Literary Pixie

from How to Heal Your Nervous System

If you’ve heard of attachment theory, you may have heard of different categories, or statuses, of attachment – secure attachment, dismissing attachment, preoccupied attachment, and disorganized or fearful attachments. Most attachment experts agree that attachment status is not completely categorical; rather, it exists on a spectrum. For example, two people could both have secure attachment status, but one has secure status with more dismissing behaviors and the other has secure status with more preoccupied behaviors. As with other self-assessments in this book, naming your attachment status can be a useful tool to learn more about yourself, but don’t let the label limit you. You are much more than any label. 

Secure Attachment

Adults with secure attachment have generally had all five core attachment needs met reasonably well. They can handle stress well by maintaining a healthy balance between closeness and independence. They are comfortable expressing emotions and relying on others for support, as well as spending time alone. Even when faced with the inevitable difficulties and heartbreaks of life, they have a deep sense of being okay in the background, which helps them navigate different levels of alertness flexibly. In general, adults with secure attachment can:

• Effectively balance seeking support and help from others and relying on their own abilities when facing personal challenges or work deadlines
• Openly shares their feelings and thoughts with loved ones during difficult times, fostering strong communication and support networks
• Confidently asking for help from others in times of need, while also recognizing their own strengths and capabilities
• Enjoy spending time alone to recharge and reflect, using self-care activities to build resilience and maintain well-being
• Navigate life’s challenges, such as a job loss or a relationship ending, maintaining a background sense of okayness while feeling all the difficult and painful emotions that naturally arise – drawing on both inner resources and support from others. 
• Set healthy boundaries in relationships, allowing for a balanced interdependence between personal space and connection with others
• In romantic relationships, trust and commitment to their partner without becoming overly possessive, demonstrating a healthy mix of reliance and independence
• Adapt to new situations and cope with change by embracing personal growth and learning opportunities and seeking support when needed.
• Calmly address issues during conflicts, working toward resolution by both understanding others’ perspectives and asserting their own needs
• Demonstrate empathy and understanding toward others, providing support and encouragement while also valuing their own well-being and self-reliance.

Dismissing Attachment

People with dismissing attachment, sometimes called avoidant attachment, tend to keep their distance in relationships and may push away intimacy. In their childhood, their bodies learned to reduce their perceived need for emotional connection and closeness with others, and, instead, found comfort in distraction or through suppressing negative emotions. For example, after a rough day at school, they might have preferred to spend hours riding their bike alone or drawing pictures in their room rather than talking to family or friends about their feelings, as playing alone often felt more comforting or secure than talking about difficult feelings with caregivers. Although playing alone didn’t truly address their emotional needs, it did provide a sense of temporary relief, It also gave them a sense of agency in the situation.

In general, their caregivers may have been especially encouraging of their independence and good at the core attachment need of supporting their best self-development. But, typically, their caregivers were not very attuned to these children’s needs and feelings, and may have neglected to soothe or comfort them sufficiently, especially when they were experiencing negative emotions or stress. Their nervous systems learned to come down from red states by suppressing negative emotions, rather than soothing them and feeling better. 

As adults, they tend to be more disconnected from their internal experience and find themselves most comfortable in relationships where they do not feel too close to the other. They often idealize loved ones, such as parents or partners, subconsciously ignoring the others’ faults to avoid feeling sad or disappointed. In stressful situations, they might cope by showing off their independence, trying to “problem solve” their way out of pain, or getting absorbed in an activity that turns off their need for connection. Examples may include:

• Becoming a workaholic, obsessing over career or business
• Immersing themselves extensively in intellectual pursuits or research
• Overwhelming themselves with managing every detail of their children’s lives – from scheduling extracurricular activities to handling all school-related tasks – without seeking help or delegating responsibilities
• Overexercising or engaging in extreme sports to the point of exhaustion
• Traveling nonstop or obsessively exploring new places
• Compulsively learning new skills or taking up multiple hobbies
• Overcommitting to volunteer or community work, leaving no time for themselves
• Networking or attending social events to the point of neglecting deeper personal relationships
• Dedicating all their free time to artistic or creative projects, to the expulsion of other aspects of life.

Preoccupied Attachment

People with preoccupied attachment, also known as anxious attachment, often struggle with self-esteem and may feel inadequate compared to others. In childhood, their nervous system learned to increase their emotional distress to get the attention, safety, and comfort they needed from caregivers. Of the five core needs, they typically most lacked expressed delight and support of best self-development. They did get some attunement and soothing, but it was unreliable. 

