Brief introduction to attachment theory

Attachment theory is the study of the process of how humans form relationships, in particular how children (particularly infants and young children) develop attachments to their caregivers. I’m writing about this because deep down I think we all know our early experiences shape us psychologically, but we’re never actually taught how to explore this and just how much it affects our lives. I haven’t professionally studied this topic, this information comes from experience and independent study. I’m sharing it because I think it’s too important to not talk about and experience has taught me a lot about it.

I first learned about attachment theory when I was going through two codependent breakups. In my case it’s disorganized attachment with an anxious lean. This basically pointed me to the root of all my relationship problems. Through the process of attachment healing I’ve changed a lot. I’m still not done, but I’m far I’m enough to know that the process is life changing and invaluable.

If you ever want to change and become a more emotionally secure and intimately connected person attachment healing is the answer. The strategies for connection you form in your early years stick with you until you manually rewire yourself. You have to raise yourself in whatever way your parent couldn’t. It’s also the process of getting to know your “whole self.”

This is only intended to be a simplified overview, I’ll include some sources to look into at the bottom. I really recommend reading up on it even if you think you’re secure. You’ll end up learning a lot about the people around you just by studying attachment theory a little. Erratic and strange behaviour will make a lot more sense, and then you have the tool to help people in your life figure things out.

Attachment styles

I’ll be using the common terminology and not the actual terminology which is a bit more confusing. Disorganized attachment is also called fearful-avoidant attachment but that’s more letters, so I wont be using that.

Secure attachment

This attachment style is formed when the parent is responsive to the child in a healthy, regulated way. Attentive and able to mirror the child’s emotions without becoming overwhelmed, but the parent also wont be over-attentive. They’ll give their child a little room to grow and help as needed. There’s a clear distinction between emotional experiences, the parent is able to handle their own emotions and teaches the child how to self sooth. Secure people grow up knowing they can take care of themselves when they have to, but they also know how to intimately connect to others. They’ve also been taught to love themselves so they’re generally more confident and self assured than insecure people.

Insecure attachment styles

Anxious attachment

This style of attachment develops when a child needs to be loud to get a caregiver’s attention, or it develops because a parent is over-attentive and doesn’t teach their child how to self sooth. They might unintentionally encourage the child to over-rely emotionally. The end result of this is someone grows up not knowing how to self-regulate. Because they don’t know how to take care of themselves they also have an underlying fear of abandonment. Without a source of comfort, the distress will build and build. They’ll feel like someone else is needed to help them calm down.

Anxious attachment is connected to low self esteem, self worth based on the approval of others, codependency, fantasies of a savior figure (like the “perfect partner” who’ll fix your life for you and always take care of you), fear of abandonment, emotional dysregulation, feeling like you’ll die without a specific person. Anxious attachment behaviours are usually easy to spot.

Avoidant attachment

This style develops when a child learns that expressing their emotions will get negative results. For example, a child crying and a parent reacting with distress. This can be anything from the parent becoming dysregulated or it can be more extreme, like a parent scolding or hurting a child. This leads the child to learn if they express distress they’ll actually end up in a worse position, so these people learn to handle issues on their own. They’re generally very protective of their personal space.

They may even think they’ve become great at managing their own emotions and see everyone around them as emotionally erratic or overly sensitive. Thats not entirely accurate though, because this style of attachment leads to a lot of emotional suppression. When upsetting emotions come up the avoidant child learns to shove them back down. They form the instinctual habit of hiding emotions from their awareness so they don’t draw attention. They might tell themselves something doesn’t bother them and try to focus on other people’s emotions instead (externalizing; “the problem is with them not me”) but these feelings build up and can eventually blow up.

Avoidant people almost always type themselves as secure, because you can’t immediately be aware of something you’ve been systematically suppressing your whole life. This makes avoidant attachment harder to recognize. If you think you know yourself perfectly and are great at managing your emotions, thats your first sign to reconsider. People are always a work in progress; we’re endless.

