Trust

The Trust Cycle refers to the sequence of routine behaviors of care that occur between the infant and primary caregiver during the first few months of life. The follow chart shows the various stages of the trust cycle:

Need	Child has need such as hunger, makes uncomfortable, disequilibrium
Emotional Response	The need creates an emotion such as rage or fear and the infant screams, cries, etc.
Gratification	If all goes well, the caregiver responds and takes care of the need and equilibrium is re-established
Trust	Trust is built

An example of the trust cycle would be the infant becoming hungry (NEED). The hunger brings feelings of uncomfortableness that then causes the infant to have an EMOTIONAL RESPONSE (screaming out in pain). In the ideal situation, the caregiver then brings a bottle in response to the infant's cry and feeds the baby (GRATIFICATION). Over time and repeated behavioral patterns such as this, the infant learns to TRUST the world.

In the less than ideal situation, the infant becomes hungry (NEED). The hunger brings feelings of uncomfortableness that then causes the infant to have an EMOTIONAL RESPONSE (screaming out in pain). If the caregiver does not respond (e.g., is absent, on drugs, unaware of the need, uncaring, etc.) the infant's needs to not get met and GRATIFICATION does not occur. Over time and repeated behavioral patterns such as this, the infant learns to not TRUST the world and begins to develop behavioral patterns to counteract not having needs met (e.g., becoming controlling, withdrawn, aggressive, uneasy to settle, demanding, etc.).