A Word of Caution !

Before you go down the road of using Attachment to blame or shame yourself (or your partner, if you are having relationship difficulties) please understand that: Attachment styles are ADAPTIVE behaviours from an earlier stage of  life based on our upbringing. Although these behaviours may no longer serve us, they may be carried forward into adulthood. In other words, a child who is taught that relationships are untrustworthy or even frightening naturally learns to have SELF-PROTECTIVE behaviours in all of their relationships. This is not our fault – and it is completely understandable from a survival instinct perspective (after all, all humans are born completely dependent on their parents for food, shelter, nourishment, love and protection).  However, as adults it is our responsibility to understand and heal from our childhood attachment conditioning, to help ourselves recognise that the past is affecting us and to provide ourselves with options (and the permission) to change and replace patterns that are no longer serving us.  

Also, when considering your childhood attachment history, please keep in mind that parents do not necessarily have to be ‘highly abusive’ to have a negative effect on their children. Parents who are over-protective and intrusive, who are judgmental and have high expectations, or who are dismissive of a child’s thoughts and feelings can (over time) also cause a distrust of relationships – or even a distrust of a child’s own emotions – well into adulthood for that individual.

So in other words, if you learned in childhood that relationships are conditional, shaming, unstable, threatening, withdrawing or rejecting, it may cause you to be uncertain about relationships and this may lead to behaviours typical of the three non-secure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, or disorganized behaviours). This is not your fault. These emotional reactions and their resulting protective behaviours are an understandable adaptive response to feeling insecure (or unsafe) in an important relationship during a critical stage of our development.

In other words, whereas being able to view attachment behaviours as ‘protective strategies from an earlier part of life that no longer serve us’ is crucial to our liberation, shaming or ridiculing ourselves (or our partner) for having attachment difficulties is probably doing nothing more than continuing to perpetuate the intergenerational toxicity that was handed down to us (or them) by caregivers. This is unlikely to result in freeing ourselves from these patterns and is more likely to continue to do further damage. 

It is important to seek help for attachment difficulties. They are not easily resolved with self-help material alone. This is because attachment is relational, it involves your brain’s development and emotional learning in the context of interactions with others. There is learning, reflection, and healing that requires an emotionally-attuned and and emotionally-safe therapeutic environment, and there are skills that need to be honed and practiced interpersonally that cannot be mastered alone.  

The Four Attachment Styles

The four attachment styles were born out of the seminal work of psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. In the 1950s, Bowlby proposed that attachment is the product of evolutionary processes and that infants are thus born with an innate drive to form attachments with caregivers. In the 1970s, Ainsworth developed a paradigm (the ‘Strange Situation’) to determine attachment security in children within the context of caregiver relationships. The ‘Strange Situation’ procedure involves series of eight interactions lasting approximately 3 minutes each, whereby a mother, child and stranger are introduced, separated and reunited. From this research, Ainsworth identified three main attachment styles (a fourth attachment style was later identified in the 1980s by psychologists Main and Solomon).  

The four attachment styles consist of Secure Attachment and three Non-Secure Attachment Styles listed and described in detail with examples, below: 

1) Secure

2) Anxious (aka Preoccupied)

3) Avoidant (aka Dismissive)

4) Disorganized  

Secure Attachment:

Secure attachment is the ideal attachment style. Approximately 50-60% of adults have a Secure attachment style. A Secure attachment between a child and a caregiver forms when the caregiver is perceived as safe, predictable, consistent, and physically and emotionally available. The remainder of people develop one of three other attachment styles (Anxious, Avoidant or Disorganized, as discussed in the next section). 

Secure attachments develop in the following ways: A securely attached infant believes her parent is safe, available, and responsive when she is in distress.  Caregivers communicate these qualities the following ways: Facial expression, posture and tempo of body movement, tone of voice, physical proximity and tactile responsiveness, which together communicate a dependable, caring intention from the caregiver. (This is all pre-verbal information that an infant is constantly learning about and absorbing.) When a secure bond has been established, even the mere attention from or presence of a caregiver can help the infant to regulate distress.

