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How our attachment styles can affect our everyday lives

Attachment is usually generated from our very early childhood. It is an innate biological driven behaviour which is found in humans, especially infants, who attach to those people who care for them. In the attachment dynamic, illness, threat and exhaustion all trigger care-seeking behaviours, and only the primary caregiver will suffice to provide that care. Once the need for care is met, secure attachment is a platform for play and exploration. In parallel, vulnerability and care-seeking trigger altruistic caregiving. Our attachment development can be healthy (secure), suboptimal (insecure organised) or pathogenic (insecure disorganised). They are not immutable but are self-perpetuating, and are reproduced in subsequent intimate relationships, even into adulthood. In this post we will look at the origins of attachment theory and describe differing attachment theory styles.

During his research in the 1930s, Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz discovered a phenomenon known as ‘imprinting’, which occurs when an animal forms an attachment to the first thing it sees upon hatching. He found that newly hatched goslings would follow the first moving object they saw, which at times was even Lorenz himself. Lorenz’s work influenced British psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who had a particular interest in child development and did pioneering work in attachment theory.

John Bowlby was the founder of attachment theory and worked at the Tavistock Centre in London, which still works with children and young people who have got issues with attachment. At the end of the Second World War, Europe was in ruins, and as a consequence, there were a lot of orphaned children. Bowlby was asked by the World Health Organisation if he could do research into what happens if children were taken away from their mothers at a very early age, and he developed a biological theory of maternal attachment. He concluded that early social attachment between an infant and a caregiver is essential for normal social development. Meaning that if a child felt secure and safe in the world and bonded with the caregiver, the child would grow up to be fairly emotionally regulated, and able to trust themselves in the world and trust others. He also determined that babies and mothers have an innate tendency to form attachment. 

Now when we talk about attachment, primary caregivers can be male or female. However, they have to be giving a kind of caregiving that the child can recognise. The primary caregiver is still usually a mother figure, and is seen as the one who gives love and nurturing. The secondary caregiver is the one that helps a child take risks in the world and develop a sense of identity, so that they can leave caregivers behind at some point and go on to make their own life.

In the 1950s, another psychologist, Harry Harlow, did experiments in which he separated baby monkeys from their parents and created two false parents. One was a wire mesh model of a monkey with a feeding bottle in it, the other was a wire mesh model of a monkey without a feeding bottle but covered in a cloth nappy. He found that when the baby monkeys were stressed, they would spend more time clinging to the cloth-covered monkeys than they would to the monkey with the food. He called that ‘contact comfort’, in the same way as when someone puts their own comfort ahead of food, and clashes with Maslow’s theory, which said that we need food more than we need anything else. Harlow’s research says that in some situations, we’ll sacrifice food for comfort. 

Later, Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby’s research assistant, developed a new paradigm. In the 1970s she undertook what she called ‘strange situation experiments’. The situation involved a room full of toys with a one-way piece of glass, so people on the outside of the room could see in, but people on the inside of the room couldn’t see out. A mother and a small child entered the room, the child played with the toys, then a stranger walked in and started to talk to the mother. Then the mother walked out leaving the stranger with the child. The child usually became upset. The mother returned and the stranger left and the child went to the mother or acknowledged the mother, this being a healthy (secure) response. However, children with suboptimal or pathogenic (insecure) attachment styles reacted differently. Mary Ainsworth could work out what kind of attachment style the child had from a behavioural perspective, according to how it reacted to the situation, because of the way the child had been brought up, meaning that the overall behaviour of the caregiver affected the behaviour of the child. Differing forms of caregiving can lead to a child developing a worldview on how much to trust others and themselves and this carries on into adulthood. 

In the 1980s, Mary Mains and Judith Solomon extended Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s ideas, coining the term ‘Disorganised Attachment’, and identifying how children of abusive or unresponsive parenting may form attachments. A natural reaction of a child when threatened is to seek comfort and protection from a caregiver. However, if the caregiver is the abuser, the child finds themselves in a paradoxical situation when trying to elicit comfort from the person who’s abusing them. Part of them wants to receive love and to reduce their stress, but at the same time, the person that they go to for that is the person doing the abusing. Faced with this no-win situation, children introject their feelings and consequently become confused and angry. Reactive attachment is on the psychopathological scale. However, despite not having developed empathy in their upbringing, in some situations people can change and develop it.

