Navigating the rough passage to “Earned Secure Attachment”
This article was written for therapists, psychiatrists and mental health practitioners. Since other readers may also find it helpful it has been slightly modified.
In an earlier article entitled “Helping individuals ‘earn’ secure attachment takes vision” (MindCafe issue #77), I briefly encapsulated what Earned Secure Attachment (ESA) was, its history, that it was shown to work, and what facilitating ESA as a process could look like. I noted that helping individuals “earn” secure attachment took “vision” which ideally begins with the counsellor’s own mindset. By adopting a particular attitude and mental state, including good timing as part of the essential tool-kit for practice, counsellors can facilitate an insecurely attached person’s entrance into the ESA process. For the individual, ESA is a revision of one’s deeply felt inner self, understood with the counsellor’s (dedicated) support in new, creative and inspiring ways. With motivation, effort and increased self control, people then learn how best to look after their own needs.
For the person starting out with insecure attachment, many issues need to be recognised, acknowledged and processed before they can be overcome. This is due to all the historical obstacles that come with insecure attachment. But what do people need to cultivate or ‘organically grow’ within themselves in order to obtain ESA, and does it require courage or bravery? Such challenges need to be understood as belonging to both counsellor and client, albeit for different reasons. Below are some reflections on seven common challenges associated with navigating towards ESA.
Overcoming an unfortunate history: If my client suffered complex trauma, it did not necessarily rob them of the ability to later earn, through their hard internal work, a more secure attachment. It’s important for people freshly starting out in the ESA process that they are aware that their capacity for positive change is independent of their unfortunate histories, and that therein lies reason for optimism and hope to overcome trauma. Indeed, it’s been shown that trauma signs do not necessarily impinge on one’s capacity to be high functioning members of society whether ESA is attained or not. (See: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/37852).
A word of caution: Trauma is what happens inside of us in response to what happened to us. Stanton, Campbell and Pink (2017) put forward the idea that individuals can start to change their attachment style over time as a way of feeling better inside via their relationships. While this may be true and may mean that they are now on the psycho-social-emotional pathway towards acquiring ESA, it is not enough. That is, such individuals are likely also to be suffering from physiological and neurobiological effects of their complex or interpersonal trauma (see, for example, van der Kolk, 2015; Ogden & Fisher 2015). In other words, both attachment style (e.g., secure vs. insecure) and early trauma (complex or developmental trauma) are distinct areas interacting with one another. Therefore, it is entirely feasible to be well down the path toward ESA yet still also have trauma ailments. Counsellors need to keep in mind that this incongruity or unharmonious pairing may well coexist in their clients for much of the process.
Cultivating an alternative, though foreign, narrative. Attempting ESA for some people is an arduous, long-term process involving grappling with a coherent perspective of their own earlier traumatic experiences. For such individuals, it is almost like learning a new language in a foreign land. They need to become comfortable with an alternative narrative in order to create some level of meaning not only for themselves but also for the outside world — thus turning an alternative identity into a shared and connecting experience. Since ESA itself could be accused of being vague it is therefore how one facilitates it that counts. For example, in my practice, it sometimes took a philosophical approach. For those counsellors keen to discover hands-on therapeutic approaches that may assist, I recommend the intellectual partnership of Michael White and David Epston which led to their development of “Narrative Therapy”.
Overcoming familiarity of a particular brand of relationship: For those who did manage to successfully attain a functional intimate relationship, it did not come automatically. For the ESA process to be galvanised, it must involve the raising of consciousness, in this case a new, more beneficial mindset for the person. It also requires them to seek outside their original conditioning, i.e., their affective experiences within early relationships, to travel beyond their sense of familiarity with unhelpful relationships towards more functional ones. This means overcoming obstacles and jumping hoops by working hard emotionally and psychologically, but also being self-forgiving all while learning repeatedly from often difficult, painful mistakes. In such scenarios, a person’s capacity to live with mistakes requires our help which may include fostering their ‘inner nurturer’, building core beliefs of self-worth, etc.
