Polysecure

by Jessica Fern

  FIGURE 1.1 An adaptation of Mikulincer and Shaver’s model of attachment-system activation and functioning in adulthood.5

  Caregiver behaviors that could lead a child to take on a deactivating attachment strategy include:

  Neglecting or abusing the child.

  Being emotionally cold or rejecting the child.

  Giving the child hostile, angry or threatening responses.

  Discouraging a child’s expression of vulnerability.

  Encouraging (whether explicitly or implicitly) the child to be more self-reliant and independent.

  Caregiver behaviors that can incite hyperactivating attachment strategies include:

  Being unreliable, unpredictable or intrusive, where interactions are sometimes gratifying and connected, but at other times mis-attuned and disconnected.

  Punishing or criticizing a child for their independence or curiosity.

  Conveying messages that the child is not enough, or is incapable, stupid or failing in some way.

  Taking on a helicopter style of parenting, which might include excessive praise but also excessive control, protectiveness or perfectionism.

  Experiences of abuse or traumas that occur when the child is separated from their primary attachment figure, which can reinforce the notion that it’s dangerous to be apart from them.

  Both of these strategies can also occur simultaneously, meaning a child may experience both hyperactivation and deactivation, or may vacillate between the two survival strategies. We’ll discuss this more in the section about fearful-avoidant attachment.

  Secure Attachment: When Attachment Needs Are Met in Childhood

  Children who have a secure attachment style have generally experienced a family environment that’s mostly warm and supportive. Their parents or caretakers are available, accessible and responsive to their needs, enough of the time. Not necessarily all of the time but enough of the time, when the child has an attachment need, they reach out to their attachment figure and that attachment figure moves towards them in an emotionally attuned way that calms the child’s nervous system.6 This in turn teaches the child that allowing themselves to feel their needs and communicating those needs to others is an effective strategy. A caretaker being present, safe, protective, playful, emotionally attuned and responsive is of paramount importance to a child developing a secure attachment style.

  Early positive attachment experiences have a huge impact on healthy brain development and emotional regulation.7 When the attachment figure is able to emotionally resonate with the child, the child feels supported and learns to regulate their own positive and negative emotional arousal. This helps to lower stress hormones and increase oxytocin (the bonding hormone). By co-regulating with a caretaker, the child learns to understand and process facial and social cues, they learn empathy and they develop an increased ability to cope with stress. When children experience secure interactions with the adults in their lives and function from a secure attachment style, they also tend to have better self-esteem, be more resilient to trauma, have strong social skills, concentrate better, enjoy play and have solid overall emotional health. Through these nourishing experiences, a child develops a sense of safety and trust. They take in the messages that the world is a friendly place and that they can ask for what they want because the people in their lives care and are willing to help.

  Secure Attachment as an Adult

  Early childhood attachment experiences become the blueprint for the kinds of connections we go on to expect and seek in our adult romantic relationships. The interactions we experienced with our caretakers create internal working models of how we see ourselves—both positively and negatively—and set our positive or negative expectations about how attuned and available our partners will be to us in times of need.8 People with a secure attachment style experience a healthy sense of self and see themselves and their partners in a positive light. Their interpersonal experiences are deeply informed by their knowledge that they can ask for what they need and people will typically listen and willingly respond. It’s empowering to know that our actions are effective. As children, if we reach out with our body and use our voice to get the help or connection we need to mitigate our distress, and if our parents usually meet these attachment bids, we learn that we matter and are worthy of love. This builds the foundation for healthy self-esteem and a sense of competence in the world. As adults, this helps us be more flexible when our partners can’t meet our needs. We’re better able to weather hearing no, to wait for our needs to be met at a later time or to seek an alternative means of having our attachment needs met without shaking the foundation of our relationship.

  Bowlby viewed attachment as relevant “from the cradle to the grave.”9 He said that adult romantic relationships function as reciprocal attachment bonds, where each partner serves as an attachment figure for the other. Bowlby conceived of the parent-child attachment relationship as having four essential features: proximity maintenance, separation distress, safe haven and secure base. We can see many parallels between the parent-child attachment relationship and the adult-adult attachment relationship. For instance, adults seek physical contact with each other, engage in dreamy eye-gazing, and even use baby talk or cooing sounds to nurture and encourage bonding. We feel separation distress when apart, and we turn towards our romantic partners as a safe haven in times of need. We also see them as a secure base from which to explore the world and our sexuality, and we feel able to share important discoveries with them.10

  Of course, there are differences between the parent-child attachment bond and the adult-adult attachment bond. As adults, even though we seek regular and consistent proximity to our partner, we can tolerate much longer periods of separation from our partners by employing mental representations of them to help give us an understanding of why we are apart (e.g., “I know my partner is at work,” “My partner is away on a trip” or “I have this weekend with my kids and I’ll see my partner in a few days”). As adults, we are also better equipped than children to leverage positive fantasies about our partner; we can imagine what it will feel like when we’re reunited, and we can access a bodily felt sense of their presence, which can offer reassurances of comfort and security when physically apart.