When a child who feels secure in the world feels threatened, they feel alone and seek a primary caregiver’s attention. For instance, if they get hurt or are frightened by something, they usually run back to the caregiver and hide behind them, as that is usually the person who nurtures them. This person is known as a ‘secure base’, or a place a child returns to for comfort. When the threat is removed, other systems of behaviour are activated, such as exploration, affiliation, and caregiving, and they feel that they can go on to re-bond with the caregiver. ‘Proximity maintenance’ is when a child keeps a caregiver in sight. For instance, when a child runs off and stops to look over their shoulder to make sure that the caregiver is still there. They are exploring the world, which is healthy, but they get to a point where they’ll look back and think, ‘Is my caregiver still there?’ Another typical attachment behaviour is ‘separation anxiety’, when a child gets very upset and cries when they are put into the care of someone else, for instance, if we hand a child over to a nurse for vaccinations. ‘Social referencing’ is when a child looks at a caregiver to see how they should respond. For instance, when a child has misbehaved, they may start smiling and laughing as a defence mechanism. As they are in an uncomfortable position, they look for a friend. By smiling, they elicit support from their caregiver or the wider community. ‘Object consistency’ is a consistent approach from the caregiver. 

There is a middle ground between the biological perceptions and ideas of Bowlby and the behavioural ideas of Ainsworth, and Mains and Solomon. Meaning that when babies are born, if they are treated with security and love, their brains will wire up in a way that gives them security in the world and they develop a secure attachment style. However, if they lack security and love, their brains will wire slightly differently and they develop a different attachment style. 

Ainsworth found that parental sensitivity is important to establishing secure attachment, as this facilitates timely and appropriate responsiveness to infant distress, and an ability to read and regulate children’s and the caregivers’ own emotional states. The mother’s face is typically the child’s first mirror, and where the child therefore finds themselves. On the other hand, if caregivers find it hard to tolerate their children’s negative feelings, then affect suppression develops, leading to avoidant/deactivating children. Meanwhile, inconsistent parenting, for example, when caregivers amplify and dwell in negative emotional states and relative helplessness, results in hyperactivating children. 

Gergely and Watson proposed that infants are innately equipped with a complex perceptual mechanism known as the ‘contingency detection module’, which asserts that the caregiver’s reflections of the infant’s displays of emotion play an important role in helping the infant to develop emotional self-awareness and control – sometimes known as ‘affect regulation’. ‘Affect’ is a term from psychotherapy which refers to ‘feelings, emotions, mood, rather than to cognition or behaviour’ (Feltham and Dryden).

As the infant grows, partial mirroring may develop, with the child and the caregiver each responding to the other in a way that slightly changes what the other has said/done, so building a kind of dialogue. Malan (1979) refers to this phenomenon as ‘leapfrogging’. Sometimes, mirroring may be distorted, for example by parental depression or by the caregiver being tone-deaf and therefore unable to respond to the child’s vocalisations in a way that feels reciprocal. 

Attachment is a gradual process. Strong evidence suggests that children learn and form attachments in the womb, with the majority of theorists now supporting this idea, which is why we read our children stories or talk to them in the womb before they’re born. From 0 to around 6 months, babies develop a primary attachment, where they are interested in the primary caregiver, usually a female because they can naturally produce milk. By six to 12 months, they form a secondary attachment, where they usually bond with the secondary caregiver and form an attachment with him or her. By five years old, they bond to a family unit. Then they build more significant attachments as they grow older (such as friends, football teams or a faith group). So as we get older, we develop bonds to different people or groups, extending attachment theory.

People can have two sets of attachments, but they will always have a primary one. Someone could be brought up in a secure environment, but then they have a traumatic experience, such as a rape, where their trust has been broken, and then their attachment style can change. Also, in times of intense trauma, we are likely to revert back to our primary attachment style, meaning that it’s possible that if we have an intense traumatic event in our lives, even if we’ve had therapy, it’s possible that we’ll move back to our original attachment style. We revert because we’re not using the new neural pathways we developed in the brain. 

Interestingly, children can have the same experience of neglect and abuse, but may go on to develop different attachment styles. Where one child has been neglected or abused and they’re okay in the world, as they have a secure attachment style, another may go on to have an attachment issue and there seems to be no consensus as to why that is. Although some people have pointed to the fact that if there is just one consistent person in their life (maybe a teacher, a grandparent, or a next door neighbour), that can have a massive effect on their developing a more secure attachment style. Research from orphanages in Romania shows that children who had been abandoned (with just a few people to care for them), developed difficult attachment styles because, despite being fed, clothed and bathed, they didn’t receive any affection. Brain scans done on the children showed that the frontal cortex of their brains hadn’t wired up correctly. However, it wasn’t the case for all the children, as those whose beds were next to the light switches in their dormitories received more attention from the caregivers. Meaning that just a few words of conversation before the lights went out with the children made all the difference.

