The Roots of Connection: Exploring Childhood Attachment Styles

One of the most compelling reasons people seek out therapy is because of conflict, strain, and/or anxiety in their relationships

Indeed, our relationships often represent the most important parts of our lives.

Because of this, they are also the most wonderful and the most terrifying and stressful parts of our lives.

Although we have different kinds of relationships with different people in our lives, we also generally have a pattern of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that are consistent for us in all our relationships, especially romantic and familial. These patterns are called Attachment Types.

What is Attachment?

Attachment is the bond in relationships, it is the glue that connects one person to another. While attachment styles can change, they start developing shortly after birth. Attachment and connection are our main defense mechanisms as infants. As a baby, we cannot verbalize our needs or get up and meet our own needs. We cannot feed, defend, or clothe ourselves and we cannot use words to verbalize when we are feeling discomfort.

We have to rely on our connection to our caregivers. We cry or make sounds or non-verbal movements and hope that our connection is secure enough so that our caregivers will be able to learn, understand, and meet our needs.

When our needs are met consistently (they don’t have to be met perfectly) we learn valuable lessons about not only our environment, but also ourselves. We learn that we are important, that we are loved, that we are worthy of safety, love, and comfort. We also learn that we can trust our environment and the people closest to us, enabling us to be curious and try new things: cornerstones to brain development.

When our needs are not met, we also learn. Because babies (and young children) cannot understand the complexity of other people’s thoughts and emotions, they are ‘egocentric’. This means that they believe everything that happens relates directly to them. In the context of attachment, this means that if a baby’s needs are not met, over time they eventually learn that this directly because of them. They learn that they are not important, or that they are bad, or that their needs cannot be met by others. They learn that their environment is not safe and they cannot confidently expect safety and nurturing from those closest to them. As they grow, much of their energy is spent on ensuring their own safety, since they cannot reliably trust others. Thus, they have less energy for curiosity and bravery.

Types of Attachment

There are two main types of attachment: secure and insecure. Secure and insecure attachment do not describe the strength of attachment, it describes the quality of the attachment. One can have a very strong attachment to their parent and also have insecure attachment to their parent.

Attachment styles are defense mechanisms. Remember how we said that attachment is one of our first and main defenses as babies? As we get older, we learn more and more just how to feel, think, and act in relationship to our caregivers. Children who have secure attachment have generally been raised by caregivers who Dr. Donald Winnicott, English pediatrician and psychoanalyst, would call “good enough” parents. These are parents who consistently sought to understand and meet the needs of their infants.

These infants grew to trust their environment and their parents, which made them able to better withstand periods of stress and separation. They already had the foundation of knowledge that they would not be abandoned and that they are loved and valued. Children with secure attachment grow up with a high concept of self-worth and are able to focus more on their own learning and development, trusting that they are safe and secure.

Insecure attachment is separated into three categories: anxious, avoidant, and disorganized.

Anxious Attachment

Anxious attachment can be described by a child who feels an enormous amount of anxiety in their relationship with their parent. They have a strong fear of abandonment, low self-worth, and can often be clingy. This might be because the child’s needs were not consistently met, so they felt to need to latch on to their parents so they were not forgotten. Or, the parent themselves might be very anxious in their relationship, sending mixed messages the child cannot decipher. The child might see the parent’s anxiety and fear and assume it is their fault, or that they are both unsafe. This inconsistency and misattunement makes it difficult to relax and trust their parent, often causing the child to need seek out constant validation and connection.

Avoidant Attachment

Avoidant attachment is characterized by a child who actively rejects closeness in relationships. On the surface, this child may appear unattached and unbothered, but what is happening underneath is an intense fear of closeness. Children with avoidant attachment are often raised by parents who consistently did not meet their child’s basic physical and/or emotional needs. These children may have been neglected or raised by parents who were strict and could not tolerate emotional closeness. Because these children know their needs will not be met, they develop a survival mechanism that prevents them from getting to close or voicing their needs. They grow to be hyper independent and struggle to tolerate emotional or physical closeness.

Disorganized Attachment

Disorganized attachment is often described as a mix of anxious and avoidant; however, this would be incomplete and therefore inaccurate. This type of attachment develops when children learn to actively fear their caregivers because their caregivers behaviors were chaotic or aggressive. Our need to bond and connect with our caregivers is deeply imbedded. When we both want/need our caregiver but also fear them, this can create very confusing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Often these parents will be loving in one moment and scary in the next. The child is unable to adapt to their caregivers and thus their behaviors are inconsistent and not organized into one particular pattern. Because the child feels completely powerless, they experience a lot of fear.