  Two additional changes in adult attachment compared to parent-child attachment include mutual caregiving and sexuality.11 As children, caregiving is asymmetrical: a child under secure circumstances receives care from their attachment figures but does not provide it in return. But as adults, caretaking becomes more symmetrical and shared between partners. Sexuality also becomes an integrated part of the attachment and caregiving behavioral systems.

  A child with a secure attachment style will likely grow up into an adult who feels worthy of love and seeks to create meaningful, healthy relationships with people who are physically and emotionally available. Securely functioning adults are comfortable with intimacy, closeness, and their need or desire for others. They don’t fear losing their sense of self or being engulfed by the relationship. For securely attached people, “dependency” is not a dirty word, but a fact of life that can be experienced without losing or compromising the self.

  Conversely, securely functioning adults are also comfortable with their independence and personal autonomy. They may miss their partners when they’re not together, but inside they feel fundamentally alright with themselves when they’re alone. They also feel minimal fear of abandonment when temporarily separated from their partner. In other words, securely attached people experience relational object constancy, which is the ability to trust in and maintain an emotional bond with people even during physical or emotional separation.

  Object constancy is a developmental milestone where a child is able to understand that their attachment figure is a separate person. This person can love and be there for them, but they can leave the room and, even if they’re temporarily out of sight, it doesn’t mean they’re completely gone. In adulthood, relational object constancy enables us to trust that
our connections and bonds with people will endure even if we’re apart. People with secure attachment are able to internalize their partners’ love, carrying it with them even when they’re physically separate, emotionally disconnected or in conflict.

  Another important aspect of secure attachment is that, when distressed, a person can both emotionally regulate on their own, and can also co-regulate and receive support from their partners. People functioning from a securely attached style are better able to take care of their own needs as well as ask their partners to help out. In my psychotherapy practice, I’ve noticed that more securely attached partners are often better able to set healthy boundaries. They truly say no when they mean no and yes when they mean yes. To me, this is the foundation of true consent.

  Research has also shown that having a secure attachment style as an adult is correlated with higher levels of relationship satisfaction and balance,12 higher levels of empathy, respect and forgiveness for partners,13 and higher levels of sexual satisfaction when compared to people who are insecurely attached in their relationships.14 Additionally, having a secure base with a partner can increase sexploration, a term coined to describe “the degree to which a person co-constructs a sex-positive, supportive, and safe environment with their partner(s).”15 If you’ve been to one of my talks on attachment, you will have heard me say that secure attachment is the new sexy!

  Statements that someone with a secure attachment style might make:

  I find it easy to make emotional connections with others.

  I enjoy being close with others.

  I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me.

  I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.

  If I am in distress I can easily turn to my attachment figure for comfort and support.

  I am aware and accepting of my partners’ strengths and shortcomings, and I treat them with love and respect.

  During conflict or disagreement, I am able to take responsibility for my part, apologize when needed, clear up misunderstandings, apply problem-solving strategies and forgive when needed.

  I do well with the transition of going from being by myself to then being together with a partner, and I also do well with the transition of going from being together to then being alone again.

  When Attachment Needs Are Not Met

  So far, I’ve described the optimal situations for attachment in childhood and then adulthood—but approximately half the time, this ideal is far from achieved, leading to the three different expressions of insecure attachment: avoidant, anxious and disorganized. In general, with these three different insecure styles, regardless of what specific insecure adaptations a child develops, they will go on to have difficulty with certain relational skills and personal capacities. A person with any of the insecure styles will usually struggle with regulating their own emotional states in healthy ways. They may deactivate, suppress or deny their emotions, or they may hyperactivate and inflame their emotions, and be easily taken over by emotional states.

  We learn how to self-regulate through our connections with our attachment figures. So, if our parents were unable to regulate their own emotions (whether from their current stress levels or their previous unresolved trauma), and therefore couldn’t support us in regulating our own emotions, we lost a foundational developmental experience. In the absence of the foundational neuropsychological experience of receiving soothing and emotional regulation from our parents, as adults we then have to learn these difficult developmental tasks on our own. We have to figure out how to identify and articulate our emotional states and then find ways to self-soothe as a healthy response instead of pulling away, shutting down or lashing out in emotional reactivity. We also need to learn how to healthily rely on others and to figure out when it’s appropriate to seek support from them to help regulate our emotions.

