The Impact of Developmental Trauma on Attachment

All people require a comfortable amount of distance and closeness within their relationships. However, many people struggle to achieve this balance. You may feel “crazy” or “needy” for wanting to be closer to a friend with whom you already have a strong foundation. Or, maybe it’s the opposite; maybe you have felt frustrated due to another’s “unreasonably high” expectations on you and your time. Can you relate to either of these scenarios?

Luckily, attachment theory can provide some insight into your relational needs. In short, the theory explains that the way we view ourselves and others develops early on in life. More specifically, the way you look at the world and relationships is greatly impacted by your early relationship with your parents or other caregivers. This attachment is also impacted throughout our lives through significant relationships, meaning we can shift towards more secure (or less secure) attachment styles. As adults, we automatically maintain an amount of space with others that allows us to feel at ease. We want maximum predictability and minimal pain. Most people have unconscious strategies they use to keep others at a comfortable distance based on previous experiences. It is useful for us to identify our own strategies, creating an awareness of why we feel or act certain ways in our relationships. This self-awareness allows us to examine other options that might be available, and other ways of interpreting what’s happening within us and between us. Our strategies are meant to create more of what we need, but frequently have unintended consequences. For example, when someone is experiencing more distance in their relationship than they are comfortable with, they can often present with anger, resulting in more distance. Eventually this feedback loop results in a despairing collapse and possibly self-abandonment.

Attachment and Coping Mechanisms

You may have heard of the four major attachment styles: secure, preoccupied/anxious, dismissive/avoidant and fearful/disorganized. Simply put, these styles break down into feeling safe, feeling uncomfortable with distance, feeling uncomfortable with closeness, and feeling a mix of discomfort around both closeness and distance. When our relationships with our early caregivers are confusing, unpredictable, or hurtful, we figure out ways of minimizing our distress. These distress management strategies form a feedback loop with our core beliefs and get extrapolated into adult behaviors. According to Deany Laliotis, founder and director of The Center for Excellence in EMDR Training, many of these beliefs and behaviors fall into the themes of safety, power/control, responsibility/defectiveness, and love/intimacy. In response to developmental trauma, we develop coping styles that are either inhibitory (we do less) or excitatory (doing the most). Inhibitory strategies typically fall under patterns of surrender and avoidance. Excitatory strategies fall into overcompensation, projection and externalization. Throughout this blog, I will reference back to information I have gleaned from one of Laliotis’s trainings.

Safety

Within the domain of safety, we may have beliefs that sound like: Submission keeps me safe, People who love me will hurt me or leave me, and I must always take care of others- my needs come last. Oftentimes, these beliefs develop from a physical violation of safety or a neglect of safety needs. What this looks like and feels like tends towards anxiety, uncertainty, overwhelm and a deep, deep loneliness even in relationships with others. Inhibitory coping in this domain might include submission, depression and withdrawal. Excitatory coping might include aggression, risky behaviors, caretaking, and over-protectiveness of others. In order to heal, we must learn to differentiate between our past and present relational experiences, identify and take in current cues about our safety, and learn to connect with and communicate our emotional state. Notably, even if the behaviors seem contradictory, they are meeting a similar core need. 

Power and Control

In early childhood, we often experience our power being stripped from us in some way. In this domain, we may have developed beliefs such as I have to get along with everyone, I should avoid getting too close to people, and I can’t trust myself. Inhibitory coping may look like helplessness, passivity, relationship avoidance, dissociation, substance use, and more. Excitatory coping may take the form of abusive behaviors, entitlement, and overly solicitous or rescuing behaviors. Either way, we are struggling with knowing where our power lies and who can take it away from us. To heal, we must internalize our appropriate, grown-up control over the choices we make now rather than the choices that were made for us. It can be surprising to find out how much power you actually have in your own internal world. 

Responsibility and Defectiveness

Our sense of worthiness in relationships is impacted by chronic childhood guilt or shame as well as a feeling of not being “good enough.” We may develop beliefs like I’m not worthy of love, My needs are not important, I only matter when I’m serving others and I am too much for others. According to Laliotis, inhibitory coping can look like self-loathing, withdrawal, expectations of abuse or neglect, extreme dependence, and dissociation. Excitatory coping might take the form of perfectionism, eagerness to please, shame, unattainable expectations of others, and being dismissive . This domain requires support in noticing what you were actually responsible for and the unnoticed success you’ve had. 

If you take nothing else away from this blog, I want you to know that you are not defective, and you never, ever were.  The way we cope with our hurt sometimes hurts us more, and sometimes it hurts others. There is hope and there is healing- just because this is how it has been doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to stay.

Love and Intimacy

When we experience consistent empathic failure, if we feel disconnected from our attachment figures or our own inner experience, or if we spend a lot of our early childhood needy or lonely, we sustain damage in the love and intimacy domain. We may develop beliefs such as I am unworthy of love, I must let go of my needs in order to be loved, and I have to change in order to be loved. Inhibitory coping in this area may look like an inability to be close, conflict avoidance, avoidance of physical/emotional intimacy, reliance on others for care, and indiscriminate attachment to others. On the other hand, excitatory coping may look like fear of abandonment, distancing, and disdain for others. Can you see how effective those strategies would be at keeping someone at the right distance?

Moving Towards Secure Attachment

Any of these systems can be altered through early childhood relationships, betrayal trauma, complex traumas and can be healed with a variety of therapy modalities. Emotionally focused couple’s therapy is an excellent tool to improve your relationship-specific attachment (how you show up with and experience your partner) and this can generalize into a more secure attachment style. Learning about how your particular attachment system works to keep you as safe as it can is one of the most helpful things you can do to provide yourself with more choices through an attachment focused EMDR or other relational trauma modality . If I’m doing something I don’t like, that doesn’t align with my values and seems to be causing me pain, I need to understand the behavior’s function and find different ways to get that same, valid need met. With support and some guidance, the attachment system can absolutely heal itself, bringing us into stronger, more adult, more personally responsible relationships. It’s not fair for your happiness and comfort to be dependent so strongly on other people’s behavior and choices, so let’s develop more choices for you together.

Do you find that you resonate with much of the information presented about attachment? Are you curious about how else we might be able to help? To find out more about our approach or to connect with a therapist that is right for you, contact us for a free phone consultation. Our team of therapists are licensed, experienced, and specifically trained in treating attachment wounds, trauma, addiction, and relationships.

About the Author

Morgan Hanley is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapist (EMDR), and Couples therapist trained in Gottman Method, Level 2. Morgan works with clients to heal attachment wounds, family dynamics, and intimate relationships as each system relates to complex trauma responses.