As adults, their nervous systems may increase feelings of anxiety or anger in response to not getting their attachment needs met. In relationships, they tend to worry about abandonment, seek extra reassurance from others, and find it hard to be alone. They often subconsciously fixate on the faults of loved ones, harboring significant anger or hurt when thinking about their unmet needs in relation to parents or long-term partners. In stressful situations, they may cope by activating strategies that keep others close to them, like becoming overreliant on others and entangling others in their emotional world. For example, a high-functioning adult with preoccupied attachment, at work or in their relationships with family and friends may:

• constantly seek approval, validation, or reassurance from colleagues, supervisors, friends, family members, or romantic partners
• become overly dependent on others for emotional support, decision-making or help, even when it’s not necessary
• be highly sensitive to rejection, taking criticism personally and struggling to accept constructive feedback
• Tend to overshare personal issues or emotions with others in an attempt to connect, gain sympathy, and create strong bonds quickly.
• Cling to relationships, including friendships and romantic partners, even when these are not healthy or beneficial because they are especially afraid of being alone
• Frequently check in with loved ones or colleagues for fear of being left out, forgotten, or abandoned
• Experience intense anxiety or anger when their need for connection isn’t met, leading to overreactions and escalating conflicts.
• Struggle with setting boundaries, becoming overly involved in the issues or well-being of family, friends, and co-workers
• Offer help and support even when it was not asked for, in an attempt to maintain close relationships
• Overcommit to social events and obligations to avoid feeling alone, even when they need rest
• Feel jealous of or threatened by other people’s relationships, friendships, or connections
• Struggle with delegating work tasks, fearing colleagues will not support them or will perceive them as incompetent

Disorganized or Fearful Attachment

Some people who have had especially difficult attachment experiences early in life have an attachment system that is less organized around one particular strategy and, instead, displays a mix of preoccupied and dismissing attachment strategies. Their nervous systems can fluctuate between two opposite attachment strategies – a preoccupied strategy and a dismissing strategy.

When the preoccupied strategy is activated, they become overly focused on their distress and may get anxious or upset until they receive comfort or attention. When the dismissing strategy is activated, they suppress or ignore their distress as a way of coping, usually also pushing away intimate connections.

This inconsistency can be scary and painful and make the disorganized person feel powerless and lost, with unclear goals and an unstable sense of who they are. In childhood, the five core needs may not have been met or met inconsistently, but most important, the first core need of safety and protection was not met by their caregivers. They often didn’t feel safe with their caregivers. Like everyone, they desire to love and belong but have an extreme fear of being hurt or rejected by others. This may show up in several ways, including:

• Struggling with a sense of identity and goals, leading to feelings of ineffectiveness and helplessness
• Having relationships characterized by a pattern of “stable instability,” making it hard for them to maintain long-lasting, healthy connections
• Oscillating between seeking reassurance and validation from others and pushing others away out of fear of rejection or abandonment
• In social settings, having difficulty finding a balance between connecting with others and maintaining emotional boundaries
• In conflicts, alternating between extremely intense emotions and withdrawing or shutting down, making it hard to find a solution
• At work or in personal relationships, struggling to express needs or emotions consistently and clearly
• Experiencing intense feelings of insecurity and fear, which can drive them to be overly cautious or guarded in relationships
• In times of stress, wavering between relying heavily on others and trying to cope entirely on their own, making it difficult to find a healthy balance.

Training Attachment Security as an Adult

Your attachment status isn’t set in stone. It exists along a spectrum, and no matter where you find yourself, you can always work toward healing and becoming more secure. Building more security can help you handle your emotions better and become more resilient, while also building deeper connections with others. Although being in a relationship with a secure partner can aid this process, this is not always available, or may be challenged by both partners’ attachment issues.

Various therapeutic modalities can help train secure attachment status in adults who struggle with stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. One highly effective method is the Ideal Parent Figure (IPF) protocol, developed by psychotherapy researchers and clinicians Daniel P. Brown and David Elliott. Amazingly, you don’t necessarily have to have different experiences in the real world to change your attachment status. You can use your imagination to train your nervous system to manage emotions and expectations of relationships in a more secure and flexible way. The IPF protocol uses visualizations of secure attachment experiences with imaginary caregivers to shift your attachment status.

Working with the IPF protocol typically takes six months to two years of weekly sessions with an IPF therapist to transition from insecure to secure. However, even incremental changes in your ability to imagine having all your attachment needs met can significantly help increase your nervous system flexibility. In a study by psychologist Federico Parra and colleagues, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were significantly reduced in just five weeks of using the IPF protocol, even for patients who didn’t change their attachment classification from insecure to secure.

Attachment security, just like nervous system regulation, is not just a mental exercise. It engages both your mind and your body. You can’t train attachment security by trying to think through it; you have to engage your interoceptive awareness, or internal sensations, to train your nervous system to be more secure. The IPF protocol does this by having you imagine the embodied feelings, or felt sense, of having each of your five core attachment needs met over and over again in different situations. For example, you don’t just think about what ideal parents would say to you to express delight, you imagine being a child and bring to mind what it would feel like in your bod as that child for your ideal parents’ eyes to sparkle with delight as they take great joy in you just as you are without wanting you to be any different.