Attachment shapes our lives

Attachment is at the core root of everything; attachment informs our relationships; friendships; the environment we are drawn towards; and the way we feel about others, the world, and ourselves. Our attachments are imperative for the life we build, the values we develop, our nervous system and how it navigates our day to day, and the relationships we form. This is why attachment work is foundational and important in all that we do because the crucial years of development say a lot about how we choose to navigate our world and those experiences shape and mould us. Even though they shape and mould us and impact the beliefs we develop and the way we see things, attachment is not something that is set in stone. Attachment styles are not permanent and can be repaired and worked on with any age.

Our attachments inform our way of coping with hardship as we often rely on what we learn to cope throughout our younger years. If no one has taught an individual how to self-regulate, how can we expect a child to know what to do when experiencing those overwhelming and strong emotions? Culture often takes on a message that negative emotions are not discussed and often due to this, individuals never truly learn to regulate because no one is there to teach them what that looks like. There is no forced parenting manual people read and it makes parenting challenging because often individual’s are doing the best they can with the knowledge and resources they have. A lot of times we can end up modelling our care-giving after aspects of what our caregivers did or we may work hard to do the opposite of what caregivers did as an attempt to try to protect our children from our own experiences. There may be other reasons at hand for why caregivers cannot provide the nurturance and support needed for the child and this may be due to unavailability, death, illness, disability, immaturity, addiction, narcissism, a caregivers own traumatic experiences, having too much responsibility and things to do. Caregivers who have their own trauma may feel conflicted and confused as they navigate their unmet needs; their feelings of inadequacy; and their same want for care and nurturance while at the same time managing the needs and ongoing support and nurturance of a child. The caregivers needs can sometimes be projected onto the child and result in negative feelings when not provided (thoughts this child will love me and expecting to receive that love and nurturance from the child).

Past research has been reflected that in order to have “good enough” parenting, we need to be attuned to our loved ones approximately 30% of the time.

Attachment is important but often not explored and if it is, a lot of times it misses a very key attachment type. Our attachments are different for different people. How you attach to your mother is going to be different from how you attach to your father. Below is a brief overview of each attachment style and what this can look like.

Secure Attachment: Can be thought of as attunement towards the child with the development of basic trust. Children who have secure attachments have a feeling that they are being taken care of, watched, attentive to what we are doing, who we are with, and ensure that those in our surroundings are safe. They provide a sense of protection which in turn helps us to engage in self-regulation and self-care as we mature. Providing this to children also means that children learn to let their guard down and be themselves with their caregivers knowing it is a safe environment to do so. This can be reflected in parents who play with their children and attempt to better understand them by entering their world. Children with secure attachments also receive compassion, a presence of the caregiver, and a caregiver that is on our side and has our backs. Children feel heard, understood, known, and appreciated. Caregivers feel dependable and thus, children can naturally seek out support without fear and without uncertainty while also being able to offer support to others. This allows children to develop a sense of autonomy and interdependence. Children within reason are allowed to go off into the world, explore, make mistakes, make discoveries and know despite these mistakes, caregivers will still be there. With secure attachment lies safety but also includes boundaries and consequences that are reasonable and age-appropriate.

Avoidant/Dismissive Attachment: This often arises when caregivers are not sensitive to the needs of the child and may present as rejecting towards attachment behaviour (whether intended or not). Often individuals who hold this attachment style consistently have attempted to reach out to attachment figures or partners to not get the validating, supportive, and encouraging responses looking for. When an individual seeks out support and consistently does not receive it, this is taken in and the individual learns that it is more painful to reach out and not get the response they sought and learn it is safer to not reach out. Thus, the individual stops reaching out to others and learns to not ask for their needs or any form of connection because this becomes safer. This individual learns to no longer expect or hope for the ideal response and therefore, it can be difficult to comfort this person. This can be expressed through a very independent individual who does not rely on others and keeps to themselves. These individuals will often push back if support is offered as they have learned to not let others in because letting others in and being vulnerable is dangerous.

