Attachment Myths Exposed: Why ‘Secure vs. Insecure’ Isn't the Full Story
Attachment strategies are essential to understanding human behavior, particularly in relationships. When secure outcomes aren't achievable, people employ conditional strategies, often known as insecure strategies. Interestingly, even secure individuals sometimes resort to these conditional strategies, albeit at a lower intensity. For instance, if someone approaches you with strong preoccupation, trying to involve you in their issues, it's natural to distance yourself and establish boundaries. Even a secure person might appear avoidant in such situations. Similarly, if you seek a response from someone who is shut down and aloof, you might protest and use an activating strategy to engage them.
The difference lies in flexibility: secure people use these strategies sparingly and appropriately, while insecure individuals rely heavily on a single strategy unless they learn alternatives later in life.
One of the perplexing aspects of insecure attachment is that these strategies can create a pseudo sense of security, despite the underlying anxiety. For example, avoidance may allow for some auto-regulation, but at the cost of excluding important affective information from conscious awareness. This can result in a loss of emotional experience in the body, leading to chronic hypo-arousal. Preoccupation, on the other hand, can cause a person to lose present moment awareness, frequently experiencing the unfinished emotional business from the past intrude into the present.
Secure vs. Insecure Strategies: We all have attachment strategies, not just styles. Secure people use them flexibly, while insecure people rely on rigid responses.
Shifting Strategies: Even secure people may temporarily use insecure strategies, like withdrawing when overwhelmed or needing closeness when frightened.
Felt Security
The attachment system is deeply connected to the felt sense. A child doesn’t need to be comforted every time they are distressed; sometimes, just the presence or a glance from a caregiver is enough to settle them. This sense of security is akin to feeling better just by having friends around, without needing anything specific from them. Children need structure, routine, and cues to orient themselves in space and time. This predictability allows them to explore and develop their identities. As they grow older, they rely less on direct caregiving and more on internalized models of their caregivers, feeling reassured by their mental presence.\
Felt Security and Secure Attachment: Secure attachment allows a child to feel safe, explore independently, knowing their caregiver is available.
Pseudo-Security of Insecure Strategies: Insecure strategies offer a false sense of security, often at a cost (e.g., avoidance leading to emotional detachment, preoccupation with proximity and avoiding rejection).
Independence and Exploration
The more confident you are in having your needs met, the easier it is to be independent. For secure individuals, independence means freedom to explore and return for nurturing. This paradox of attachment—where felt security fosters greater exploration and independence—reinforces a secure sense of identity. For those with insecure attachment, independence can feel threatening or like an escape, often leading to alarm. Beyond primary caregivers, greater societal factors like socio-economic status, human rights, and environmental conditions, also impact one’s sense of security.
Exploratory System
The exploratory system is driven by curiosity, activated by novel and complex stimuli. The attachment system needs to be settled in order for the exploratory system to activate. Once these stimuli lose their novelty, the system turns off. This process explains why an engaging activity might keep you up late at night but eventually becomes less compelling. Avoidant infants, however, might engage in half-hearted exploration, using activities as distractions from distressing attachment cues rather than genuine curiosity. Anxious ambivalent children may not feel comfortable with any exploration due to fear of losing closeness to their caregivers or the caregivers may shut down the preoccupied child’s exploratory behavior because the parent feels abandoned.
Caregivers play a crucial role in developing an infant's exploratory system, encouraging them and providing support and maintaining a healthy sense of protection during exploration. This guidance allows children to learn, grow, and find meaning in their experiences, increasing their confidence in themselves and nurturing a strong, healthy sense of self.
The Paradox of Attachment: Secure attachment fosters feelings of safety and security within relationships, allowing for independence and exploration — more elaborate and complex behaviors that strengthen the sense of self. The healthy strong sense of self in secure people is the result of being able to fully settle and count on the caregivers to always be there for them.
Insecure Strategies
Insecure strategies often create paradoxical behaviors. For instance, an anxious-ambivalent infant might alternate between helplessness and exaggerated anger. This behavior can confuse caregivers, who may respond to the infant's helplessness only to be met with anger when the child is picked up. Similarly, avoidant behaviors can create an illusion of independence, yet the child’s attachment and interpersonal needs are not directly met.
The disorganized strategy, characterized by conflicting behaviors like approaching and then freezing or running away, often stems from trauma or a caregiver’s unresolved trauma. These behaviors don't achieve a set goal and can lead to chronic disorientation in relationships.
Insecure Independence: For insecure individuals, independence can be threatening or a way to escape attachment needs.
Insecure Organized Strategies Explained:
Anxious Avoidant: Seemingly cool and detached, a way to maintain some closeness while avoiding emotional vulnerability. Overly independent and half-hearted exploratory behavior serves the purpose of distraction from painful feelings related to the unsettled attachment system.
Anxious-Ambivalent: Fluctuates between helplessness and anger, creating confusion for the caregiver. Minimal exploratory behavior as the attachment system is always on. Sense of self is undeveloped and often defined or confused with the parents' identities.
Disorganization in Relationships
Disorganized attachment is challenging because it involves conflicting behaviors that make it difficult to form stable relationships. This strategy doesn't effectively minimize or maximize the attachment response, leading to inconsistent and unpredictable behaviors. This inconsistency makes forming trust in relationships nearly impossible.
Disorganized attachment often results from a caregiver's unresolved past, making it difficult for them to provide consistent care. In turn, the child may begin to be punitive or overly caregiving towards the parent in an attempt to elicit better care. These behaviors aim to manage the distress caused by the caregiver's inability to provide good enough care.
Disorganized Attachment: Caused by overwhelming and unpredictable childhood experiences. It's characterized by conflicting behaviors and unpredictable responses. Highly predictive of major disturbances in early life and adulthood.
Disorganized Subtypes:
Punitive-Controlling: Child acts angry and controlling towards the caregiver.
Caregiving-Controlling: Child attempts to take care of the caregiver to avoid their own distress.
Complex Disorganization Strategies: Attachment system co-activating with other systems (e.g., aggression, fight or flight) leading to complex and unsettling behaviors.
The Role of Healing
Understanding insecure and disorganized attachment is crucial in healing work, as people with disorganized strategies are often over-represented in healing settings. This classification includes various conflict behaviors, from punitive and directive actions to caregiving and helpless ones, each stemming from a need to manage the caregiver's distress. Repairing the underlying attachment system allows for a new and positive way to engage in relationships and to begin to discover the world and define the sense of self through meaningful experiences.
Conclusion
The key to understanding attachment strategies lies in recognizing how they impact our sense of security and ability to explore and form relationships. Secure attachment fosters independence and exploration, while insecure strategies can create complex and often paradoxical behaviors. Disorganized attachment, in particular, presents significant challenges, highlighting the importance of compassionate and consistent care in fostering secure relationships.
