meta: "What is Your Childhood Trauma?": Parenting and Attachment Styles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[tiny_white_hats]

Buffy meta for month_of_meta. This is psychological in nature, but I'm pretty sure it's totally accessible to anybody without any background in psychology. My entire background in psychology culminates in my big psych final exam tomorrow afternoon for my one semester psych class, so none of this is too advanced.

This is a discussion of Buffy Summers, Xander

Comments

[dreamsofspike]

I agree with most of this :)

I do feel like Buffy had some major daddy issues following the divorce, when her dad basically emotionally divorced her too, not just her mom, gradually getting to the point where he disappeared from her life :( I think this influenced all of her relationships with men from that point on in a negative way... combined with her Slayer-ness and her increasing realization of how alone it really made her, I think she projected a fear of abandonment learned with her father onto every guy she was ever with, except possibly Riley, who then did abandon her, both emotionally and physically...

As for Xander, I think his is a textbook example, exactly as you described...

And with Willow, something interesting I thought about when watching the episodes toward the end of Season 5 - I think Willow's mother, as authoritarian parents generally do, regularly discounted Willow's feelings, dismissive and disrespectful of them, when she did take the time to listen to them - and the source of Willow and Tara's first big fight, right before the Glory mind-suck incident, was when Willow got the impression from Tara's words that Tara was suggesting their relationship was "just a phase" she was going through and she'd change her mind later on.

To me, this seems to be a potential sore spot for Willow because that's how her mother seemed to view her - like a case study from a text book, not like an actual person with individual thoughts/feelings/personality. I think it hurt Willow to be so belittled and reduced in that way, and when she felt like Tara was doing the same thing to her, it caused that big fight between them.

But anyway, yeah, this is very thought-provoking and interesting and in my opinion, pretty much spot on :)

[tiny_white_hats]

Thank you! I think you definitely raise some interesting points about Buffy and her abandonment issues, and I agree. I think her father exhibited a secure style of attachment when Buffy was younger, but that the divorce did adversely affect her as well, leaving her with some abandonment issues. Plus, Angel, Riley, and Giles all leaving her probably didn't help.