Attached at Heart
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It’s probably no surprise to anyone who’s been in an intimate relationship that we become attached to those we love in both weird and wondrous ways. If you’re curious about how that happens and how to work with the stuff that comes up when you’re attached in relationship, here’s a quick overview of the underlying psychology at play—attachment dynamics.
Attachment dynamics are habitual adaptive strategies we use to reduce our experience of insecurity in relationships with people we have grown attached to and come to depend on. It’s how we deal with feelings associated with (inter)dependence in an intimate relationship.
Attachment dynamics (aka patterns, styles, types) reflect how comfortable we are being physically and emotionally close, as well as how comfortable we are being alone, in relationship with someone we have become attached to—someone we need, want, and love in our lives, whether we realize it or not, and whether we like it or not.
According to research, we are predisposed to one of three attachment dynamics developed in response to how we experienced our caregiving in early childhood when we were entirely reliant on a parent (or primary caregiver) to meet our needs.
TAKE AN ON-LINE QUIZ TO DETERMINE YOUR ATTACHMENT STYLE.
Approximately 60% of us feel pretty secure in relationship, comfortable being alone and together in equal measure. Some of us, about 20%, feel preoccupied with our relationship, and worry about being abandoned unless we’re constantly in reassuring connection. The rest of us, about 20% prefer to avoid depending on anyone altogether because we associate depending on others with a loss of autonomy or sense of self (Fraley, 2010).
Those of us fortunate enough to grow up with parents who were reliably available and responsive to our needs, develop a secure attachment to our caregivers that primes us to bond more securely with significant others later in life. Because our parents were good enough at meeting our needs most of the time, our nervous systems developed to tolerate and regulate emotional experience more optimally. People with secure attachment dynamics are more capable of regulating themselves, as well as attuning and responding to the emotional needs of others.
Basically, if we felt consistently seen, heard, and loved for who we are in relationship with our parents, we are both psychologically and physiologically better prepared to navigate the intimate territory of relationships.
If, however, we received less reliable or inconsistent caregiving as children, our ability to effectively tolerate and regulate emotional experience is compromised. We tend to experience more insecurity in our relationships. Our nervous systems are much more likely to activate hyperaroused or deactivate hypoaroused in response to feeling insecure or emotionally unsafe in relationships. This is simply how we learned to cope with feeling distressed in response to inconsistent caregiving.
Typically, insecure attachment dynamics fall into two categories: preoccupied and avoidant with avoidant further divided into subcategories of dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant. These attachment dynamics are strategies we developed as children to cope with the insecurity we experienced in the context of inconsistently responsive caregiving—e.g. emotionally unavailable, preoccupied, mentally unwell, neglectful, intrusive, or abusive.
People with preoccupied, sometimes referred to as “anxious,” attachment dynamics attempt to manage insecurity by pursuing more care and attention with loved ones. Most likely, when we were children, we only received the attention we needed when we were really upset. We learned that care only comes with being needy, so we tend to be needier in relationship. When we are anxiously attached, we experience insecurity when we feel disconnected in our relationship. Our attachment patterns involve seeking attention and reassurance to sustain the connection we need. When insecure, we actively seek, “chase or cling to” caregiving to help soothe and smooth our distress, preferring co-regulation.
People with avoidant attachment dynamics tend to manage insecurity by minimizing our need for care and attention with loved ones. Usually, when we were children, our parents rejected or punished us when we expressed our emotional needs, so our attachment patterns involve denying or containing our own, and others’ needs for intimate connection, preferring fierce self-reliance. We learned that those who love us can’t be trusted to care about or help take care of our emotional needs. Moreover if having emotional needs results in the pain of unmet needs, why have needs at all in relationship? We feel insecure when we feel too connected or care too much in relationship. Our attachment patterns involve seeking emotional and/or physical distance to sustain the space we need. When insecure, we “run, turn, or push away” to take care of ourselves, preferring self-regulation.
“We grow into avoidant patterns when, in childhood, attempts at closeness ended in degrees of rejection, humiliation, uncertainty, or shame that we were ill-equipped to deal with. We became, without consciously realizing it, determined that such levels of exposure would never happen again. At an early sign of being disappointed, we therefore now understand the need to close ourselves off from pain. We are too scarred to know how to stay around and mention that we are hurt.” Alain de Botton, The School of Life: An Emotional Education
PREOCCUPIED
HIGH ANXIETY + LOW AVOIDANCE = PREOCCUPIED (aka anxious) ATTACHMENT (20%)
preoccupied with the relationship
craves intimacy and proximity
sensitive to physical and/or emotional unavailability
seeks reassurance
fears abandonment or withdrawal
prone to catastrophizing
SECURE
LOW ANXIETY + LOW AVOIDANCE (of proximity/closeness) = SECURE ATTACHMENT (60%)
generally warm, loving, and open in relationship
maintains sense of self in and out of relationship
comfortable with intimacy and solitude
sensitive and responsive to other’s needs
tolerates and regulates emotions easily
addresses conflicts more readily
sets healthy boundaries
AVOIDANT
LOW ANXIETY + HIGH AVOIDANCE = DISMISSING AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT (17%)
HIGH ANXIETY + HIGH AVOIDANCE = FEARFUL AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT (3%)
minimizes intimacy and/or proximity
protects space and independence
reluctant to commit
dismisses needs of self or others
fears engulfment or infringed autonomy
prone to distancing or isolating
These strategies are neither inherently good nor bad. They simply are how we are when we feel insecure in relationship.
Just like particular people tend toward introversion, ambiversion, or extroversion, some people are inclined toward secure, avoidant, or anxious attachment patterns. Basically, we all have a relational comfort zone beyond which we experience anxiety that triggers unconscious strategies we use to ease our discomfort.