As a result of a secure bond, even if the parent is not always available, the infant will learn to internalize these responses from their caregivers and they can draw on this internal representation to self-soothe and self-regulate during challenges or times of distress. As you can begin to see, this is essentially the origin of where we learn (or sadly where we fail to learn) emotional regulation.

Children with a secure attachment see their parent as a secure base from which they can venture out and independently explore the world. When a caregiver is emotionally responsive and strives to meet an infant’s emotional needs with consistency, the infant is taught to be emotionally responsive themselves. Thus, securely attached children grow into resilient, emotionally healthy adults who enjoy emotionally healthy relationships because they generally feel trusting and safe in those relationships.

In intimate relationships, a secure adult feels secure in their connection with their partner (even in their partner’s absence). This allows each partner to live their lives freely (which is called interdependence). Because a Secure individual is aware of and is able to respond in emotionally healthy ways to their own needs, this frees them up to be supportive at times when their partner feels distressed. Also, because a secure adult feels comfortable eliciting care from others, they are more likely to turn toward (vs shutting down or withdrawing from) their partner when they feel troubled.

In other words, an intimate relationship with a secure partner tends to be honest, open and equal, with both parties feeling independent, yet loving toward each other. Because of this, it is unsurprising that we find that compared to the other attachment styles, securely attached adults (and their partners) report feeling the highest levels of relationship satisfaction.

People with a secure attachment style:

• Generally feel close to others and maintain positive, healthy relationships.
• Feel comfortable with both emotional and physical intimacy, as well as with maintaining independence and personal space.
• Communicate effectively and are adept at resolving conflicts as they arise, using open and honest dialogue.
• Have fairly stable relationships, marked by mutual respect, trust, and understanding.
• Generally trust their partner and believe in the reliability and consistency of their relationship.
• Feel safe being vulnerable with their partner, sharing their thoughts, feelings, and needs without fear of judgment or rejection.
• Exhibit a balanced approach to relationship dynamics, valuing both closeness and autonomy.
• Are usually confident in expressing their emotions and can handle stress and challenges within the relationship constructively.
• Maintain a healthy sense of self-worth and do not overly rely on their partner for validation or emotional support.
• Tend to have a positive view of relationships and believe in their ability to overcome difficulties together.

An Example of Secure Attachment 

A fantastic example of what Secure Attachment ‘looks like’ in the context of healthy (mutually secure) adult relationships is clearly evident in the (now) infamous “A Credo for My Relationships With Others“ by Clinical Psychologist Dr. Thomas Gordon. As you read through this Credo, I invite you to reflect upon whether you are achieving something like this within your important primary relationships (and if you are, reflect inwards about whether your are achieving this same harmony and respect internally – between the competing aspects of yourself): 

“A CREDO FOR MY RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS”

You and I are in a relationship which I value and want to keep. Yet each of us is a separate person with our own unique values and needs and the right to meet those needs.

So that we will better know and understand what each of us values and needs, let us always be open and honest in our communication.

When you are having problems meeting your needs, I will listen with genuine acceptance and understanding so as to facilitate your finding your own solutions instead of depending on mine. And I want you to be a listener for me when I need to find solutions to my problems.

At those times when your behavior interferes with what I must do to get my own needs met, I will tell you openly and honestly how your behavior affects me, trusting that you respect my needs and feelings enough to try to change the behavior that is unacceptable to me. Also, when some behavior of mine is unacceptable to you, I hope you will tell me openly and honestly so I can try to change my behavior.

And when we experience conflicts in our relationship, let us agree to resolve each conflict without either of us resorting to the use of power to win at the expense of the other’s losing. I respect your needs, but I also must respect my own. So let us always strive to search for a solution that will be acceptable to both of us. Your needs will be met, and so will mine—neither will lose, both will win.

In this way, you can continue to develop as a person through satisfying your needs, and so can I. Thus, ours can be a healthy relationship in which both of us can strive to become what we are capable of being. And we can continue to relate to each other with mutual respect, love and peace.

