Applying Mary Ann's Attachment Theory

Sables (2000) explains that with Attachment Theory it helps to explain how early childhood experiences affect the way people act and interact with others as adults. In the case of Mary Ann, she lost her mother at the age of 3 to leukemia. She has no memories of her mother and does not speak about her much to anyone nor does her family, when asked about her mother she shows a flicker of sadness in her eyes and states that she’s dead and leaves the conversation at that. Li et. al., (2008) states that when it comes to the process of grief children are at a detriment because of their developmental vulnerableness. There are a handful of different risk factors that can keep a child from going through the common steps of grief and loss that are
As a child she would be seen walking across the exposed support beams of her family's barn holding onto nothing around her and once almost fell off but managed to catch herself, pull herself back up by herself and continue playing as if nothing had happened. As an adult she does not take care of herself physically because she is focused on caring for others in her life. She works two jobs and then comes home everyday to cook and clean the home and care for her sickly father. She never gives her body a chance to rest and when offered help from others she refuses, so like the young Mary Ann on the support beam despite the risk of injury from falling then to health issues now, she will not grab the support structures around her to help hold her
Her first day of school she gets into a physical altercation with two boys who laughed at her for being in the first grade class due to her illiteracy when she was supposed to be at a third grade reading level with her peers. She even bite the teacher that broke up the fight and escorted her to the principal's office. Later on the bus ride home, two older girls heard the story and giggled at Mary Ann, she then leapt at both of them and began beating them both up right then and there. She does not have the ability to stop and process her feelings before her body immediately reacts. As an adult her temper is still short and some of her reactions are still quick knee jerking reactions to a difficult emotional situation that she does not know how to handle but she has been able to grow in maturity and give herself the time to process through a situation before immediately becoming