Environments that encourage the development of avoidant attachments often involve a child that is left alone too much such as not having enough face-to-face time with caregivers or having caregivers who were not present enough. The caregiver may be physically there but psychologically or emotionally removed. Some caregivers may only be present when providing lessons or feedback to the child thus, providing a message that they are only available if they are practical or functions. Caregivers who do not provide physical touch; who are not sensitive to the child’s emotional needs; who do note provide a timely or quality response; who do not provide consistent responsiveness; inconsistent facial expressions with emotions (smiling when angry); or caregivers who reject aspects of a child.

Anxious/Ambivalent: This often arises in individuals who had inconsistent responses from their caregivers. This may arise with caregivers who may be over-stimulating, intruding into their everyday life and not allowing space, bouncing between being over-involved and being non-existent, clinging, controlling, and high strung and then not there or supportive at all. The caregiver becomes unpredictable in their approach which can be confusing, anxiety inducing, and scary for the child. Caregivers in this attachment style go between two extremes of sometimes providing needs and sometimes not resulting in anxiety. There becomes the question of whether the support received will be enough, too much and overbearing, or being shamed for needs. Individuals with this attachment response may feel like they are throwing a dice when reaching out for support and may continue to do so in hopes of getting a reaction that allows them to feel safe.

Environments that encourage the development of anxious/ambivalent attachment styles involve environments where they did not receive consistent or reliable regulation from caregivers resulting in difficulties with self-regulation. This results in often relying on others to fill the need however, sometimes, these individuals will reject help due to the fear that once they receive this need they will be left. Caregivers may also interrupt the process of regulation for children where the child has begun to relax into the relationship to regulate, receive support, connection, nurturance, and love but the caregiver does one thing to disrupt this for the child. For instance, a caregiver’s own attachment needs from past wounding can sometimes cause this. Another factor that could impact the development of anxious/ambivalent attachment is over stimulation. If the child is actively trying to regulate themselves and a caregiver continually intrudes, does not provide space for growth and learning, attempts to maintain a constant connection, this can significantly impact the child’s development. Examples of this include a child that is putting up their hands in front of their face or turning their face away but the caregiver continues to push their face closer.

Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment: This often arises in situations where the caregiver responds in two contradictory ways, the caregiver is frightened by the child but also frightening to their children. In these families, the individual may reach out to the caregiver and the caregiver may react in a way where they are frightened by the child’s needs and engage in flight or freeze behaviours such as backing away, dissociating, becoming anxious, or overwhelmed. The caregiver may alternatively respond in a way that triggers their fight response as the child is frightening to the caregiver. Individuals with this attachment style often have their needs going unmet and they are instead met with fear and/or shame. In this interactions, although the caregiver may not appear frightened, the child sees nonverbal behaviour that expresses fear or instead see that their needs are met with anger and can result in feelings of shame. Children begin to think that they are bad and see what their communication of needs results in for their caregivers and caregivers may accidentally reinforce this (sometimes unintentionally) by saying things such as, “you make me so angry.” This can be overwhelming for a child and often results in the need to space out in order to temporarily detach from the situation. Frightened behaviour by a caregiver can be subtle and expressed in the form of backing away, a frightened tone, dazed expression, non-responsive, exaggerated startle, withdrawn, avoidant, or anxious. Frightening behaviour can be expressed by fight postures, looming, sudden movements, mocking, teasing, intrusive responses, emotionally reactive responses, loud, startling noises, aggressive responses, threats, and abuse.

Environments that encourage the development of disorganized attachment involve ones with constant feelings of chaos such as those who struggle with financial difficulties, addiction, living in a dangerous environment, constant disruptions, constant unreliability within the home thus making it difficult for the child to develop a sense of security. Constant shifts between emotional states can also contribute due to inconsistencies and confusion. Caregivers who engage in confusing communication such as double binds, mixed signals also create confusion and difficulty for children as children are faced with unsolvable problems resulting in a fear of failure.

Different caregivers may take on differing responses.

References:

Ferentz, L. (2014). Letting go of self-destructive behaviors: A workbook of hope and healing. Routledge.

Heller, D. P. (2019). The power of attachment: How to create deep and lasting intimate relationships. Sounds True.

Knipe, J. (2018). EMDR toolbox: Theory and treatment of complex PTSD and dissociation. Springer Publishing Company.