Dr. Thomas Gordon (1978)

Non-Secure Attachment Styles

Anxious Attachment (aka Preoccupied):

Children who had parents who at times responded well to their needs, yet at other times, were not emotionally present or may have responded in hurtful or critical ways, grow up feeling insecure, uncertain of what treatment to expect.

In relationships, adults with an anxious attachment style find that they need a lot of reassurance and responsiveness. Unlike a securely attached person, those with an anxious attachment style may appear overly dependent on their relationships to feel okay. Certain interactions or events may trigger deep mistrust and they may regularly feel heightened anxiety about the stability of their relationships.

Even though anxiously attached individuals may feel desperate or insecure, more often than not, their behaviour exacerbates their own fears (via a feedback loop called a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’). They may also interpret independent actions by their partner as affirmation of their fears.  Worse, when they feel unsure of their partner’s feelings or feel insecure in their relationship, they may become clingy, demanding or possessive toward their partner.

Although these are simply attempts to protect the Self via seeking a sense of safety, reassurance and security, by clinging to their partner or by engaging in behaviours called ‘Protest Behaviours’ a person with an anxious attachment style may unwittingly push their partner away. For example, if (say) a partner starts socializing more with friends, they may think, “See? He doesn’t really love me. I was right not to trust him – Maybe there is someone else… This means he is going to leave me.” This may lead to (for instance) lots of reassurance seeking behaviours, such as calling, texting, or even stalking or reading a partner’s private messages. Alternatively, it may lead to hostility towards that partner, who often will not understand the context of the person’s behaviour, and this may drive them away – particularly if the partner has an avoidant attachment style (below).

People with an anxious attachment style:

• Feel the need for lots of reassurance in a relationship.
• Often report feeling overwhelmed or extremely anxious when they and a loved one disagree or argue.
• Question their partner’s love, especially during times when their partner is away or not immediately responsive.
• Feel threatened by their partner needing a break and may pursue them persistently until they receive the reassurance they seek.
• May have a heightened sensitivity to perceived signs of rejection or abandonment, leading to intense emotional reactions.
• Frequently worry about their partner’s commitment and may engage in behaviors to test or seek confirmation of their partner’s loyalty.
• May experience difficulty with emotional regulation and rely heavily on their partner to manage their emotional state.
• Often fear being alone and may struggle with feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness in the relationship.
• Can become preoccupied with the relationship and may prioritize it over other aspects of their life, such as personal interests or friendships.

Individuals with an anxious attachment style may experience significant emotional instability, relationship difficulties, and a pervasive fear of abandonment. Their need for constant reassurance can lead to clinginess, conflicts, and low self-esteem, which negatively impacts overall life satisfaction. Therapy can be crucial in addressing these issues by helping individuals understand their attachment patterns, develop healthier coping strategies, improve communication skills, and enhance self-esteem. Engaging with a mental health professional can support personal growth and foster more secure and fulfilling relationships.

Avoidant Attachment (aka Dismissive):

Caregivers that were emotionally unavailable, absent, or unaware of their child’s emotional needs often raise children who develop an Avoidant attachment style. Perhaps crying was discouraged, or perhaps you were belittled for having emotional needs (vs being responded to with care, interest and warmth). As an adult, you may often feel uncomfortable with who you are or not know what you feel, and you may feel averse to situations in which you need to depend on someone, or be depended on by others. 

A person with an avoidant attachment style lives in an ambivalent state, in which they are afraid of being both too close to and too distant from others. In relationships, they have fears of being abandoned but also struggle with being intimate. They may cling to their partner when they feel rejected, then feel trapped (or resentful, as though they will lose their sense of ‘Self’) if they become too emotionally intimate / close.

Often, in relationships, the avoidant style is attracted to the anxious style, and this sets off a push-pull between one partner (the anxious style) feeling unloved and the other partner (the avoidant style) feeling unable to meet the emotional demands of the other.

