Secure Attachment - How the relationship is experienced in childhood

Myira Khan • 14 June 2020

What is a secure attachment pattern and how is it created in childhood?

Secure Attachment Pattern

There are 4 types of attachment patterns - secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganised.
We each have one of these types as our dominant pattern of relating and attaching to another person.

Your type of attachment and attachment pattern was formed during the first two years of your life.

This pattern was created from the repeated experience of an attachment and relationship style your mother or primary care-giver gave you during those first 2 years of life.

What that experience of relating felt like and how emotionally available, predictable and consistent your mother / primary caregiver was or was not, creates relationship and attachment pattern being established, experienced and internalised by the infant.

This becomes the attachment pattern and relationship blueprint repeated in subsequent relationships.

Of the 4 types of attachment pattern one is a secure attachment and the other three are types of insecure attachment:

The Secure Attachment pattern is created from a relationship where:

•    the Infant forms an emotional attachment to an adult (their primary care-giver or mother), who in turn is attuned to the infant and is sensitive and responsive in their interactions with the infant
•    the Caregiver is consistently available and responsive to the infant's needs throughout the first 2 years of the infant's life
•    in the 2nd year of the infant's life, the caregiver becomes the secure base for the child to explore the world and become more independent
•    a secure attachment develops because the infant feels safe, seen and soothed

One of the easiest ways to identify if this is your attachment pattern, is to think where you fit on these two spectrums:

1. Level of intimacy - the degree to how comfortable or uncomfortable (avoidant) you are with intimacy and closeness.

2. Level of attentiveness - the degree to how preoccupied or avoidant you are with the relationship and your partner.

The greater the degree of seeking closeness / intimacy and attentiveness / preoccupation is likely to indicate an anxious attachment pattern.

The greater the degree of avoidance of closeness/intimacy and attentiveness / preoccupation is likely to indicate an avoidant attachment pattern.

Low avoidance and low preoccupation is an indication of a secure attachment pattern.

Relationship and Attachment patterns is also the theme for our upcoming Grow To Glow June Book Group on Thursday 25th June at 6pm. To register for the Book Group, please email myira@myirakhancounselling.co.uk to reserve your place.

#relationships #attachment #attachmentpatterns #attachmenttheory #childhood #emotions #emotionalavailability #relationshipcoaching #marriage #partnership #intimacy #avoiance #anxiousattachment #avoidantattachment

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