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Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory
You can think of "attachment" as the scientific word for love.
Humans are hard-wired to attach to their caregivers. Scientists used to think babies only bonded to their parents because their parents fed them. This is hardly the case. If you've spent any time with babies, you know they require much more than food. They need comfort, safety, and predictability. Even before birth, babies are developing a relationship with their caregivers. This relationship becomes the foundation for the baby's future relationships
Secure Attachment
Secure Attachment
Being a baby is not all fun and games. In fact, it can be pretty distressing. Whether it's sleeping, eating, or going to the bathroom, babies need a lot of help.
When babies are upset, they cry for their caregivers. And they get upset a lot. Sensitive caregivers respond by rocking them, burping them, playing with them, changing their diapers, or just hanging out. If all goes right, their caregivers sooth them and babies feel better.
This cycle repeats over and over again. Babies learn through repetition that their caregivers are dependable and sensitive to their needs. They also learn that they can be soothed when they're upset. Over time, they internalize this process, eventually being able to sooth themself without their caregiver's help.
What I am describing is a secure attachment style. Babies with a secure attachment grow into adults who feel safe in relationships. They trust that their closest friends and romantic partners will be consistently available, sensitive, and soothing when needed. They depend on others without fear of being abandoned or rejected. They do not need to push others away. They feel loveable. They feel safe loving others.
Insecure Attachment
Insecure Attachment
Children develop an insecure attachment style when they experience their caregivers as inconsistent, insensitive, or unavailable. The keyword here is "experience." While caregivers might remember being consistent and sensitive, their child's experience might have been different.
Insecure attachment runs in families. Children with insecure attachments often have caregivers with insecure attachments. Caregivers with postpartum depression and unresolved trauma are more likely to have children with insecure attachments. Sometimes the fit between a child and caregiver is off, leading to difficulties relating and bonding to one another.
Preoccupied Attachment
Preoccupied Attachment
Adults with preoccupied attachment are anxious in relationships.
They fear being abandoned by their partner.
They feel unworthy and unloveable. They worry their partner will leave them for someone else.
Their emotions can feel overwhelming.
Preoccupied attachment is associated with low self-confidence, loneliness, and feeling powerless in relationships.
Dismissing or Avoidant Attachment
Dismissing or Avoidant Attachment
Adults with a dismissing attachment style struggle with closeness and intimacy.
Excessively self-sufficient, they tend to keep people at a distance.
They can present as cold or aloof. This is often defensive.
This attachment style is associted with unsatisfying relationships, competitiveness, and loneliness.
Fearful Attachment
Fearful Attachment
You can think of fearful attachment as a mixture of preoccupied and dismissing attachment styles.
Adults with fearful attachment believe intimacy is dangerous.
People with this attachment style often have histories of trauma.
They protect themselves by rejecting others.
They tend to have a negative perception of themself and others.
They feel they are unloveable. They feel others are dangerous and potentially harmful.
Fearful attachment is associated with low self-confidence, unassertiveness, distrust, and sensitivity to rejection.
Treatment for Insecure Attachment
Treatment for Insecure Attachment
Attachment style is not etched in stone. Psychodynamic therapy can help you develop a more secure attachment style.
Therapy is a space to learn how to have a secure attachment. You and your therapist build a foundation of trust, safety, and predictability. You analyze your relationships in depth, identifying your attachment anxieties and the defenses you use to manage those anxieties. The ways we respond to anxiety, clinging or pushing people away, prevents us from establishing secure attachments. It's a vicious cycle therapy can help you to break.
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