People with an avoidant attachment style:

• Tend to value independence over emotional closeness and may rely excessively on themselves for emotional soothing or support (e.g., ‘Compulsive Self-Reliance’).
• May suppress (numb), downplay, or struggle to share their deeper feelings with others. 
• May experience difficulty forming deep, meaningful relationships (e.g. due to a mild sense of ‘mistrust’). 
• Often feel awkward (or a strong urge to pull away) when a partner is seeking connection or is distressed.
• Regularly feel emotionally removed from or separate from others (which can result in experiences of defectiveness or alienation).
• May experience a strong desire to distance themselves from (rather than resolve) stressful situations or conflicts.
• Are generally uncomfortable with identifying, feeling, or expressing their deeper emotions (they may be cut off in their awareness of their bodies and/or may be numb to what they truly feel). 
• May prefer fleeting, casual relationships to long-term intimate ones or may seek out partners who are equally independent (or who will maintain emotional distance).
• Are often accused by their partners of being distant and closed off, rigid, and intolerant. In return, they may accuse their partners of being ‘too needy.’

Disorganized (unresolved) Attachment:

Disorganized attachment is a primary attachment style commonly observed in survivors of complex developmental trauma (cPTSD). This can occur when a caregiver is frightening, abusive, or behaves in highly inappropriate ways, or when a child’s fundamental needs and rights are violated. Such traumatic experiences can instill a deep sense of fear and confusion in a child, who is inherently dependent on their caregivers for nurturance, safety, shelter, and sustenance. This dependency creates an internal conflict: while the child needs their caregiver for basic needs, they may also perceive the caregiver as a source of threat or betrayal. This conflict can lead a child to believe that the abusive behavior is their own fault or that they should remain loyal due to the caregiver’s role as a parent.

As an adult, individuals with a disorganized attachment style may yearn for closeness but simultaneously fear it. They might avoid seeking out relationships because they perceive reliance on others as unsafe. When faced with opportunities for intimacy, they may experience an internal struggle and pull away, reflecting the deep-seated fears and confusion rooted in their early experiences.

The consequences of disorganized attachment can significantly impact life satisfaction. Individuals may struggle with chronic emotional instability, difficulties in forming and maintaining stable relationships, and a pervasive sense of mistrust or insecurity. These issues can lead to feelings of isolation, low self-esteem, and dissatisfaction with personal and professional aspects of life.

People with a disorganized attachment style:

• May have had primary caregivers who were abusive (physically, emotionally, sexually, or through neglect).
• Commonly report craving emotional intimacy, but also feel it is safer to be alone, experiencing conflicting desires for connection and self-protection.
• May have had primary caregivers who alternated between showing love and being frightening or unpredictable, creating confusion about how to navigate relationships.
• May experience Complex Trauma (cPTSD) due to prolonged exposure to adverse experiences during formative years.
• Often have a deep mistrust of others, struggling to believe in the positive intentions of those around them.
• May exhibit inconsistent or erratic behaviors in relationships, reflecting their internal conflict and confusion about attachment.
• Often feel ambivalent about closeness, both yearning for and fearing emotional connection due to past trauma.
• May experience difficulties with emotional regulation and find it challenging to maintain stable, trusting relationships.
• May display a pattern of chaotic or tumultuous relationships, mirroring the unpredictability and instability experienced in childhood.
• Can struggle with a sense of identity and self-worth, frequently questioning their value in relationships and feeling uncertain about how to meet their own emotional needs.

Attachment & Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is the process by which we influence how we experience and express our feelings (which emotions we have, when we have them, and how they are expressed). Throughout our lives, emotion regulation is an important regulator of interpersonal relationships and in our relationship with ourselves.

The ability to regulate one’s emotions is taught in one’s earliest relationships. We are taught ‘how’ to feel (and we are often not taught how to feel) by our primary caregivers, and this becomes ingrained throughout childhood, and practiced throughout life. Thus, emotion regulation and quality of an infant’s attachment are closely linked.