  Children who experienced an insecure attachment environment, regardless of which style they adopted, can internalize the beliefs that to some degree the world is unsafe and people cannot truly be relied on. These children will also struggle with having a sturdy relational object constancy. Since relational object constancy is the ability to trust that your connection and bond with someone will persist beyond an initial separation or conflict, as an adult, having a compromised relational object constancy can make it extremely difficult to get through the disappointments, uncertainties, healthy conflicts, and natural ebbs and flows that adult romantic relationships inevitably produce. Research also demonstrates that people with insecure attachment styles in adulthood struggle with relationship satisfaction.16 They find it hard to trust their partners, forgive them and respond intentionally instead of reacting out of habit. They also face challenges when it comes to commitment, whether they tend to commit too soon or not commit at all.

  A Caveat to the Attachment Styles

  Before you read the next section, which describes the three different insecure styles, there are several important points that I’d like for you to keep in mind.

  Attachment wounds can occur for many reasons, and it is imperative to emphasize that attachment ruptures are not always the fault of one’s attachment figures. Attachment theory is not about parent blaming. Disruptions in attachment can occur for various reasons outside of the attachment figures’ control: physical or mental illness, hospitalizations, accidents, the needs of other children or family members in the home, death, poverty, housing instability, war and other social factors. I give a more in-depth analysis of the different levels of potential attachment ruptures in Chapter Three.

  Attachment styles are not static! If you experienced an insecurely attached childhood you can still go on to have healthy securely attached adult relationships, experiencing what is called an earned secure attachment. Your attachment styles are survival adaptations to your environment and since they were learned, they can also be unlearned. I will touch more on earned secure attachment in Part Three.

  Attachment styles are not rigid identities to take on. These different insecure styles are not how you relate all of the time and they are not the totality of who you are. I often hear people describe themselves as “I am an avoidant” or “I am anxiously attached,” seeing themselves wholly through this one lens. We can also do this to our partners, labeling them and everything they do as a result of them “being an avoidant” or “being preoccupied,” etc.

  From a narrative therapy perspective, this would be a form of essentializing in which someone takes one part of their identity or experience and sees it as the entirety of who they are. To me, this also exposes the paradox of labels. Labeling ourselves or even receiving a diagnosis can be very helpful. It can give important clarity and definition to the struggles that we have been facing. Whether it be a personality type, a medical condition, a psychiatric diagnosis or an astrology chart, finding ourselves in a certain type can be refreshing. We may feel that our experience is no longer mysterious or just limited to us, but is actually understood, well-articulated and even shared with others. For some, reading about a certain attachment style can literally put their entire life and relationship history into context, liberating them from the idea that they are broken or helplessly doomed to never have relationship success. Instead, they can see themselves as a person who has wisely taken on a certain attachment adaptation and they can feel empowered to change that adaptation and choose a more secure path from which to move forward. Conversely, labeling or receiving a diagnosis can also confine us into rigid categories that may restrict our sense of self or obscure the fullness of who we are. Labels can easily keep us stuck in the mindset of this is who I am, and so this is who I will continue to be. Instead of seeing ourselves as someone who struggles with anxiety, we see ourselves as anxiety itself. Instead of seeing ourselves as someone who is battling depression, we see ourselves as depression itself. So, when reading about attachment styles, please identify with what feels useful, and please be mindful of rigidly identifying yourself or ot
hers. We are more than the problems we face.

  You might relate to more than one style. Some people see themselves in two, three or even all four of the styles. You might function from a more secure style most of the time, but then act out a particular insecure style while under stress, or you might experience different attachment styles depending on who you are relating to. Many of us have different attachment styles in relation to each of our parents, for example—we might have felt very secure with one parent, but insecure with another. The styles of our partners also have an impact on our own attachment expression. A partner with a dismissive attachment style might provoke more anxious/preoccupied behaviors from us, or being with a more anxious partner might polarize us into being more dismissive. Our attachment styles can change from one relationship to the next and they can also change within a specific relationship with the same person.

  Lastly, your attachment style is not an excuse for abuse! I’ve heard people use their attachment style as an excuse for their actions, blaming their unskilled or even harmful behaviors on the “fact” of them having a certain attachment style. Please don’t do this! If you are acting out in harmful ways towards yourself, your partners or anyone you’re in contact with, please take your traumas and wounds seriously and seek professional support. Cycles of violence, abuse or neglect can undoubtedly be broken when the right support is in place.