Attachment

Our earliest years have a profound effect on the way we think, feel, and interact with the world. The way we interact with others is often a response to the way we attach to our caretakers as children. When we understand how we are attached to our caregivers, it will help us understand the way we attach to the partners we choose as adults. Similarly, when we can understand our partner’s attachment style, we will have a greater framework when communicating and working through conflict.

Secure Attachment

Individuals typically enter adult relationships with either secure or insecure attachment styles. When thinking of a secure attachment, a child feels like they have a safe, dependable home base. Generally, when they are in distress, a caregiver comforts them. When they have a need, the caregiver attends to them. In an early secure attachment, children learn to trust themselves and others, engage in healthy communication, and they feel the confidence to try new things. This early secure attachment translates into adult relationships in a positive, healthy way. These people can access their wants and needs and communicate their needs in a direct, loving way to their partner. Early secure attachments are not perfect, nor are adult secure attachments, but these relationships show a pattern of trust and healthy communication.

Insecure Attachment

Insecure attachments can play out in different ways. If someone has an anxious attachment style, their early caregiver might have been less attentive and offered limited availability to the child. When a child experiences an attachment like this, in adulthood they tend to crave closeness with others but fear abandonment. They also might need more assurance from their partner and exhibit stronger feelings of jealousy. Since they had a tough time trusting their parents’ availability, they typically have a tough time trusting others to commit to them.

In the avoidant attachment style, children often have received abuse or neglect from their earliest caregivers. These children learn to become very independent and often struggle committing to a romantic relationship. When in conflict, these individuals tend to withdraw and minimize the feelings of others.

The child with a disorganized attachment often experienced very inconsistent parenting. These children are frequently confused about who they can trust, and this confusion transfers into their adult relationships. They might desire closeness with a partner but also avoid it as well. Sometimes those with disorganized attachment lack empathy and show aggression to others.

Reparenting/Repair

Understanding our earliest attachments helps us understand ourselves and others but these styles do not have to be set in stone. The human brain is elastic and resilient, and the patterns learned in childhood can be rewired for change. Humans can create new pathways that help us form healthy attachments in adulthood.

-Angelika VanGrinsven