The UK Office of National Statistics shows that 55% (47% of young people in Spain in 2023) of the population have a secure attachment. Secure attachment is when we feel at one with ourselves and others, or ‘I’m okay – You’re okay’. If we have a secure attachment, we can attune with feelings and attune to others, we can regulate our emotions and understand others’ feelings without fear of rejection or threats. We are capable of feeling and expecting love and crucially we are able to self-regulate. The different attachment styles are also associated with different uses of language, and these can be spotted by focusing on the structure and style of what people say, rather than its content. Secure attachment patterns include a person being able to describe an experience and how it made them feel in a full and balanced way.

23% of the UK population (22% of young people in Spain in 2023) have an avoidant attachment, which translates as, ‘I’m okay – You’re not okay’ or ‘I cannot trust you’. They can feel overwhelmed and sometimes they can feel a lot of shame and that they aren’t good enough. As a result they overcompensate by saying, ‘I’m actually all right. No one else is.’ They think carefully before answering, rather than giving a quick answer, in order to protect themselves. The expectation of being respected can be crushing and they may feel shame, causing difficulties with relationships. Being submissive can be a key element, by minimising and dismissing their own needs. They can also be promiscuous and controlling, and unlikely to take risks, as they believe the world is dangerous. Avoidant attachment language patterns include a person being unable to elaborate on anything, providing minimal answers that are based largely on facts rather than feelings.

About 8% of the UK population (16% of young people in Spain in 2023) has an anxious/ambivalent attachment style, which translates as ‘I’m not okay, but you’re okay’. This person feels, ‘I need emotional intimacy, but I fear it’, feeling that they want to be loved. They offer that intimacy and then they push people away because they feel frightened of it and that they’re not worthy of it because they can’t handle  a lot of empathy. They can become preoccupied with their feelings and can be angry, because they are unable to regulate their emotions. Anxious/ambivalent attachment language patterns include a person talking quickly and incessantly, and it is really difficult for others to follow and to make space for their interventions.

About 15% of the UK population (15% of young people in Spain in 2023) have a disorganised attachment, which translates as, ‘I’m not okay. You’re not okay’, or ‘I am horrified and terrified’. The threatened child resorts to pathological self-soothing, for example through dissociation, bizarre posturing and repetitive self-injury. Part of disorganised attachment is reactive attachment, which translates as ‘I’m not okay. You’re not okay. But in times of stress, I become angry’. People with disorganised attachment can appear superficially to be charming and engaging but may have psychopathic traits. Other traits of people with disorganised attachment include chaotic thinking, violent responses to intimacy, being pulled towards danger, and a lack of feeling. Disorganised attachment is rare in non-clinical populations, but is common where there is a history of physical/sexual abuse or neglect. They’re very unlikely to attend therapy willingly. However, if they do, we can manage to work with them very closely and think we’ve got their trust, when they suddenly move to work with someone else. It is a very difficult and slow process for people with a disorganised attachment style to learn to trust a therapist. Disorganised attachment language patterns include a person jumping between different subjects, producing a feeling of distraction and vague chaos as a way of avoiding the pain of emotions.

Underneath, people with disorganised attachment are frightened, disorganised and chaotic. They can often bear huge physical pain and be considered masochistic. They are commonly found in the military. It can be diagnosed incorrectly as ADHD. Researchers in Coventry did a research on ADHD and autism in order to be able to determine whether someone is autistic or whether they really have an attachment issue. 

The American Psychological Society’s Dictionary of Psychology defines ‘mentalisation’ as ‘the ability to understand one’s own and others’ mental states, thereby comprehending one’s own and others’ intentions and affects’. This ability to see oneself from the outside and others from the inside is important in relationships. People with a secure attachment style are much more likely to be able to mentalise than those with other attachment styles. 

When people with an insecure attachment style seek therapy, it needs to provide a safe space for all emotions, from love to fear and hate. Thus, openness to negative emotion is crucial, for example through negative transference, and having negative cognitions validated. Openness to negative emotion is a secure attachment precondition for, and is strengthened by, co-regulation. Winnicott (1971) said: ‘Psychotherapy is not making clever and apt interpretation; by and large it is a long-term giving back to the patient what the patient brings. It is a complex derivative of the face that reflects what is there to be seen.’ As with a primary caregiver and a child, there is marked mirroring in the therapist–patient relationship, as the therapist practises empathy and uses interventions such as reflection and paraphrasing to represent the person’s experiences. 

