Insecure attachment styles

I have been going through Adam Young's fine book  'Make Sense of Your Story: Engaging Your Past With Kindness Changes Everything.' Last week I discussed chapter 4, dealing with The Big Six of secure attachment.

Today I want to briefly touch on insecure attachment. There are two primary types: Avoidant attachment, and Ambivalent attachment (there's also a third, which Young says is 'unhelpfully' named disorganized attachment, and he does not discuss). 

As a reminder, your attachment style refers to the particular way your brain has been primed to experience relationships in the present. It is primarily developed by your parents or caregivers in childhood.

AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT

Young says... When your caregiver is often unavailable, dismissive, or rejecting, you will develop an avoidant attachment. It's about feeling like your caregiver was not there for you, or responsive when you felt distressed, forcing you (as a child) to become emotionally self-reliant.

Avoidantly attached adults tend to feel discomfort with emotional closeness and have a nervous system predisposed to self-regulation rather than interactive regulation. In other words, you will tend to feel more comfortable with relational distance from others. Not that you don't have, and enjoy, relationships, but you don't really 'let others in' unless it becomes abundantly clear you either have to, or they've garnered that level of trust.

Avoidantly attached adults, naturally, leave their partners feeling lonely and emotionally disconnected from them. They can be accused of "not being open," even though they don't intend to be that way. It's just how they have learned to regulate themselves. And, it can be difficult for partners to understand (and deal with), because unless the partner is equally avoidant, it comes off as not caring or loving.

Young says the avoidant attachment person will also tend to idealize their parents and minimize or downplay hurtful attachment experiences. This allows them to sidestep feeling the loneliness and emotional pain that resulted from being dismissed and/or rejected by one or both parents.

AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT

Ambivalent attachment results from inconsistent caregiving interspersed with intrusiveness. Your caregiver may or may not be there for you, and one caregiver may be a bit too much in your business on occasion. It's difficult to tell whether or how you're going to be dealt with or responded to.

As ambivalently attached children mature into adulthood, they will tend to experience intense emotions and have great difficulty regulating their anxiety. They can appear overly dramatic at times, and are likely plagued by a deep-seated fear they are going to be rejected or abandoned, which makes it difficult to trust anyone. This leads to habitually seeking closeness (which their partner may feel is a bit much), and need affirmations of love over and over again. I thought it interesting Young said they could even become "allergic to hope."

Ambivalently attached adults often feel like they are too "needy" and that they don't deserve to be loved in the way that they want. They suffer from self-criticism, insecurity, and a sense that something is wrong with them (almost exactly how I feel most of the time).

So, here is what Young lists as the Key Point regarding attachment styles (p.107):

Your attachment style (secure, ambivalent, or avoidant) profoundly affects how you experience relationships and how you express yourself in relationships. And your attachment style develops based on your relationships with your primary caregivers.

• Secure attachment occurs when your primary caregivers are often attuned to you and often responsive to your needs and wants. Moreover, when there is relational rapture, the harm is quickly repaired. As a result, you feel seen, soothed, and safe again.
• Ambivalent attachment occurs when your primary caregivers are sometimes attuned to you and sometimes responsive to your needs and wants. At other times, your primary caregivers are preoccupied with their own anxieties, emotions, and moods.
• Avoidant attachment occurs when your primary caregivers are rarely attuned to you and rarely responsive to your needs and wants.

 **He does not that because experiences with each parent may be different, a child can be securely attached to one parent but insecurely attached to the other.

Again, like my previous posts on this book, this is a very, very brief look at what Adam Young lays out. I'm mostly writing about it in order to get a better understanding myself. It isn't exactly the easiest thing to go through on your own... but it's nice to know I'm not alone - if you know what I mean.

So, until the next time...