In infants, patterns of emotion regulation are shaped and developed in direct response to experiences with their caregivers. Because an infant is dependent on a caregiver (e.g., for food, shelter, and protection), an infant’s emotional regulation serves the important function for the infant of maintaining a close relationship with the attachment figure. This ensures that the parent will remain close to the child and the child will thereby (hopefully) be protected. As was demonstrated in the “Still Face” videos above – this is a survival instinct (we are hard-wired to do this).

Therefore, it is easy to understand how infants of non-secure parents, who may experience repeated rejection, or hostility, may learn very quickly to minimize their own negative affect (i.e., by emotionally withdrawing or shutting down) in order to avoid the risk of further rejection. Often, infants internalise the voices of their parents – and this can lead to an internalisation of this response to self that persists into adulthood in the form of negative self-beliefs and/or self-criticism.

On the other hand, it is easy to understand how infants of mothers who have been relatively inconsistently available may maximize negative their affect in order to increase the likelihood of gaining the attention of a frequently unavailable caregiver. If this strategy succeeds, it becomes engrained through repetition as a natural response whenever faces with a similar situation. Clearly, this could result in difficulties with emotion regulation for the child that may persist into teenage years and adulthood.

Again, both of these patterns of emotion regulation are simply examples of primal attempts by the infant to remain in positive connection with the caregiver. When these patterns work, they are repeated and they become deeply learned emotional responses – ways that we may still strive to have our emotional needs met as adults.

The early experiences you had with your primary caregivers ALSO play a direct role in the development of your brain, which in turn influences your ability to regulate your emotions. Insecure or inconsistent styles of attachment result in the experience of feeling overwhelmed and unsafe in a child, which creates either Hyperarousal (being on high alert) or Hypoarousal (becoming numb) as means of protection. Left unaddressed, this can persist across the lifespan and can greatly affect adult relationships, including our relationship with ourselves. 

Over time, these learned protective behaviours can reorganise a child’s brain during a particularly crucial stage of development (0-15 years) and this, in conjunction with either adverse childhood experiences, skills deficits, or maladaptive coping strategies, can lead to difficulties with emotion regulation in adults (such as a reduced Window of Tolerance, discussed in detail here). Essentially this is because through interacting with an infant in a very critical period of brain development (especially between 0 to 12mths) the mother begins to teach and shape how to down-regulate negative emotions but ALSO how to up-regulate positive emotions (such as joy, interest, excitement, which are important for play-states and the development of the dopaminergic-reward system). 

This is essentially what we as adults are ultimately required to do for ourselves, in terms of regulating our emotions (by calmly activating and deactivating our arousal) in response to the full range of events and challenges that we experience. This is depicted in a simple way in the following diagram (taken from my Window of Tolerance article, discussed in detail here):

Moreover, we know that the broader the range of emotions a child learns to experience (and respond to), the broader the range of emotions the adult will be able to understand, experience, and respond to (and understand, experience, and respond to in others).

For these reasons, it follows that, whereas skills for emotional regulation may come significantly easier to those who have grown up with secure attachment, emotional regulation can be more difficult to learn for those who grew up with inconsistent, unavailable or abusive caregiving. Nevertheless, the good news is that we can learn to work with (and heal) our wounded attachment systems, and regarding improving our emotion regulation – this essentially involves developing a new set of skills, which can be learned.

Effects on Relationships

In fact, this primary attachment style is so fundamental to how we process and make sense of the world that we even dream according to our primary attachment style. In one study, participants completed established measures of attachment to determine which attachment style best characterized them. Then, raters who were blind to the test results, listened to the participants’ recollections of dreams (listening carefully for themes, key people and the relationships between them). Amazingly, raters were able to correctly categorize participants’ attachment styles with a very high degree of accuracy, simply based on the content of their dreams (!). This result as been replicated in similar research. 

In the area of intimate relationships, both male and female adults seeking long-term partners often identify qualities of responsiveness consistent with Secure Attachment caregiving (such as warmth, attentiveness, and sensitivity), as the “most attractive” qualities in potential partners. Yet, as you are probably aware, despite the attractiveness of these secure qualities, not all adults are paired with secure partners.