Attachment dynamics are psychobiological, involving complex, often unconscious mind/body processes for self-(and co-)regulation—how we manage emotions and thoughts, particularly in anxiety-inducing interpersonal interactions.
Because our original attachment patterns formed in early childhood when we were developing our sense of self and our lives depended on another for our survival, when these patterns are activated in adulthood, we may unconsciously experience what’s happening in a relationship as a threat to who we are or our very existence. This is why we sometimes (over)react to certain relationship interactions, without even fully understanding why.
When something that’s happening now triggers old attachment patterns, if we don’t know how to effectively articulate or negotiate what we need in terms of psychological and physical connection, or we feel that our partners are unresponsive to our needs, we become reactive and defensive. In such states, we are incapable of understanding or addressing any issues between us.
When we perceive a threat, we automatically anticipate whatever we consciously and unconsciously associate with that kind of threat from past experience. All of our mind-body energy, including that which would ordinarily support our higher cognitive functioning, goes toward self-preservation. Our autonomic nervous systems go into a fight, freeze, or flight state, temporarily “hijacking” or overpowering our reasonable minds.
“To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship.”
— Domenico Cieri Estrada
We are unable to be fully present and attuned to another we perceive as a threat. We see what we feel regardless of whether or not it’s real. It’s just the way the brain works. The perceived threat triggered by overwhelming absence or overwhelming presence drives us to get our need for safety and security met by whatever means available to us.
When we don’t feel secure sharing our needs, we act out in attempts to get our needs met, and reestablish optimal proximity and intimacy with our partners. Researchers call this “protest behavior,” which is any behavior driven by thoughts and feelings that amplify the need for intimacy and proximity (aka activating strategies) or those that dampen the need for intimacy and proximity (aka deactivating strategies). In other words, protest behaviors are the behavioral cues or signals we use to let someone know that we need (to feel) more or less intimacy in the moment when we don’t know how to communicate what we need or our previous communication attempts have failed to deliver what we need.
“I need you, but I’m afraid of being hurt (abandoned), so I’m going to hold onto you for dear life” is the underlying theme of people who are preoccupied in relationship.
If we have a preoccupied attachment dynamic, we enact thoughts and feelings that intensify or activate our need for intimacy and proximity, resulting in attempts to connect with our partners. This can look like calling or texting seven(teen) times in a row and becoming increasingly (irrationally) frustrated when our partner doesn’t respond promptly even when we know they’re working, threatening to leave while hoping that our partner will plead with us to stay, or reiterating ad infinitum, etc. Because we need more intimacy to feel safe and secure in relationship, we act in ways consciously and unconsciously designed to get our partners to connect with us.
“I need you, but I’m afraid of being hurt (trapped/engulfed), so I’m going to keep you at a distance” is the underlying theme of people who are avoidant in relationship.
If we have an avoidant attachment dynamic, we enact thoughts and feelings that suppress or deactivate our need for intimacy and proximity, resulting in attempts to distance from our partners. This can look like pulling away even when things are going well, mentally checking out or walking out in the middle of a conversation, ignoring calls or texts, deferring or refusing to commit, working excessively or inventing projects that must be done right now when we really just want to be left alone, etc. Because we need more autonomy to feel safe and secure in relationship, we act in ways consciously and unconsciously designed to get our partners to give us space.
If our partners are willing and able to respond to our cues securely without getting reactive and taking the protest behavior personally (i.e. approaching the preoccupied partner with hugs and reassurance, or giving the avoidant partner some space), it helps us recalibrate and become more secure. If, however, our partners miss the cues, or get triggered by our protest behavior, we can get into a reactive dynamic between us that amplifies the dysregulation.
Our attachment dynamics can change in response to new experiences in relationships as adults.
Despite our predispositions, all of us grow and change over time in response to life’s circumstances. Our attachment patterns can become more secure, and/or less secure in response to different relationships and contexts. We may engage in different attachment patterns with different people, habitually avoidant with our parents, but secure with our partners. We may be securely attached in one intimate relationship, but after a bad breakup or traumatic experience, we find ourselves more anxiously attached in the next one.
In a secure relationship dynamic, we are connected to ourselves, attuned to our own experience, and also connected to another, attuned to the other’s experience. We can shift back and forth fluidly, and sometimes, simultaneously. But when attachment or traumatic issues arise that are beyond our personal or relational capacity to experience, we tend to either dissociate from our own experience or detach from the experience of the other. We become absent to ourselves or absent to the other because of some perceived or real threat. It does not feel safe to experience our own or another’s experience.
Becoming aware of our attachment patterns can make a big difference in forming and sustaining healthier intimate relationships. As we get to know what our needs are in relationship, we can develop more effective ways of addressing these as individuals and relational partners. We can be more compassionate about our own and others’ ways of managing our insecurities in relationship even as we challenge ourselves and each other to develop more secure ways of relating when our needs are not being optimally met. We can become better at self-regulating (give yourself a hug, Anxiously Attached Folks), and co-regulating (bridge the gap, Avoidantly Attached Folks), balancing the needs of self and other in relationship to be more secure alone and together.
By becoming more adept in our abilities to articulate and negotiate how we meet our needs as individuals and as partners, we thus increase the likelihood of being relatably, reliably secure human beings in relationship with one another.
References
De Botton, Alain (2019). The School of Life: An Emotional Education. Hamish Hamilton.
Levine, Amir, M. D., Heller, Rachel S.F., M.A. (2010). Attached. The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love. New York, NY: TarcherPerigee.
Poole Heller, Diane, Ph. D. (2019). The Power of Attachment: How to create deep and lasting intimate relationships. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
Tatkin, Stan, Psy.D. (2011). Wired for Love: How understanding your partner’s brain and attachment style can help you defuse conflict and build a secure relationship. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger’s Publications, Inc.