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Secure Attachment · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first episode following the introduction on the series about attachment and attachment styles.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is, I think, important to understand is that attachment is a complicated subject in as much as it's often confused with the notion of bonding.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bonding is a term that was never used by Bowby or any of the other any of the other researchers into this subject, and particularly Mary Ainsworth, who was a Canadian psychologist who worked alongside Bowby.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: She went on to describe some other attachment styles that develop in adolescence, or rather, translate from a particular attachment style to something else.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this had to do with a compulsion.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk about that at the end of the series because I think for some listeners this this may seem quite quite familiar in terms of how you manage and how you experience relationships as an adult.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But first let's talk about secure attachment.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose in the context of my consulting room, I I never see it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's neither a good or a bad thing.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, it's just the case.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think by definition, the people who who I treat are very are very often those who've had very inconsistent attachments and sometimes some pretty awful and dangerous experiences in relation to others.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So really I think what we have to understand though is what secure attachment looks like because parents in particular are the people who create the environment for the attachment and the attachment style.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a particular feeling that many people spend their entire lives searching for, and it isn't excitement or intensity or obsession, it's something much quieter than that.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the feeling that you're emotionally safe with somebody, and that conflict or whatever kind won't destroy the relationship, and that distance doesn't automatically mean abandonment, and that you don't have to become somebody else in order to remain loved and in the relationship.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, this feeling seems to arrive naturally, not because their their lives have been perfect, and not because their childhoods were without pain, but because somewhere early in life they learned something fundamentally from a psychological standpoint, and that was that connection could survive.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode about secure attachment, I want to describe that the attachment pattern most strongly associated with emotional stability, relational resilience, and psychological flexibility is the secure attachment.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it's often misunderstood.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: People imagine that securely attached individuals never struggle, never feel anxious, never become emotionally activated.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: That just isn't true because secure attachment isn't emotional perfection.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the internal experience that relationships are generally survivable, repairable, and emotionally manageable.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that internal experiences change everything.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So secure attachment generally develops where caregivers emotionally available, reasonably predictable, responsive enough, and capable of repair after emotional ruptures.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And notice something important about what I've just said.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't used the word perfect, and this is because there is no such thing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Winnicott, Donald Winnicott, described the term good enough, being a good enough parent, and that term has been applied almost globally when it comes to understanding parenting and not being a perfect parent.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because children don't require flawless parents, they require emotional reliability sufficient for the nervous system to organize around safety rather than threat.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is very important, and I will be doing a series on neuropsychotherapy and talking a lot about what happens in the brain and how neural pathways are formed through experience.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in this case, though, the child learns when I'm distressed, somebody comes.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: When I need comfort, I matter.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: When conflict happens, connection returns.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And gradually these experiences become internalized.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: This creates what Bowlby described as an internal working model.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because the securely attached child carries an unconscious expectation that people are generally emotionally available.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Needs can be expressed safely.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Closeness isn't inherently dangerous.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And separateness does not necessarily mean abandonment.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about how powerful powerful that is psychologically, because throughout life, the internal model becomes the lens through which relationships are experienced.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: In adult relationship, secure attachment often appears remarkably ordinary from the outside.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that is precisely the point.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The relationship doesn't depend upon chronic uncertainty or emotional gains or ambiguity or control or constant reassurance seeking.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's room for closeness and individuality, disagreement, emotional honesty and repair.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So generally, securely attached individuals can tolerate intimacy without panic, they can tolerate distance without collapse, they could express their needs directly and remain emotionally present during conflict, but not always perfectly, but consistent enough.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is important.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Securely attached people still experience hurt, jealousy, fear, anger, and disappointment, and emotional activation.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: The difference here, though, is in what happens next.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict doesn't automatically become psychologically catastrophic, and you know, a delayed message or a period of silence doesn't mean abandonment.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: A disagreement doesn't necessarily mean rejection.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: An emotional distance doesn't instantly activate panic or shutdown, because the underlying assumption remains the relationship can survive difficulty.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think secure attachment is deeply connected to emotional regulation.