Attachment Types & Trauma: Insecure vs. Secure Attachment
To really understand the importance of attachment, we must have some basic understanding the development of the nervous system and brain.
To really understand the importance of attachment, we must have some basic understanding the development of the nervous system and brain.
In the first year of life we are sponges, absorbing everything in our environment, as well as the interaction with and between our caretakers. In the first years of life, we don’t have the capacity for a cognitive narrative (explicit memory) of our experiences, but instead the information goes into our nervous system and body (implicit memory).
Implicit memories occur before the brain has fully developed, especially the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for placing us in space and time. That means anything that occurs before the complete formation of the hippocampus isn’t rooted in the past, present, or future.
Most people cannot access their earliest memories, but are very aware when they’ve been triggered.
Attachment memories and trauma memories bypass the hippocampus altogether because early attachment memories occur prior to full development of the hippocampus and trauma memories because our nervous system is overwhelmed, cannot cope with the experience, and therefore, cannot integrate it with many high functioning parts of the brain.
Our brains have many extra cells that hold potential to be shaped for secure or insecure attachment. Our brains make adaptations based on the environment we grew up in and this is embedded in our body and nervous system.
If our nervous system as a child developed in response to constant threat, our stress response system will be highly activated in adulthood.
Through the development of the felt sense (somatic experiencing), of mindfulness to certain gestures and patterns of behavior, we may be able to bring some implicit memories to consciousness, where they become explicit. Explicit = consciousness.
Humans are fundamentally programmed to heal and form secure attachments. We can rewire our brain circuits and nervous system in the direction of safety and security. By doing this we are able to overcome early attachment ruptures and traumatic experiences.
The Four Attachment Types
Attachment styles developed to keep us safe. They helped us to survive. They are adaptations to our environment.
Often, we aren’t even aware of our attachment type until adulthood when we run into conflict and lack of intimacy, when the aftermaths of trauma surface and we don’t have anyone close to hold our hand.
It is the awareness to them that gives us the opportunity to continually seek secure attachment.
We can define secure attachment as relationship bonds filled with safety, authenticity, reciprocity, and loving presence. Insecure attachment implies that relationship bonds are entangled with fear and survival states.
There are four main attachment types, one secure and three that fall under the umbrella of insecure attachment. None of these attachment styles are life sentences. They are not set in stone. Often we experience different attachment patterns with different people. It’s not black and white, but we usually have one attachment type that is dominant. Our attachment blueprint becomes most evident when in an romantic relationship and or under stress.
Secure Attachment:
Grew up with responsive, loving, consistent caregivers and in adulthood they have healthy connections with others
You give and receive love, enjoy differences, and are natural problem solvers
Avoidant Attachment:
You keep people at an arm’s length and minimize the significance of relationships
You may have experienced neglect or rejection as a child
Ambivalent Attachment:
You experience a tremendous amount of anxiety around your needs being met, expressed, and question others love for you
You had parents that showed love, but it was unpredictable and inconsistent
You become hypervigilant of any hint of abandonment which sends your nervous system into overdrive
You anticipate this abandonment which makes you feel sad, upset, and disappointment in your adult relationships before anything even happens
Disorganized Attachment:
You swing between avoidance and ambivalent attachment styles
You struggle with emotional regulation, sudden shifts in energy, and dissociation
As a child your primary caregiver(s) were a source of fear, which was at conflict with your biological need to connect and survive
Where do you see yourself, your partner, you parents, your closest friends within these attachment styles? Remember, you can experience multiple attachment styles based on situations, stress levels and triggers, and the different qualities the other brings to the relationship.
The good news is that we never lose our innate capacity for secure attachment. It is always available for us to return back too.
Stress often leads to autopilot and default reactions, including insecure attachment patterns, thoughts, feelings, and reactions.
Secure attachment requires attunement. And in our early years, we only need good enough attunement 30% of the time by a primary caregiver to foster secure attachment. When the environment is positive enough, a child has the opportunity to learn trust implicitly.
Secure attachment influences our reactions, our receptivity, and our ability to truly enjoy connection with others. Our own secure attachment can invite another into their, and vice versa.
The Elements of Secure Attachment
Safety:
As a kid you felt protected and taken care of
As an adult you’re autonomous and self-sufficient
Presence:
As a kid you felt seen and understood
As an adult you have contingency in your relationships
Autonomy:
As a kid your independence was supported
As an adult you feel comfortable receiving support, expressing your needs, and transition from togetherness and aloneness without distress
Rest:
As a kid your caregivers played with you
As an adult you can be vulnerable and authentic with others and you laugh often
Trust:
As a kid you had a good enough environment that created a belief system that the world is mostly good and so are the people in it
As an adult you are discerning and have the capacity for forgiveness
PRACTICES FOR FOSTERING SECURE ATTACHMENT
Active Listening, giving someone your full attention
Being present without distractions by yourself and with others
Showing yourself compassion and practicing empathy with others
Sharing in an activity that requires joint attention
Staying connected with someone through touch, eye contact, and verbal articulation
Bringing consciousness and attention to transitions from aloneness to togetherness and vice versa
Being face to face and making eye contact with another person
Creating more opportunity to play (activity without purpose)
Trying new things with another person
Repair ruptures through apologies and actions
Paying attention when things are going right (not just when they are going wrong)
No matter the kind of attachment we adapted in childhood, we can foster secure attachment by learning the skills and resolving trauma.
By making the original attachment template more conscious we are able to heal ourselves and create healthy attachment patterns that benefit our relationships. We learn how to nurture safe environments and people, attune to when things are and aren’t going well, and how to identify when we are falling into the same destructive patterns.
Secure attachment is available to everyone.