This is because it is common for people to find themselves in relationships with partners who confirm their existing attachment experiences regarding relationships, care, and love. In other words, as adults we are subconsciously drawn towards partners who replicate the attachment dynamics that we experienced as children – even when these dynamics are not helpful for us. (This is because our ancient brains are drawn to this ‘familiarity’ on a primal, subconscious level).

However, this need not be the case. If you are in a relationship that contains unhealthy attachment dynamics, you can become aware of them and work with your partner (or with a therapist) to improve and change unworkable patterns. Or, if the dynamic is truly dysfunctional and toxic, you can work towards terminating an unworkable relationship. 

Alternatively, if you are not in an intimate relationship (or if you are not seeking one), understanding your Attachment style is still hugely important because it strongly influences how you relate to yourself and communicate with (and understand) others. 

It’s Not Your Fault

As discussed earlier, there are many reasons a parent may struggle to be emotionally present with their children. For the most part, most parents try as best as they can to deal with the challenges of parenting with the emotional regulation skills that they have, many of which were passed onto them by their own parents.

Unfortunately, children of parents who lacked the capacity to understand how what they are doing was ultimately affecting their child’s psychological growth and well-being, will most likely be those who have the deepest attachment wounds (and challenges managing relationships, including their response to emotions and needs of the Self). This is because, as humans, we have built-in survival instincts. As infants, our attachment style was our best means of self-protection. 

If you align with a “non-secure” attachment style, it is not because you did something wrong. Rather, your attachment style results from surviving your upbringing. In other words, a ‘non secure attachment style’ is a response to this period because it was how we learned to “balance out” the challenges of the caregiving provided to us. Any non-secure attachment style we may develop was the best way we to could cope with the difficulties of circumstances we were handed. In other words, our attachment experiences are not our fault (!). We did not choose our families, nor did we choose the difficult early childhood experiences we were exposed to. 

No matter which attachment style you currently have, know that secure attachment is possible. Learning about attachment is a journey of healing, self-compassion, and moving towards a more secure attachment style that will ultimately lead to healthier, more rewarding relationships.

You can recover from your attachment wounds. You can learn to develop new ways to relate to yourself and to connect with others. Learning about attachment by reading this article (and some of the articles at the bottom of this page) marks the beginning of this journey…

Healing Your Attachment Wounds

We now know that the attachment style you developed as a child based on your relationship with a parent or early caregiver does not have to define your way of relating to yourself, or to those you love in your adult life. In fact, we know that healing our attachment wounds is possible through heathy, emotionally corrective relationships.

We know that healthy attachment to others is our primary protection against feelings of helplessness and meaninglessness. For instance, close, connected relationships can actually reduce anxiety and fear by easing our primal fear of abandonment. This is because strong, attached relationships reduce feelings of fear (threat activation) and help “calm the brain”.

Whereas emotional isolation is more dangerous for health than smoking or a lack of exercise (e.g., people who live alone experience three times as many strokes as those who are married), those who feel the safety of a comforting relationship actually are more resilient in life and can go out and take more risks. Quite simply, loving and being loved makes one stronger. Those who have trust in each other can turn to each other in times of distress and this creates even more emotional safety.

Emotionally corrective relationships can be intimate relationships that you may have with a trauma-aware emotionally supportive partner (or a close friend) who either has a secure attachment style or who has done a lot of this work in therapy themselves. This person may be willing to hold space for you while also holding you accountable, as you work through the pain of your past together in all the ways that this may emerge within the dynamics of your relationship. Again, these individuals are often people who have often already done the work of therapy and have done the work of breaking their attachment patterns. However, these relationships deserve to be cherished and they are not a complete substitute for working with a professional who is trained in helping people heal from attachment wounds. 

Unfortunately, for people with complex attachment wounds, developing a secure relationship with the ‘right kind of person’ who is emotionally safe, knowledgeable, patient, unconditionally non-condemning and capable of providing a consistent secure base is a huge task, and there will likely be many hurdles along the way. Attachment patterns can be very challenging to understand and very resistant to change, and this can put significant strain on relationships. Again, working with a professional who is trained in helping people heal from attachment wounds is highly recommended. 