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's really quite simple because the nervous system, if it developed in an environment where distress was manageable rather than overwhelming, the securely attached child gradually internalizes the caregiver's regulating function.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: We call this mentalization.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Over time they develop the capacity to soothe themselves, think under stress, and maintain perspective during relational tension.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes I'll talk to parents who describe that when their child is very dysregulated, they try and they may try a series of things.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: What in fact they're doing without knowing is very probably making the situation worse because and you know, I say this as I often say, this isn't a criticism.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the fact that desperate parents sometimes become quite chaotic themselves.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the child internalizes that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: This thing of internalization is really important, you know, taking in and holding on to, and not understanding, but having it become part of the internal working model.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, children will develop the capacity to soothe themselves, as I said.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in other words, they they don't immediately lose themselves inside emotional activation.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the greatest gift of secure attachment is psychological freedom.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: The freedom to express needs to remain emotionally separate and to disagree without terror, to trust without constant monitoring, and to love without chronic fear of disappearance.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean that secure people never fear loss.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It means loss doesn't organize their entire relational existence.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: People who enter secure relationships after unstable attachment experiences often describe something really surprising.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And at first it may feel unfamiliar, sometimes even boring, because there is less emotional chaos and unpredictability or intermittent reinforcement and psychological activation.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for nervous systems conditioned around instability, calmness can feel emotionally confusing.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is why people sometimes make the mistake of uh experiencing intensity for intimacy, when in reality, security often feels quieter, more spacious, more consistent, more emotionally breathable.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly people who have had relationships with those who are emotionally volatile, who are inconsistent in their behavior, whose moods one has to predict who go missing at given times, the damage that that can do is quite profound.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: But then when entering a relationship where none of those features are apparent and and and being with someone who is who is consistent and aware is like fresh air.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the important thing is what I'm pointing out here is the contrast and the difference between being in a relationship with someone who has an insecure attachment style and someone who has a secure one.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Securely attached children are not children who never become distressed, though.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: They cry, they become frightened, dysregulated, angry, but they generally trust that comfort is available because that's what they've learned.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And have also learned that repair will occur and emotional connection remains accessible.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this creates confidence not only in relationships but in the self.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because children learn who they are partly through how they are emotionally held by others, this back to internalization.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Children can feel okay about themselves, they can experience themselves in a more robust way than those who are insecurely attached.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some people ask, can secure attachment be developed later?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a good question.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would say no.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't think I don't think attachment styles change.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think what happens though is the capacity for secure attachment can be attained alongside the underlying attachment style.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the way that happens is through emotionally safe relationships, therapy and consistency can be really important, self-awareness, and corrective emotional experiences.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So people can develop a greater internal security but not change the primary attachment style.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what happens here is that the attachment style is triggered under stress.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not that a person with an insecure attachment style will always behave in a manner in any of the ways that I'll go on to describe.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's under stress.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you see it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, a person can a person can develop a greater capacity for secure attachment, but put them under significant or cumulative pressure, and you will begin to see, or they will begin to experience what happens internally.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a bad thing because what it points towards is the the scope is there, but it's not accomplished by becoming emotionally invulnerable.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: But it occurs by through learning that closeness can be safe, needs can be expressed, and relationships don't have to depend upon fear, control, or emotional instability.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, secure attachment matters because it creates the psychological conditions necessary for genuine intimacy, not fusion or dependency and not control, but intimacy between two psychologically separate selves who can remain connected without annihilating themselves or each other.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that is one of the deepest forms of emotional safety.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings can experience this and need to experience it, and the more they do, the more secure they become.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think the tragedy for many people is that they spend years believing that loving must feel uncertain, frightening, emotionally exhausting, or psychologically destabilizing.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: When often these experiences are expressions not of love itself, but of unresolved attachment fear.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Secure attachment doesn't require confusion or emotional starvation or hypervigilance or the abandonment of self.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It allows for something much quieter, the experience of being emotionally close to somebody without constantly fearing loss, engulfment, rejection, or collapse.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps for many people that kind of safety feels unfamiliar precisely because it is the thing they've been searching for all a lot.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I'll be back with episode two shortly.