Attachment is a bond, an affective bond generated with significant people in our environment. This type of bond is generated from the moment we are born, when we are babies, with our main caregiver figure, who is usually the mother. Attachment is also generated with the father, although this is usually of a different type (although it can be just as intense and lasting). 
The attachment that we build during childhood is very important because it determines, to a large extent, what our attachment will be in adulthood. In other words: it determines how we will connect with the people around us, how we will relate to each other, what we will look for in others and, above all, what situations will cause us suffering.
Before explaining what anxious and ambivalent attachment consists of and how it affects us, let’s learn how attachment is built and how this concept began to be studied in psychology.
The construction of attachment and its types: secure and insecure
When we are born, attachment is built through the interactions between the baby and the caregiver figure who offers food, care and love, protection, etc. The figure of the caregiver is essential for the survival of the child and that is why interactions are so important in this vital stage.
It is through these encounters that the attachment is strengthened. If the mother or caregiver is available to the child (physically and emotionally) and does not show ambivalence in her behavior, the child will develop a healthy or secure attachment.
On the other hand, when the mother is not available when the child needs her, when she is alone at specific times, or when she acts inconsistently or contradictoryly, the child is likely to develop an insecure attachment. Within insecure attachment we find three types of attachment:
- The avoidant or rejecting insecure attachment.
- Anxious and ambivalent insecure attachment.
- The disorganized and disoriented insecure attachment.
How did the study of attachment psychology begin?
- Researchers Harlow and Harlow were the first to study attachment in the field of psychology. They did it through the study of chimpanzee babies; they saw how they preferred a mother covered in plush that did not feed them than one made of hard metal mesh that provided them with food.
- How could it be? His explanation is that attachment has to do with the warmth and care of the caregiver, worth the redundancy, and not so much with food (which also). But as it could be observed, the chimpanzee babies preferred the “heat” before the food. The researchers also observed how the nurturing physical contact between the mother and her son had a positive effect on his development.
Anxious and ambivalent attachment: what is it?
Ambivalence in psychology is defined as the expression of conflicting emotions or feelings, which frequently generates anguish. In anxious and ambivalent attachment, the child (or adult, as we will see later) does not trust her caregivers and has a constant feeling of insecurity.
Because? Because their caregivers are sometimes there and sometimes not. These caregivers are also inconsistent in the proportion of safety and care, which leads to feelings of ambivalence and anxiety in the child.
What emotions does anxious and ambivalent attachment generate?
The emotions that this type of attachment generates are usually two: fear and exacerbated anguish when separated from the caregiver figure. There is also difficulty calming down when the caregiver returns.
The little one with an attachment of this type needs the constant approval of his caregivers and, therefore, he constantly monitors that they do not abandon him. When these children explore the environment, they do so tensely, that is, not very relaxed, and trying not to stray too far from the attachment figure or caregiver.
Adults with anxious and ambivalent attachment
- What are the consequences of an anxious and ambivalent attachment acquired in childhood during adulthood? The first of these is that this type of attachment causes adults to have a permanent feeling of fear that others will abandon them, especially their partner.
- Beyond the fear of abandonment, they are people who are afraid that their partner does not love them or does not really want them. In addition, they show difficulties in interacting with others in an appropriate way or in the way they would like to. Because? Because many times people with anxious and ambivalent attachment expect to receive more intimacy or bonding than they actually provide.
- In short, one of the main consequences of the anxious and ambivalent attachment developed in childhood is the appearance of a strong emotional dependency in personal relationships. This dependence appears above all in relationships with people with an important affective bond (for example, the couple).
- “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves determines the quality of our lives.”
-Anthony Robbins-
The fear of abandonment in anxious and ambivalent attachment
- People who have developed an anxious and ambivalent attachment have a great lack of security in the bonds that generates the constant feeling of threat in the relationship and of being in danger of being abandoned. As a consequence, these people will be vigilant and highly sensitive to any sign of rejection.
- So much so (so great is this fear of being abandoned), that they may even be the ones who actively reject the contact they want, because they can feel some control over the relationship and have the option of “leaving instead of being left”.
- In everyday language, it would translate into the eternal ” neither with you nor without you “. A “I love/need you” but ” I walk away because I don’t want you to hurt me “.
Is it all the fault of the anxious attachment of the parents?
- It is clear that the development of attachment during childhood is important and that it can determine, to a large extent, the path that our adult attachment will follow. But is it really all the “fault” of the parents? Here it would be convenient to do a little reflection exercise. There are really hard life stories, childhood wounds that mark us. We are not questioning this here. It is part of our “vital backpack”.
- However, as we get older, in addition to living new experiences and having the opportunity to bond in an increasingly healthy way, we also acquire new tools to face the difficulties of life and the shortcomings that we already carry.
- At this point, it is not about automatically forgetting everything we experienced during our childhood; it’s about facing it, knowing it, exploring well all those circumstances and that trajectory and, ultimately, accepting it and making peace with our past.
- We can be independent, have a family, children, work, be entrepreneurs… but if we continue locked in the mental house of our childhood, evading the responsibilities of our actions because “our childhood marked us”, we will never stop being those scared and wounded girls.
- We invite you to talk to that inner child who, perhaps at the time, was as lost as you are now; that you listen to her, give her a voice and little by little assimilate that this girl is part of your story, but that the course of it is constantly changing. And it is you who takes the helm! Shake that girl’s hand and start walking together.