoms [3]. In the adolescent stage, the incidence of depression increases with age. In China, the second grade of junior high is the key grade for the occurrence and development of depression. As grades and ages increase, the scores of depression among junior high school students have increased. In addition, some surveys show that the depression of Chinese college students has increased year by year. The prevalence of depression among college students in Beijing has reached 23.66%, and the national college students' suicides have accelerated. A large-scale (n=9090) epidemiological survey in the United States showed that the high incidence of depression was between the age of 29 and 44, and the average duration of depressive episodes was 16 weeks [4]. Currently, the tools commonly used to screen for depression include some self-rating scales, including the Hamilton Depression Scale, the Beck Depression Scale, etc. 2. From parental-kid attachment to adult attachment Attachment behavior mainly exists between infants and primary caregivers (usually referring to 5th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2019) Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 319