Part 1: What is Attachment?
The Attachment Series:
Part 1
Edited By: Antonio T.
“We seek connection. We long for it and look for it – mostly in the right places and sometimes in the wrong places.”
Christina Reese
INTRODUCTION
In this first article, you will learn why human beings are inherently social, relational, and interdependent from the moment we are born.
How is it possible that relationships cause so much anxiety when they also bring so much comfort? What makes some people come off as clingy, overly attached, and needy and others as cold, rigid, and distant in their relationships? The answer is in understanding the theory of attachment. After helping countless clients find ways to build healthier relationships, I’m here to teach you the basics of attachment so that you too can learn small ways in which you can improve your relationships.
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT
Attachment is defined as the act of having a bond, affection, or fondness for someone or something (a job, an item, a pattern, etc.). In relationships, an emotional attachment can be described as an affectionate connection between persons. Simply put, emotional attachment is a way we love and form relationships.
Developing attachment is a lifelong process that starts in childhood. As a child, you have an innate desire to be seen, heard, and understood. You learn to meet your emotional needs by observing the cues, behaviors, and reactions people use to respond to your needs.
Through this process you develop a pattern of how to approach people, who to approach, and who to stay away from as you become an adult. This relationship pattern is what guides you in building relationships with others and over time it becomes a habit based on your past experiences. Eventually this habit becomes so instinctual that you don’t even recognize you are using an attachment system to develop and repeat patterns in relationships.
HOW ATTACHMENT FORMS AND HOW YOU EXPERIENCE IT
Your attachment system starts to form when you are in the womb and evolves based on the way you bond or fail to bond with caregivers as a baby. The process of developing this bond becomes especially important in times when a baby is upset. How a caregiver responds to a baby in distress influences how that baby will self-soothe or self-regulate when feeling anxious.
The caregiver-child relationship as it shapes your attachment system, in turn, informs your fight/flight/freeze tendencies. As a result, relational distress activates your fight/flight/freeze responses that can lead to unhealthy ways of managing conflict. These unhealthy fight/flight/freeze reactions can manifest in attachment-related anxiety.
As an adult, you may experience attachment-related anxiety if you feel that something or someone is threatening the bond you have in an important relationship. Over time, attachment-related anxiety may lead you to feel insecure and unsafe in your relationships and you may start to notice unhealthy patterns (e.g., codependency, choosing emotionally unavailable partners, sacrificing your needs, etc.).
ATTACHMENT CATEGORIES
Before we discuss the two main attachment categories, let’s do an activity.
ATTACHMENT ACTIVITY:
As you read the following descriptions notice which one resonates the most with you. Keep in mind that the description is not describing or defining love. Love can be defined in many ways and looks different to everyone. A caregiver can love a child very much and still not have the best caregiving/parenting skills to help the child cope with their feelings.
CATEGORY ONE:
As a child, you were more likely to have received consistent and reliable support, care, and/or affection from your caregivers when you were hurt, injured, upset, or in distress. As you grew up, you would have been more likely to be confident in who you are, found it easy to make friends or maintain healthy relationships, have good self-esteem, been able to rebound from failure quite well and move past life obstacles fairly well, known your needs and known how to assert yourself to set healthy boundaries and limits, felt safe and secure in your family system, and inherently believed that your caregivers/family would always be there for you in times of trouble or distress, no matter what.
CATEGORY TWO:
As a child you were more likely to have experienced inconsistent and unreliable support, care, affection, and you may even have experienced rejection or negligence from your caregivers when you were hurt, injured, upset, or in distress. As you grew up, you would have been more likely to experience self-doubt and maybe low self-esteem, struggled with making friends or maintaining healthy friendships, have difficulty with asserting yourself, have difficulty maintaining limits and boundaries, felt shame, guilt, anxiety, or indecision about life choices, or maybe felt insecure or unsafe in your family, and even wondered if your caregivers/family would be there for you if you were in trouble or in distress.
