Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory is about knowing yourself and others better. More specifically, it is about understanding how we relate to one another as a product of our unique upbringings.

Science shows that how you were raised has profound effects on your relationships and your sense of self. No matter how you were raised or by whom, Attachment Theory will offer you a uniquely insightful lens on understanding yourself and others. It will open new horizons on empathizing with your friends and family, give you a deeper understanding of what motivates people, and help you see through the confusion of adult life.

Do any of these sound like things you might say to yourself?

Do some of your intimate conversations hide resentment and tension?
How easy is it for the following feelings to be triggered in you?

Do you get butterflies in your stomach around sensitive issues being brought up?

Do you see yourself as secure or insecure when you think of relationships with your family and friends?

Your relationship is pretty great, and are there some “places”/conversations that are hard to go to together?

When things get icky, is it awkward to bridge the gap and get back to how we usually are?

It is important to acknowledge that most people can identify with at least some of the above questions. While these concepts may leave a bitter taste in our mouths, they have become fairly universal concepts over time. So what if the reason you have these thoughts or feelings relate to your relationship with your parents?

That’s right. While it is easy to trace our belief systems back to our parents (i.e.: Jewish parents raising a Jewish child, Woke parents raising woke children, etc.) we can also trace the way we process our emotions back to them, too. As well as this, we can also look to our parents to learn how we:

• View our esteem
• Regulate our emotions
• Relate to other people
• Soothe ourselves when triggered
• Fit into society.

Think of it this way…

Generally, 30% of any given personality trait is genetic, with the other 70% being environmental. Even with these statistics, our genetic traits interact with our environment. We take in everything we see and hear to understand our world.

To use the metaphor of painting, the experiences we take in are like adding colors and images to our canvas. Every painter, at first, can barely even pick up a brush. In this same sense, we as babies have no idea how to relate to the world. While our desire is to paint, we need someone to teach us how to pick up the brush, choose our colors, and stroke our brushes on the canvas. For this reason, it is up to our primary caregivers to teach us to be the best artists we can, otherwise, we may find painting our canvases challenging.

If painting interdependently is modeled to us then we will build our own confidence and continue painting through life, building upon our image with confidence in our art. However, if our primary caregiver avoids painting, teaches us that painting should be avoided, or teaching us to fear the concept of painting then it makes it much harder for us to comfortably use our canvas in the future. We may be born with basic tendencies, these are then significantly shaped through the environment we are raised in.

That’s enough of this convoluted metaphor, let’s look deeper at the attachment styles.

So…who and what?

Okay, so we know that our primary caregivers can help change the way we see the world, but in what way? There are four characters at play here, let’s take a quick look:

Each of these characters has their own ways of being that are discussed more in-depth throughout this section. These characteristics can be seen as universal, but do not speak holistically to a single person. Someone that identifies with a specific attachment will likely have a similar internal working model to what is discussed, but may not identify with every aspect. There are almost 8 billion people in the world, and so fitting humanity into four boxes is certainly not possible. You are unique, and these four styles allow a more general identification of potential habits and thought processes.

Here are a few other terms to get your head around before we dive deeper into Attachment Theory:

• Secure Base – The relationship formed between an infant and primary caregiver. This relationship forms the basis of the infant’s development and can allow them to gain their own autonomy as they grow and build their own identity.
• Internal Working Model – Short answer: How our brain works. Longer answer: How our brain perceives everything around. What it tells us about ourselves, and about others.
• Affect Regulation – How we naturally react to triggers and emotions that present within us, as well as how we process and let go of these triggers.