Attachment is a bond that is established, on an emotional level, between two people. There are many types of attachment, although the best known (and probably also the most important) is the one that develops during childhood, at the beginning of life, between the mother figure and the child. There can also be attachment between the father and the child, although the bond between the mother and the children is usually the most significant.
Attachment is built through intimate moments, physical contact, affection, care and safety behaviors, sharing moments, food, the emotional availability of the caregiver, the teachings offered, etc. This is especially relevant in childhood, when the child is absolutely dependent on her parents for survival.
Psychologist and psychiatrist John Bowlby pioneered the study of attachment. Bowlby developed the Attachment Theory, which states that human beings are phylogenetically programmed to establish emotional bonds with figures that provide affection and care. Bowlby studied, above all, childhood attachments; Thus, although attachment appears and develops throughout life, it is in childhood where its bases are built. Attachment in childhood determines, to a large extent, our way of bonding with others and how we regulate our own emotions during adulthood.
In this article we are going to talk specifically about avoidant attachment, how it arises in this childhood stage and how it later influences adulthood.
The types of attachment
Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth, an American psychologist, also studied attachment, between the ’60s and ’70s. She studied attachment through the experimental paradigm called “the strange situation”, and her studies are still a benchmark today. Through her experiment, Ainsworth studied the reactions of children (babies) to separation from their mothers. Thanks to him, Ainsworth identified three types of attachment:
- Secure attachment: 65% of babies stated it.
- Avoidant or rejecting attachment (insecure attachment): present in 20% of cases.
- Ambivalent or resistant attachment (insecure attachment): present in 12% of cases.
Attachment in childhood and adulthood (and its importance)
In most people, the type of attachment developed in childhood is the one that prevails in adulthood, and numerous investigations have shown this. That is, attachment is usually configured in childhood and remains fairly stable throughout life. But why are early attachments so important? Because they determine, to a large extent, how we will bond with others in the future, be it with our friends or with our partners (especially with the latter).
What exactly is avoidant attachment?
- What characterizes an avoidant attachment? In Ainsworth’s experiment, for example, the psychologist described with this type of attachment those children who did not look for their mothers when they needed them, and who seemed to be indifferent to their absence. On the other hand, they showed behaviors of indifference when the mother returned, or even ambivalent behaviors. Another characteristic of this type of attachment is that the child can be very social with unfamiliar people, but not so much with familiar people.
- This type of attachment contrasts with secure attachment, which characterizes children who are confident when exploring the environment but who also turn to their mother, from time to time, in search of security. In secure attachment, the child cries when the mother leaves, and she rejoices when she returns.
How is avoidant attachment formed?
- Avoidant attachment is typical of children who do not live in emotional harmony with their parents. The parents of these children are distant when it comes to meeting their emotional needs and do not usually show them much affection (unless the children remain calm and without expressing their emotions).
- That is, the parents of a child who develops an avoidant attachment are not emotionally available to him and ignore his emotional needs. There is no validation of the child’s emotions and he ends up learning that being sad or showing sad behaviors (such as crying) is not appropriate. Because? Because in the face of these behaviors, parents do not respond, ignore or even reject said behaviors. We talk about the parents, but we also include the closest people and the child’s environment.
- On the other hand, another of the situations that lead a child to develop an avoidant attachment is that, when he does not show his emotions, there is recognition by his caregivers. Here there is attention and reinforcement from them; For example, the child spends the afternoon quietly in the living room, playing without “disturbing” and then they are reinforced. What does the child end up learning then? That, if he does not show his emotions, he is recognized and reinforced and that he should not “bother” if he wants his parents to really care for him.
- And what ends up happening? That the child ends up sacrificing closeness with others to avoid their rejection and also ends up not really showing what he feels. In a way, the child has learned that he must fend for himself to “survive” and that he cannot rely on others. We must not forget that children learn to regulate their emotions based on how their parents do, since these are their models. Thus, all this explained is reproduced in adult life, in future intimate and affective relationships with others, as we will see below.
How does avoidant attachment influence adult life?
- The fact of developing one type or another of attachment with the main caregiver during childhood has undeniable consequences in adult life. And so it is also with avoidant attachment. We are talking about adults who have learned, from a very young age, that the expression of their emotions does not offer them the emotional availability of others.
- In other words, if they express their emotions, others will not attend to them, and as a result they will feel rejected. For this reason, they are people who end up developing this pattern when it comes to bonding with others, especially in emotional relationships: a pattern of detachment, repression, and emotional inhibition. Thus, they are people who do not show what they feel because they have learned that “they should not do it” if they want the attention and affection of others. They have learned to “survive” by themselves and that is why it is so difficult for them to bond and give themselves emotionally to the other.
- On the other hand, they are adults who, as children, learned to distance themselves from affection and its manifestations, because they learned to act based on what their parents expected of them. They wanted not to disturb. And in adulthood this persists; These are people who distance themselves from affection and who are incapable of opening up emotionally because they fear that this will cause rejection, as it already did when they were little.
Emotional self-regulation in avoidant attachment
- As we can see, children with an avoidant attachment are adults who follow the same pattern. They are children who have not had the protection figure of their parents, especially on an emotional level, and this influences their ability to self-regulate emotionally. How?
- They are children (and future adults) who learn to self-regulate so that they can “replace” that absence through external stimuli. For example: food, material things, other people, work, toxic substances, addictive behaviors… So, in a way, adults can behave in the same way when they have to regulate their emotions. As? Resorting to all these elements and going to people who “cover up” these deficiencies, without being able to show how they feel.
- In adolescence, these behaviors usually refer to the use and abuse of substances such as alcohol and drugs, as a way to cover those gaps, that childhood wound. And finally, this difficulty in self-regulating one’s own emotions can end up triggering other symptoms or psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression or phobias.
Attachment as a way of bonding
It is for all this that the construction of a safe and healthy attachment is so important in childhood, because through it we will build our way of bonding with emotions and with significant figures in our lives.
An insecure attachment creates a wound deep within us that must be addressed if we want to build healthy ways of bonding with others. It is a job that requires effort, because changing such ingrained patterns is difficult, but not impossible. Psychological therapy can be a good alternative in this regard.