Although self-help information can be useful, it is also important to seek help for attachment difficulties and not to rely on self-help material alone. This is because attachment is relational, it involves your brain’s development and emotional learning in the context of interactions with others. The learning, reflection, and healing that is needed to address issues of attachment require an emotionally-attuned and emotionally-safe therapeutic environment in which to do this work, and to practice interpersonal skills that cannot be mastered alone.  

Developing Secure Attachment 

Seen, Soothed, & Safe = Secure Attachment

Secure Attachment can be BEST summarized with the concept of: ‘Seen, Soothed, & Safe’. Although this idea was initially developed by Dr. Dan Sigel (Neuropsychiatrist, Researcher, and best-selling Author) to help simplify Attachment for parents seeking to understand, attune to, and provide for their child’s emotional and developmental needs, the concept of Seen, Soothed, & Safe can be applied to two further areas: How we as adults relate to others and more importantly, how we relate to (and care for) ourselves.

Seen

‘Seen’ means to acknowledge and understand the mind, and emotions of another. This involves showing interest, empathy and curiosity about the feelings, perspectives and needs of another and being supportive an responsive to the emotional worlds of another person (it is the opposite of a dismissive parenting style that ignores, invalidates, or belittles a child for having the feelings or reactions that they might be having). It also requires being able to remain ‘present’ with and attuned to another person. This is not simply about eye-contact; it is about any actions you can take that may communicate to another person that you ‘get it’ at a ‘feeling’ level – that you truly understand their emotional experience. Mindfulness skills, Active Listening skills, and checking that you have heard what someone is saying correctly, can greatly help with this. 

Appling ‘Seen’ to Ourselves: This  means developing awareness of our own internal worlds, being able to identify, understand, and take responsibility for working with our emotions. It also means identifying and understanding what we need, and being interested and willing to respond to meeting those needs. If this learning was not provided to us by our primary caregivers, this may require therapy and practice.        

Soothed

‘Soothed’ means to provide a sense of comfort and calm to another when they are experiencing difficult emotions or situations, in order to help settle and soothe their nervous system, to provide emotional support, or to provide a ‘space’ to be with the difficulty that they may be experiencing.  Soothing may be enhanced by the ways we use our voice (tone, speed, expression), and/or physical gestures like body language, eye-contact, hand holding, or hugging.

Applying ‘Soothed’ to Ourselves: Being able to comfort and care ourselves by responding to our needs with healthy self-care actions, that support, settle, and soothe our nervous systems are all hallmarks of being able to provide a sense of ‘soothed’ to ourselves when we are having difficulties. This may require the prior development and practice of self-regulation skills learned in either therapy or via useful self-help tools. 

Safe

‘Safe’ means to provide a sense of emotional availability and/or protection to others which can be demonstrated in a variety of ways, such as via the aforementioned ‘Seen’ and ‘Soothed’ actions, by being ‘present’ and attuned to their inner worlds and demonstrating that you can be a stable and dependable figure during in times of distress. Other actions that cultivate a sense of ‘safe’ may include: Being able to provide emotional a ‘space’ for others where they feel accepted when experiencing their difficulty,  by being reliably accountable for one’s actions where there is a contribution to the difficulty (i.e, taking appropriate responsibility to ‘right a wrong’), and checking-in on how another person is feeling in a reliable and a consistent way. 

Applying ‘Safe’ to Ourselves: In addition to the skills required to feel we are ‘seen’ and can ‘soothe’ ourselves, being able to communicate through our intentions and our actions that we can care for ourselves in healthy ways (no matter what we may be feeling) can provide a deeper sense that we are ‘safe’ within ourselves. This is largely achieved by being able to respond to our inner worlds consistently with care, acceptance and compassion. This demonstrates to us that ‘it is OK’ to feel what we are feeling. Being proactively responsive to our emotions and our needs (which may include taking assertive actions to elicit care from others) and assertive communication skills are additional resources that can contribute to our sense of ‘safe’. 

