Why You Should Care About Attachment

Attachment Theory and attachment patterns or styles were first formulated in the 1950’s by British psychoanalyst, John Bowlby, and American researcher, Mary Ainsworth. They have received a fair bit of attention over the last 20 -30 years, and their influence has been steadily growing. What’s all the fuss about, and why should you care and pay attention?

Attachment patterns are a fundamental aspect of our relationships with significant others, but they also influence relationships that are not as close. Because most of us are embedded in relational networks throughout our lives, how we relate to others is very important for our experience and satisfaction of our lives. However, it looms particularly large in intimate, romantic relationships, especially for people in their 20’s and 30’s, as this is usually most people’s first experience of long-term committed relationships, when we may run into issues with our partners. Our attachment patterns get activated, usually in the form of unconscious relational expectations, and particularly in situations when we’re dis/stressed and in need of comfort.

One way in which this may manifest is that your partner may find it hard and frustrating to feel or connect with you emotionally, eg. you may not respond very emotionally, appear distant and aloof. You may find yourself feeling that you don’t like to get too close and have lots of deep and meaningfuls, and feel protective of your own space. This often goes with a fierce independence, eg. you may feel uncomfortable relying too much on others.

Another way relational issues may manifest is through a clinginess or a constant search for closeness, which can also create issues with partners, or friends for that matter, who may end up feeling suffocated or have a sense that you’re just too much and too intense.

Whether or not these patterns create relational issues, very much depends on the constellation of the 2 partners. Depending on what your partner is like and expects from you, any particular pattern may work well or not at all.

Most people regard the patterns outlined as an expression of our nature, ie. ‘that’s just how s/he is’, not recognising that whilst these may represent ingrained behavioural and emotional patterns, they’re not necessarily written in stone and can be modified with some sustained attention and effort. However, it is fair to say that these patterns don’t change easily and it takes time and persistence.

Attachment patterns or styles are outside most people’s awareness, and our particular style was laid down way back in the distant past in interactions with our primary caregiver as well as other influential and significant people in our lives. It is the result of repetitive interactions with this caregiver that formed a dominant pattern over time, which we then come to expect - not just in interactions with this particular person, but it also generalises to others. Usually, our early interactional sequences eventually form into unconscious relational patterns, or what’s been described as ‘Internal Working Models’ in our psyche, patterns of expectation and adaptation to our relational environment.

How does this happen? Essentially it is the result of an action-response sequence that forms as the result of how our caregivers interacted with us when we were very young, usually from birth to about 18 months. If our caregiver was aloof, depressed, or withdrawn we adapt and respond in particular ways, eg. we may withdraw ourselves, and form a belief that connecting with close others is doomed or pointless due to repeated unsuccessful attempts to engage with them. Experiencing inconsistent caregiver responses may make us anxious as a result of their unpredictable behaviour, which may result in us constantly looking for closeness and always questioning it. Beatrice Beebe has documented these interaction sequences in detail through video recordings, and outlined their long-term effects. To see the effect of an unresponsive caregiver, take a look at Ed Tronick’s Still Face Experiment, which can be readily accessed on YouTube.

There are 4 patterns that have been identified: Secure, anxious/resistant/ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganised, and to see them in action check out the Strange Situation Experiment, which is the gold standard for assessing attachment patterns in infants. It is very instructive to see the actual manifestation of these patterns, which are deliberately created by exposing the infant to a tolerable amount of stress whilst observing their response to this.

There are 3 categories within these 4 patterns: Secure, insecure, and disorganised, with the secure and insecure patterns being described as organised, ie. as having a rationale, in contrast to the disorganised pattern that appears quite chaotic and inconsistent on the surface.

The two insecure patterns are ‘avoidant’ and ‘anxious’ (also referred to as ambivalent/resistant).

Unfortunately, the terminology can be confusing as slightly different terms are used for these patterns, and a distinction is often made between the descriptors for children and those for adults. Adult descriptors, which are based on the work of Mary Main and Erik Hesse, 2 researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have labelled the adult equivalents of the infant patterns as Secure/Autonomous, Preoccupied, Dismissing, and Unresolved.

How can we change ourselves if our relational expectations create issues in relation to an intimate other? The first step is awareness, ie. it is essential to identify that there is something going on that may need some attention. As mentioned already, it is also helpful to acknowledge that these patterns won’t change overnight and require a fair bit of mental and emotional effort, and along with this, patience and self-compassion. The way the pattern got established was through repetition of interaction sequences, and this is usually how they get undone: Repetition of a different pattern, initially through conscious and intentional effort, that over time becomes automatic. This requires self-observation and the ability to act on these observations. Often his manifests in being able to spot the pattern and being able to say to ourselves: ‘Here we go again!’ realising that there are alternative behaviours that we can try out.

What this means is that over time we’re creating greater emotional and behavioural flexibility, and this is the main difference to the original pattern, which tends to be quite rigid, ie. it follows a pre-determined stimulus-response sequence, which usually follows the same pattern and leads to the same result.

Whilst attachment patterns are fairly consistent over time, they do respond to sustained and persistent attempts to modify them, ie. we’re not doomed to repeat them indefinitely if we’re motivated to change them.

Awareness of our own pattern can then help us negotiate relationships with others. One way in which this happens is through rupture-repair cycles, ie. when a relational rupture can be followed by attempts to repair the relational tension, and when this can be successfully worked through, a stronger relationship often results.