Disorganized

This attachment style is a mix of both insecure styles. This tends to come from the most chaotic and confusing childhood envoirnments (which often end up being the most traumatic). The person with this style will be confused by their own internal experiences and reactions. Sometimes they’ll pull away and sometimes they’ll want to be as close as possible, and all of this can happen without a clear reason. This can lead to hot and cold behaviour and exiting and re-entering relationships.

It’s likely someone will type as anxious and then later become aware of avoidant behaviours they couldn’t see originally. If you type yourself as anxious (or someone else does) keep an open mind about the fact you may discover avoidant behaviours later on.

Healing processes

As much as people dislike self-diagnosis I highly recommend you do it, just keep yourself open to the idea of being wrong. It’s possible to type yourself incorrectly, you should do independent research and analyze your own psyche (without being overly critical of yourself) Therapy is too expensive and unpredictable to wait for the perfect therapist to “fix you” – You have to fix yourself.

A warning, the healing you need to do will be the things you want to do the least. The healing process is about creating balance, this requires getting comfortable with discomfort. This process will take time but it wont happen without pushing through discomfort. If you stop pushing and let yourself fall back into old habits you wont progress. Time wont heal on its own.

Anxious attachment

I just want you to know I say all this lovingly from an anxiously attached perspective.

You need to let go of the fantasy of the perfect savior. Nobody will ever complete you, nobody can make you whole, nobody can always be there and prioritize your emotions above their own, nobody can exist to meet all your needs. If someone is trying to fill that role now you’re probably codependent, and even if they don’t tell you, it’s likely hurting them (its possible they don’t even realize because they’re avoidant, anxious and avoidant people tend to pair up to fill in each other’s gaps.) If you love someone then you’ll want them to prioritize their own emotional needs over always fulfilling yours. You have self control and you can control how you communicate; Practice. It sucks, but you can do it.

Healing means being alone with yourself. You have to sit in the discomfort of not relying on someone else to sooth your emotions, you have to learn to do it yourself. When I had to learn to do this (and it only happened because I had to do so) I did it by going all the way in on attachment theory. Specifically, I watched very very many Heidi Priebe videos on anxious attachment. You have to learn to build yourself up – love yourself – so you can source your self worth from within.

Avoidant attachment

You need to learn to pay attention to (and sit with) those moments where you feel uncomfortable instead of shoving it down. If you think your feeling isn’t “reasonable” – thats okay. Your feelings don’t need to be reasonable. You can even communicate this! “This is pretty small and I don’t actually think its a big deal, but I’m just telling you how that thing makes me feel so that you’re aware for the future” If someone can’t take your communication than they can’t be a good friend or partner. You need to advocate for your own feelings even when they seem small.

Give up on the idea of feelings needing to make sense, or there being “morally wrong” feelings. Many people suppress anger because they don’t want to think of themselves as “that kind of person” – There are also many men who suppress sadness and vulnerability because of toxic masculinity – Everyone experiences all emotions. If you don’t let yourself feel something, it still exists, it’s just buried and will keep building over time. This isn’t fair to you or the people around you, they deserve to know what relationship they’re actually in, and you deserve to have relationships where you can express authentically. Because you suppress those things instinctively, sitting with the feeling will be very uncomfortable. Learn to get comfortable feeling all your emotions. Emotions exist to tell you about yourself, if you ignore them, you won’t know your whole self. You need to feel to learn. Question why you feel the ways you do, and don’t just assume it’s because of another person involved.

Seek connection, let yourself rely on others emotionally. Let yourself be vulnerable. Even if you get rejected there will always be more people out there who will love you and want to support you. If something isn’t working, now you know, and that just means you can find what works better for you.

Disorganized attachment

This will be a mix of the above two! Focus on whichever seems more prevalent and watch out for suppression and lies in the stories you tell yourself. Question yourself.

There is more I could go into, like the stages of healing, but this is just an overview. I highly recommend looking into Heidi Priebe’s content if you enjoy video format. Here’s a good overview on the attachment styles by her. I really recommend all of her content for shadow work/self help.

Here’s some things for reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

https://positivepsychology.com/attachment-theory/

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/attachment-theory-and-attachment-styles

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4085672/

https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/insecure-attachment-in-childhood/

Disclaimer that I haven’t properly read all of that, I prefer audio or video format.

Have a nice day 💙