How individuals think about their identity and how they react to others is a person's self-concept. Various factors in an individual's life can have a negative or positive effect on their self-image. By focusing on negative self-concept, we can observe recurring variables in their social environment that may trigger depressive symptoms. Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis begins when Gregor wakes up from his disturbed dream of a dung beetle. Gregor, the main character, and Kafka himself, experienced behaviors of insecurity, alienation, and depression in their relationships. For Gregor, these symptoms had a considerable effect on his self-concept: they led to a depressive and desolate ending. Kafka's misery in his real life was reflected in Gregor's transformation. The Metamorphosis exposes the result of a negative self-conception resulting from Gregor's feelings resulting from his relationships, alienation, and loss of communication. This essay will be able to provide evidence by describing the relationships in Gregor's and Kafka's lives, how their relationships and form of attachment trigger alienation, and the loss of communication can create a self-concept as demeaning as a dung beetle . of their social characteristics and personal attributes based on the relationships in their lives. These traits arise from how individuals have been treated and how they respond to security in attachment to relationships. According to the article Mary Ainsworth by Saul McLeod, this is the blueprint for attachment theory. In Kafka and Gregor, the type of attachment represented is avoidant and insecure attachment. An insecurely avoidant and attached individual is "independent of the attachment figure both physically and emotionally", whether or not in the middle of the article......Advances in Psychiatric Treatment Journal of Continuing Professional Development 15.6 (2009): 459-461. The Royal College of Psychiatrists. Internet. November 10, 2013. Farley, R. Chris. “A brief overview of adult attachment theory and research.” University of Illinois at Urbane Chapagne, University of Illinois at Urbane Chapagne. 2010. Internet. November 10, 2013. Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis”. New York: Dover Publication, 1996. Print. Lee, Eunju and Susan Stone. “Concurrent internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems: The mediating effect of negative self-concept.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 41.6 (2012): 717-731. Academic research completed. Internet. November 17, 2013.Loveday, Veronica. “Franz Kafka.” Franz Kafka (2005): 1-2. Historical reference center. Internet. November 15, 2013.McLeod, Saul. “Mary Ainsworth.” Simply psychology. Simply Psychology, 2008 Web. November 13 2013