Let’s consider something so basic to life that we rarely ever give any thought: attachment. I’m talking about the deep, natural relationships we create with the individuals meant to look after us, not attachment in the Buddhist sense of clinging to things.
Attachment is not only a catch-phrase in psychology. Babies scream when left alone for this reason as well. This is why a young child falls and searches around right away for their parent. The invisible thread tying us to our caretakers shapes our relationship to the world, our trust (or lack thereof), and even our stress management style.
Let’s dissect it.
Attachment is About Survival
Consider a newborn infant. Totally helpless. Unable to feed itself. Little movement is possible. Unable even to control its own body temperature. Unlikely to last a day if left on her own.
Nature recognizes this, hence it programmed newborns to pursue the one action ensuring survival—the search for connection. Not merely adorable, survival behaviors include crying, cooing, grasping, making eye contact. All are naturally occurring strategies to ensure life. The baby’s brain is saying, “Find the person who keeps me alive and make sure they don’t go too far.”
Most of human history, if you were not close to someone who loved you, you would die. Period. Our nervous systems are still running on that primal reasoning even though we no longer live in caves. The attachment instinct is therefore quite firmly rooted within each of us.
What Happens When We Feel Safe?
Let’s say, then, that this baby is fortunate enough to have a regularly responsive caretaker. Someone shows up when they start to cry. Their food comes first when they’re hungry. They find themselves held when afraid.
Over time, that baby’s brain begins to wire itself with a very simple but strong lesson: The world is safe. My needs matter. People are trustworthy.
In essence, that’s secure attachment. It’s not about being a flawless parent. It’s about being consistent enough that a youngster realizes, deep down, they are not alone in the world.
And this counts far more than we could possibly know. Because our nervous system grows capable of self-regulation when we feel protected as infants. We learn to manage stress without shutting down or spiraling into a panic attack. Our handling of relationships gets better. People will, we trust, be there for us. Thus we don’t have to be either continually terrified of rejection or hyper-independent.
This is how attachment literally encodes our nervous system; it’s not just some abstract idea.
What Happens When We Don’t Feel Safe?
Now let’s turn the script around. What would happen if a baby’s needs were not routinely satisfied?
Perhaps sometimes a parent responds, and other times they don’t. Maybe the infant is ignored, dismissed, or even punished for crying. Perhaps their caregiver is physically present but emotionally absent, too stressed out to pay attention, or battles unresolved trauma themselves.
Then, what does the nervous system of the baby learn?
- People are not something I can count on.
- There’s no safety in the world.
- My needs have no bearing on anything.
- I have to deal with everything myself.
These beliefs thread through a child’s life even before they have words for them. And the nervous system responds as well. The youngster must find alternative means of coping—shutting down, acting out, numbing, or clinging frantically to anyone who provides attention rather than learning to control emotions with the support of a caregiver.
This is the way insecure attachment develops. One doesn’t make a conscious choice. It’s a survival instinct.
Attachment is the Blueprint for Everything
The wild thing is that the attachment styles we develop as infants don’t just vanish with age. They accompany us into adulthood and define how we handle relationships, stress, conflict, intimacy—pretty much everything.
Ever wonder why some individuals appear inherently confident and safe in relationships while others struggle with trust, fear of abandonment, or the need to push people away? Generally speaking, it all starts with those early attachment patterns.
This doesn’t mean we’re destined to keep repeating past mistakes endlessly. Attachment is flexible. Nothing keeps, us as adults, from learning how to cultivate a sense of security though we may not have received it as kids. The first step, though, is recognizing our background—understanding head-on and unflinchingly where we came from and what our nervous system was taught before we even had words to comprehend it.
The Takeaway
Attachment isn’t some far-off psychological theory. Whether we think about it or not, everyone deals with this. Our nervous system, our relationships, and our capacity to feel safe in the world all start from this foundation.
As such, it’s not because something’s wrong with you that you may have struggled with trust, intimacy, or feeling that you have to manage things alone. It’s due to how your early experiences shaped your perception and helped you to learn how best to survive.
Still, surviving’s not exactly parallel to thriving. The good news however comes from the realization of the brain’s unique capacity for flexibility. This ability to adapt means one is able to rewrite those childhood patterns.
This serves only as the start. In the future we’ll explore what stable attachment truly looks like—what occurs when things go properly, and why it makes such a difference.
Right now, here’s something to consider: How do you think the people around you responded when you were little and got upset or afraid? How do you suppose that shaped your emotional responses now?
Let’s continue to untangle this together.