RESULTS
If you relate the most to Category One,
your childhood attachment is likely to be described as “secure”. A secure attachment is considered to be healthy and increases the chances that you will have successful relationships and feel more satisfied with your life choices. With a secure attachment, you are more likely to be able to work through negative experiences successfully and negative events don’t often deter you from working towards your goals.
If you relate the most to Category Two,
your childhood attachment is likely to be described as “insecure”. An insecure attachment is often associated with the experience of unhealthy anxiety in relationships and increases the chances that you will have feelings of distress or uncertainty in relationships. With an insecure attachment, you are more likely to struggle with working through negative life experiences and negative events may become obstacles for you that could likely deter you from working towards your goals. This may leave you feeling less satisfied with your life choices at times.
If you relate to SOME aspects of each Category,
you are likely experiencing secure attachments in some areas of your life and insecure attachments in other areas (e.g. secure at work but insecure in relationships, etc.). This is not uncommon because attachment falls on a spectrum. We have a tendency to want things to fit into categories or neat boxes, but things are not always so clear cut.
People aren’t perfect, and caregivers can provide BOTH healing moments in your childhood but can also make mistakes in how they respond to you. The reality is that many times, we learn some healthy ways of coping with certain attachment-related anxieties, and others we learn some unhealthy ways of managing our distress. Relating to aspects of both secure and insecure attachment categories means that you would want to focus on healing the areas that contribute to your specific attachment-related anxiety.
ATTACHMENT STYLES:
There are several specific attachment styles associated with these categories. Once you identify which attachment category you fall into you can identify which type of attachment style you have. I will go into more detail about the different attachment styles later on in this article series.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?
Remember that attachment theory doesn’t explain all aspects of how you react and behave in relationships, but it does provide you with an understanding of how you respond to attachment-related anxiety. While the concept of secure attachment gives us the framework for healthy relationships, it is something to work towards and the process takes time.
If you identify primarily with having an insecure attachment, it doesn’t mean anything other than your early childhood experiences led you to develop coping strategies that may be less effective in helping you resolve attachment-related anxiety. Insecure attachment and insecurity themselves are a part of the human experience—there is always room for improvement. No matter how healthy your upbringing, you will feel insecurity in some situations or relationships.
Being categorized as an insecure attachment simply means that you are still in the process of identifying, clarifying, defining, and learning how to assert your emotional needs.
FINALLY,
WHAT CAN I DO?
While your attachment is stable over time, you do have the ability to change, improve, and develop a secure attachment by learning skills to challenge your insecurities and anxieties. A few ways to begin addressing attachment issues would be to continue reading up on attachment and learn more about attachment styles (check out the recommended reading below). Therapy is also a great way to address attachment issues as your therapist can help you understand your attachment needs.
I encourage clients to address attachment issues when the anxiety they are experiencing becomes disruptive in everyday life. If you have experienced significant negative experiences in relationships, you may require the assistance of a professional to help you manage your attachment-related anxieties. Doing attachment work with a professional to heal attachment-related trauma can help you understand others around you and improves your ability to have healthy relationships with others.
If you are interested in learning more about the work that I do please check out my website to see if my approach might be a good fit for you.
RESOURCES
AND REFERENCES
RESOURCES
1. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love
REFERENCES
Ackerman, C. (2020, Sept. 9). What is attachment theory? Bowlby’s 4 stages explained. Positivepsychology.https://positivepsychology.com/attachment-theory/
Gonsalves, K. (2020, June 1). What is your attachment style? Attachment Theory, Explained. Mindbodygreen. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/attachment-theory-and-the-4-attachment-styles
Huang, S (2020, Nov. 3). Attachment styles. Simplypsychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment-styles.html
Reese, Christina. Attachment: 60 Trauma-Informed Assessment and Treatment Interventions Across the Lifespan (p. 2). PESI Publishing & Media. Kindle Edition.
Tatkin, S. Wired For Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain And Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict And Build A Secure Relationship. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
Wu, J. (2020, Mar. 13). Which of these four attachment styles is yours? Quickanddirtytips.https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/relationships/dating/your-attachment-style?utm_source=sciam&utm_campaign=sciam
