Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

by Karl Pillemer

This process of seeking out an adult who offers care and protection is built into children. Indeed, it helped ensure human survival because our offspring cannot fend for themselves for many years. When people to whom they are attached are easily accessible and responsive, children feel secure; if not, children respond with anxiety. Growing up in a family, we develop attachments to parents and other members naturally; it becomes part of our mental makeup. This biologically based process of bonding has enormous effects over the entire life course. We never cease to need the benefits that attachment relationships provide. People to whom we have lifelong attachments serve as a secure base when we are in trouble, protecting us when needed physically or psychologically. The presence of these attached figures helps us get through life’s difficulties and, more important, gives us a feeling of being at home