‘Organically growing’ self-determination while grieving: In essence, ESA implies a self-determined person attempting the courageous task of imagining a different existence — propelled by their counsellor’s vision, their own development of skills, etc., to acquire an alternative identity from, for instance, that of ‘victim’. This is facilitated by creating an alternative narrative, one that for them is comprehensible, logical, consistent, rational and emotionally intelligible. That is, in gradually dissolving the old to make space for the new, they adopt a life that fits their own personal understandings of who they are in the here and now.
But it’s not a pain-free process. It’s often peppered with new recognition of multiple losses and accompanying grief as one tries to make sense of a sad and tragic earlier life script, well past its use-by date.
Because ESA involves one’s changed and changing identity, the emotional cost it carries can and does influence the texture, shape and flavour of accompanying grief. (For info on grief theories that may apply in understanding this component, see grief concepts addressing various losses here: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/37852. For elements influencing the grief process see: https://sites.google.com/site/workwithin/griefloss).
Overcoming threats to physical health status: As the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study (https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html) indicates, previous psychological trauma will be held before being transmitted into one’s physical body. That is, ACE’s impact on one’s physical health is potentially lifelong. However, some individuals work extra hard to (consciously or unconsciously) prevent their ACEs from totally dominating their lives. This implies they also work extra hard to overcome the impact of their earlier insecure primary care relationships to the point where they are able to obtain or work towards ESA. Their efforts were often about self-awareness and insight, followed by motivation to take action. They got educated, changed their thinking patterns, beliefs and behaviours, and were able to reduce or in some cases recover from physical illnesses associated with various stressors.
Bravely breaking transmission between generations: ESA has been shown to prevent intergenerational transmission of early deprivations (e.g., McCormack, White & Cuenca, 2016). While ESA is not a magic wand, it does offer cause for realistic optimism because a secure attachment is always preferable to an insecure one. Zaccagnino and colleagues (2014) speak about ESA occurring via positive experiences in relationships at different points in life that elicit protective factors. Such positive experiences in turn potentially break toxic or dysfunctional cycles from being transmitted to offspring or subsequent generations. Acquiring ESA offers an additional foundation for people whose lives were previously shattered or fragmented (Herman, 2015). Whether they are parents or more distant (blood or surrogate) relatives, they’re potentially more able to avoid inflicting or projecting their history, i.e., transmitting their own insecure attachment identity to subsequent generations, directly or indirectly.
It’s worth paying attention to ESA as it’s a well-hidden, challenging process found in well camouflaged populations that offers a basis for hope for genuine change across a person’s lifespan and potentially across generations. But ESA cannot be pushed. To properly work, this process requires the air-sense of a gymnast. That is, before a somersault is successfully physically executed on a trampoline, gymnasts must first firmly and confidently implant that act in their mind’s eye, including its safe landing. Within that visualisation and the manoeuvre that follows, brain and body cannot afford to disconnect (dissociate) as it’s too dangerous for the gymnast to “get lost” in the air. I believe this is an apt metaphor for the ESA process. Therefore, it’s best not to pursue ESA unless both client and counsellor are ready — that is, until the person is mentally strong enough or sufficiently recovered, and the counsellor is sufficiently confident and in tune with their client’s needs. After all, unlike the solo act of a trampolinist, ESA is a duo act — counsellor and client. They skilfully co-create that very necessary mental air-sense, executing engagement with ESA, so surprisingly, enough to cause faces to look up and marvel.
This article was originally published in Mind Cafe, November, 2022, Issue 86. (Some modifications were made to the original article to suit a general readership).
Selected References:
Herman, J.L. (2015). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence — From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.
McCormack, L., White, S., Cuenca, J. (2016). A fractured journey of growth: making meaning of a ‘Broken’ childhood and parental mental ill-health. Community, Work & Family.
Ogden, P., Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.
Stanton, S. C. E., Campbell, L., & Pink, J. C. (2017). Benefits of Positive Relationship Experiences for Avoidantly Attached Individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication, July 24.
van der Kolk, B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma. Penguin Books.
Zaccagnino, M., Cussino. M., Saunders, R. Jacobvitz, D.,Veglia, F. (2014). Alternative Caregiving Figures and their Role on Adult Attachment Representations. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. 21, 276–287.
