Attachment theory: How Childhood Affects Relationships

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🔵 CHAPTERS

0:00 Secure attachment
1:59 Anxious attachment
3:34 Avoidant attachment
5:17 Disorganised attachment
7:13 Attachment theory and the brain
9:53 How attachment theory developed

🔵 SECURE ATTACHMENT

You value emotional intimacy and believe in open and honest communication. You trust your partner and feel secure in knowing that you can depend on them for support. Your secure attachment style also extends to your friendships and you foster deep and meaningful connections with your friends. Your secure attachment style enables you to form and maintain healthy relationships. You have a positive self-image and feel worthy of love and care.

🔵 ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT

You have a fear of abandonment that caused you to seek reassurance and validation within your romantic relationships. You tend to worry about the status and security of your relationship, often overanalysing situations and seeking excessive reassurance from your partner. You have a strong desire for closeness and intimacy but fear rejection. You struggle with trusting your partner's intentions and always feel the need to test their commitment. In your friendships you exhibit similar behaviour and have a constant need for reassurance, seek frequent contact and fear rejection.

🔵 AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT

You have a strong desire for independence and self-reliance. You feel suffocated by the emotional intensity and expectations of your romantic partners. You tend to keep your emotions guarded and avoid getting too close. You prioritise your independence and personal space, often seeking alone time to recharge and maintain a sense of autonomy. You believe that relying on others will only lead to disappointment and a loss of freedom. You have no close friends only acquaintances.

🔵 DISORGANISED ATTACHMENT

In your romantic relationships you experience intense internal conflicts, often oscillating between a desire for closeness and a fear of abandonment or harm. This leads to contradictory behaviours such as pushing your partner away and also longing for their presence. (PAUSE) This push-pull dynamic means you alternates between moments of intense intimacy and sudden distancing. Your fear of abandonment make it challenging for you to develop and sustain secure and trusting relationships. In friendships you also struggle with establishing and maintaining stable connections. You have difficulties trusting your friends and move between a stance of being overly reliant and distancing yourself.

🔵 GRAPHICS AND THUMBNAIL

#LewisPsychology

[ClusterBombed]

This is what I worked out about my attachment issues via my childhood.

I’m vulnerable to manipulation, due to my sense of self never being constructed via co-regulation by my caregivers. The constant avoidance of accountability by them & berating of my senses. Left my ability to form solid boundaries & the conviction to defend them inactive. I fawn in the face of toxicity & forgoes my own needs and desires. This has left me recognising toxic people as safe due to familiarity.
It takes years to get to this conclusion… & we all get there in different ways.

[katieg]

I am disorganized. It's funny because if I had watched this same video in High School I would've had no idea that was me.

[KeithWickliffe]

My therapist suggested I read Erik Eriksons Psychosocial Stages as I am having attachment issues with my family. It scared the hell out of me. Trust vs Mistrust, Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt. I was able to see that I have more than just attachment issues. I think this video will be helpful. Thanks

[juliana.xx]

I have a disorganized attachment style, was just talking about it with my therapist last week! Luckily I am working on reparenting/IFS and I think it's been helpful, although it takes time...gotta trust the process.

[marials]

I love how clearly you explain everything Teresa, thanks for the video!

[syzygy]

I feel like I started out in my adult life with a very secure attachment style except in my teen years. Luckily I had my head in the right place and I learned to rely on myself when I couldn't rely on others. Fast-forward into dating I was independent and caring. Red flags and boundaries weren't a staple. I was the bread winner, and this enabled my ex to fault on supporting and taking responsibility. Expecting him to care when I couldn't provide caused him to resent me just like I was burnt out on providing and working myself to death. Seeing how the shoe never quite fit on the other foot, things really took a turn for the worst. Now I'm struggling to see what a healthy relationship looks like. Thank you for this.

[rod]

As usual - very well communicated. Thank you.

[syzygy]

This is the clearest explanation of attachment styles Ive ever found. Thank you!!

[athgowla]

I was very lucky with my parents and have a secure attachment. I was even more lucky to meet this wonderful human being, a young woman wanting to get into a romantic relationship. Unfortunately, she has avoidant or even disorganised attachment. We had great years in a long distance relationship, but the next step, moving in together, got her anxiety triggered. I really hope she can overcome her fears, but she refuses my help and now contact. I feel powerless.😢 And yet our love is so strong.💝 For now I can only hope for the best.

[specterowl]

Great to see you again. Beautiful informative video! Thank you

[chillycheeks]

Very helpful, informative and just a bit scary. Helped me understand myself! Thank you. A bit to work on going forward.

[ShintogaDeathAngel]

Is it possible to have some friends/family members where you do have a more secure attachment, but your overall attachment style with everyone else is different?
I've definitely had a friend or two where I wasn't (as) afraid of being abandoned, but overall, I still don't have a great attachment to most other people I know - even my adoptive mother - including poor emotional constancy/what people with ADHD might call poor object constancy (aka, out of sight, out of mind, even for people I've considered best friend material in some cases).
I do know my early years' experience caused the initial damage - I was adopted because my birth mum developed postpartum psychosis and didn't bond with me properly even after two years - *but*, I also don't think my adoptive family were that helpful either, overall, in terms of helping me learn to connect with others and learn things like emotional intimacy and trust.
I've been in therapy for about 3 years and it is helping, but I still have work to do and much to learn.

[graceh]

Could you elaborate about the specific neurological studies and brain studies relating to attachment styles? I would really appreciate it :)

[francescopoma]

I'm not positive about my attachment style, I've had an anxious one with the majority of the people I've interacted with...I felt like needing constant validation by my peers, and this led me to being bullied, manipulative friendships and emotional abuse as well. Growing up I've been working a lot on myself, I managed to cut off the toxic bonds and to create good friendships with people I deeply trust and with which I feel a secure attachment. Nonetheless I may have an avoidant or even disorganized one when it comes to romantic relationships...I've dated very little in my life, and I used to be very anxious whenever I did, always dreading both to hurt and being hurt, which again led me to a toxic relationship some years ago that lasted only a few months. Since then I've had almost no interactions with girls and as of now I feel too afraid, nervous and emotionally drained to try again in spite of a part of me that would like to and of my young age (I'm still in my early 20s)

[ourbeautifulcreations]

Great video but some people are in between these attachment styles.

[yumark]

I just was assessed to have disorganized and still at 28 years old, I have trouble making and maintaining relationships with others……

[cairosilver]

If secure attachment is secure, then wouldn't it have some amount of tolerance or acceptance for other attachment styles? Say someone is anxious attachment and on a scale of 0 to 100 for needing ongoing reassurance they have worked their need down to a ten or even lower, but still above zero. If someone is secure then they would have some capacity for acceptance of that need? If you're working towards secure attachment because other apparently secure people have no tolerance for other styles, are they secure or are they a sort of 'contingent secure' and they are only secure if you are? "I'm okay, but if you're not entirely okay then you're not okay". Which would really be a kind of avoidant attachment, though with plenty of friends (all based on contingent attachments).

[Sand_sea_]

This is really informative video.. I think I have mix of the three insecure attachments, I have no idea what to do about it 😅

[susantompkins]

I’m like mark, I can’t get a relationship

[catherinefrias]

How does sleep training, such as cry it out, affect attachment style ?