We can change our attachment style through therapy, even though we may have developed an unhealthy style, as we know that our brains are plastic and can develop new neural pathways. In the same way as when we learn to play the drums, our brain wires itself up to use our arms and feet to move the sticks to the beat of the music. That is what we call neural wiring in neuroplasticity. In other words, the brain develops ways of achieving a goal. This is important for people who have had extremely neglectful or abusive upbringings. 

A good therapist will become the attachment object, and will allow consistency, through re-parenting, meaning that they offer a consistency (always being there, always having the same approach, always caring, and always showing compassion), all those things that good caregivers do. This helps to build a change of attachment in people as they move through therapy depending on how difficult their attachment style is. Petruska Clarkson coined the phrase ‘re-parenting’ (a humanistic love). In therapy re-parenting is consistent at the same time every week, no matter how a person may behave, which can make a huge difference in their life as they learn to manage their anxieties and their emotional regulation.

In therapy, learning to mentalise involves developing an ability to step back and practise slow thinking, which is not possible if there is an active attachment dynamic going on. It’s important for a person to be able to see themselves from the outside and others from the inside. It’s also vital to develop epistemic trust with people. It can be defined (Fonagy) as ‘an individual’s willingness to consider new knowledge as trustworthy and relevant, and therefore worth integrating into their lives. In contrast, epistemic mistrust is characterised by inflexible thinking patterns and a difficulty to learn from the social environment.’ It is harder for people with insecure attachment styles to trust the therapist, and important therefore for the therapist to seek to offer a complementary style that helps balance this. For example, if an avoidant person misses sessions, the therapist should actively reach out to them. Conversely, if an anxious person wishes to run over on the session time, the therapist should stick carefully to the time boundaries. In this way, therapy can provide a place where people can begin to learn how to mentalise for themselves. With epistemic trust, the person begins to think that they can rely on the therapist to make them feel safe, that they are neither friend nor foe, that they can put themselves in their shoes and that they can therefore trust the information about the world that they share with them.

Understanding how our attachment style shapes and influences our relationships can help us make sense of our own behaviour, how we perceive others, and how we respond to them. Identifying these patterns can then help us clarify what we need in a relationship and the best way to overcome problems. However, not everyone has access to therapy, so we need alternatives to help us cope with our everyday lives.

Experiencing trauma as an infant or young child can interrupt the attachment and bonding process. When childhood trauma is not resolved, feelings of insecurity, fear, and helplessness can continue into adulthood. Even if our trauma happened many years ago, there are steps we can take to overcome the pain, regain our emotional balance, and learn to trust and connect in relationships again. If we can’t work with a therapist, we can try to learn all we can about how trauma affects us.

One of the most important lessons learned from attachment theory is that adult relationships, just like the first relationship we have with our primary caregiver, depend for their success on nonverbal forms of communication. Even though we may not be aware of it, when we interact with others, we continuously give and receive wordless signals via the gestures we make, our posture, how much eye contact we make and so on. These nonverbal cues send strong messages about what we really feel. We can improve our nonverbal communication by being fully present in the moment, learning how to manage stress, developing more emotional awareness and improving how we read body language.

We can also improve our emotional intelligence, which is the ability to understand, use, and manage our own emotions in positive ways to empathise with people, communicate more effectively, and deal with conflict in a healthier way. This can help strengthen relationships. By understanding our emotions and how to control them, we are better able to express our needs and feelings, as well as understand how others are really feeling.

Having relationships with other people who have an insecure attachment style can make for unstable, confusing, or even painful experiences. Whereas seeking relationships with people with a secure attachment style can help to move us away from negative patterns of thinking and behaving. A strong, supportive relationship with someone who makes us feel loved can play an important part in building our sense of security and help us to recognise and adopt new patterns of behaviour.

Sources:

Chapman, E. (2021). Understanding and working with attachment styles [lecture]. Counsellor CPD. Counselling Tutor. [13/05/21].

Holmes, J. (2024). Applying attachment theory in counselling [lecture]. Counsellor CPD. Counselling Tutor. [12/04/24].

https://www.helpguide.org/relationships/social-connection/attachment-and-adult-relationships

https://elobservatoriosocial.fundacionlacaixa.org/en/-/styles-of-attachment-emotional-bonds-condition-mobile-use-among-young-people-and-their-relational-satisfaction. junio 2023

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