The video below summarizes the above concepts. Although it presents them as ‘4’ separate elements, they are essentially just 3 because: Seen + Safe + Soothed = Secure Attachment. 
 

Individual Therapy 

A skillful trauma-informed psychologist who has undertaken the appropriate training can offer you the experience of a healthy, emotionally corrective relationship. Such a therapeutic relationship has the potential to be an emotionally corrective relationship partly because it is the therapist’s job to be ethical, consistent, and to build in security while being fully present for their clients. 

The goal of therapy in providing a secure attachment is to model healthy ways to relate to others and to provide a safe environment for you to learn to attend to and express your own feelings and needs, while also healing past wounds and practicing new skills. In this way, you can work towards developing more secure ways of relating to others, often referred to as ‘Earned Secure Attachment‘. With the support of your therapist, you will be able to begin to apply these new strengths outside therapy in relationships that matter to you such as with a partner, children and friends. This work can take time – but it can be done whether you are in an intimate relationship, or not.

In terms of using the emotionally corrective relationship of therapy to improve your relationship with yourself (which is also an important part of developing ‘earned secure attachment’), this may involve learning new ways of being able to soothe and support yourself when you are struggling or are experiencing a setback – these emotional skills will likely not have been made available to you as a child. For people with significant developmental traumas (such as attachment wounds or Adverse Childhood Events), therapies such as EMDR Therapy may be useful in helping you to remove the disturbance of painful memories so that you can put your past behind you, and create the relationships with yourself and others that you ultimately were unable to have.

If you are troubled by memories that disturb you, or if you are tired of being emotionally triggered by events, I recommend reading my page about EMDR Therapy.

Attachment-Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT)

The most well researched therapy for couples that makes use of attachment science is called Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for Couples. EFT for Couples is a short-term therapy that is aims to improve attachment and bonding in adult relationships. EFT for Couples is about creating connection in close relationships. It helps couples to understand and express their emotional experience including their needs, feelings, thoughts, and behaviours.

EFT for Couples is acknowledged as the gold standard for empirically validated interventions in tested interventions for couples. This research shows large treatment effect sizes and impressively, stable results over time.

EFT is the only model of couple intervention that uses a systematic empirically validated model of adult bonding (attachment) as the basis for understanding and alleviating relationship problems. Developed over 30 years ago by Sue Johnson, EFT for Couples is essentially attachment science in a therapy. As has been discussed, attachment science views human beings as innately relational, social and wired for intimate bonding with others. The EFT model prioritizes emotions and emotional regulation as the key organizing agents in individual experiences and key relationship interactions.

Below is a short video explaining research that Sue Johnson and her team performed, involving brain scans of people in relationships who were treated with EFT for Couples. It demonstrates how developing a strong relationship bond can reduce feelings of fear (threat activation) and can help “soothe the threatened brain”.

EFT for Couples not only addresses factors such as relationship distress, intimacy, trust, and the forgiveness of injuries, but it also aims to influence and heal you and your partner’s attachment style.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) involves discussing specific incidents that may occur in your relationship, as a way to help each of you learn about your emotions and the behaviours that result from those incidents.

For example, your therapist may discuss your partner reminding you to take out the rubbish and how that makes you feel. Do you feel angry?  What else might you feel? Are you ashamed because you forgot, so that makes you want to lash out in anger? Do you feel judged as “not good enough” by your partner and that makes you feel as if you disappointed her? Does this then make you want to pull away from her?

Goals of EFT for Couples:

• To create a positive shift in partners interactional positions and patterns.
• To foster the creation of a secure bond between partners.
• To expand and re-organize key emotional responses and, in the process, the organization of self.

 If you are in a relationship in distress, or you would like to improve your relationship in any way, I highly recommend learning more about the work of Sue Johnson and finding a psychologist who can offer EFT for Couples.

For a summary of the research on EFT for Couples, please visit https://iceeft.com/eft-research/