Secure Attachment in Adult Relationships

Myira Khan • 14 June 2020

How our attachment pattern, created in childhood, shows up in our adult relationships

Secure Attachment in Adult Relationships

Attachment refers to the particular way in which you relate to other people.

It is the way in which we perceive and respond to intimacy in a relationship.

Your style 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 was and how emotionally available, predictable and consistent your mother / primary caregiver was or was not, results in a relationship and attachment pattern being established, experienced and internalised by the infant. This becomes the attachment pattern and relationship blueprint repeated in subsequent relationships.

Once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out today in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children.

Understanding your style of attachment is helpful because it offers you insight into how you felt and developed your understanding of relationships in your childhood and how these unconscious relationship and attachment patterns play out now in your adult relationships, particularly in your intimate partner relationships.

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

In adulthood a Secure Attachment pattern is repeated in current adult and partner relationships.

This shows up as an Adult:

•    being comfortable with intimacy, and are usually warm and loving towards their partner
•    having a strong sense of self
•    having a desire for close associations with others
•    having a positive view of self, partners and relationships
•    being secure in their independence and close relationships

• showing low avoidance and low preoccupation of the relationship and partner 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

Follow Grow To Glow on Twitter @growtoglow_flow and on Instagram @growtoglow.flow

< Older Post Newer Post >