Types of attachment and protective strategies in the relationship

According to attachment theory, we all develop a style of attachment towards other people, according to the caregiving experiences we had with our parents (or other primary caregivers) in the childhood.

Attachment refers to our willingness to seek contact and closeness, a human need that is considered even more vital than food.

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The qualities of attachment

Attachment involves:

• Protection: knowing that I am safe where I am and that they will help me when I ask for it.
• Keen: warmth and physical contact, skin to skin, through caresses, hugs (with the consent of the child), but also verbal communication in the form of receiving a verbal response when I call and feeling heard (they don't ignore what I say).

Human beings have an innate need for attachment and protection because we do not survive alone, much less as children. When a child feels that he is not safe in a place, he seeks to understand the context in her way and apply strategies protective, which are behaviors that allow you to decrease your fear by giving you a sense of control over the situation.

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attachment in adults

In adult life these strategies are not lost, we continue to use the same behavior patterns in situations that are familiar to us from childhood. For example, as an adult it is no longer mom who ignores me when I call her, but I feel ignored when my partner does not answer the phone and I have the same reactions as a child with a mother: despair, feeling of abandonment, for which I claim, insist, cry, although the situation may not be for so much.

To understand our type of attachment, it helps us to record how much our needs for protection and shelter were satisfied in childhood and what did we miss when we were little. Then we can more easily identify adaptive behaviors that helped us as children to feel safe, but that often generate problems in adult life.

• Related article: "The Theory of Attachment and the bond between parents and children"

The types of attachment

From Bowlby's attachment theory, 4 types of attachment are classified.

1. Anxious or anxious/ambivalent attachment

An anxious attachment, they develop children who constantly fear being abandoned or left alone, since their main figure of attachment is ambivalent or distant, so they cannot trust that they will always have the protection they need. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not, you never know. They feel powerless and need to root themselves in someone who protects them.

These children are alert and guessing what the mother or father wants, so that she can receive affection. They feel that they must earn their affection and attention, which sometimes they receive and sometimes they don't. In this sense, their behavior can be insistent, they cry easily and become anxious thinking that they do not have the necessary protection or help.

In adult life, anxious attachment is characterized by overcompensating for fear of abandonment, always thinking What else can be done so that my partner or other people around me are happy and do not abandon. When the couple is in a bad mood (not necessarily because of him or her) they get nervous, they insist, they want to know what's going on and it makes them very uncomfortable.

Protective Strategies of Anxiously Attached Adults

Anxiously attached adults tend to compensate for their rejection anxiety typically through perfectionism, vanity and all forms and efforts to please... precisely to attract the other person and avoid rejection. Everything they do is with the intention of pleasing, because they have learned that if they do not please, they will be rejected.

They strive to avoid conflict and hate confrontation. They prefer not to say anything, or express their own needs so as not to upset the other party. They idealize and paint conflicting situations beautifully and many times they feel that they cannot do it alone and thus they long for refuge in the partner from whom they hope to be protected. In extreme cases they cling, beg and become jealous.

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2. avoidant attachment

An avoidant attachment usually develops in children who from a very young age they felt that there are many expectations about them or those who feel that they have to take care of something important in the family and take on tasks that from their childhood reality are really overwhelming. For example: Taking care of younger siblings, taking care of mom after dad left her, doing things by themselves, because they know that caregivers are very busy.

Those who are seen as the hope of the family, where they are not the ones protected, but the ones who must protect. It also develops in children who assume that they are a burden or a nuisance, who do not want to be a burden and finally develop very early autonomy and responsibility.

A child who is afraid of disappointing or upsetting, cannot be the same, cannot make mistakes or disapprove of what others see in him/her, he/she feels that he/she must constantly meet expectations and for that reason wear masks that over time feel very adjusted.

In adult life this continues, for example, by showing a lot of ambition at work, be the one who takes charge, not out of pleasure but out of feeling the obligation. At the same time, the weight of expectations causes the adult with avoidant attachment to withdraw many times when they anticipate that situations that demand her attention will come. As he learned that talking is useless and he does not want to disappoint, he does not say anything but falls into a passive aggressive behavior of "playing crazy" to get rid of his responsibility.

Protective strategies in adults with avoidant attachment

People with avoidant attachment tend to fight for control, precisely so that they do not invade her freedom that was so violated. They fight not to lose in an argument, they seek to follow their own plans, they have difficulty making commitments and deciding on a relationship.

They are also demanding of themselves and seek to have their own time, food, weight, etc. under control. Linked to the fear of falling into a situation of inferiority or of looking bad or stupid, they use rationalization, a form of block feelings of "weakness" and cover vulnerabilities to always stay on an objective and analytical plane of the situation. But that in turn prevents a real connection with the couple from being established.

They become defensive, deny or put up a wall of access to protect their autonomy. In extreme cases they can defend their autonomy even using physical or verbal aggression, devaluing the other who is unconsciously seen as a threat to their freedom.

3. secure attachment

A secure attachment develops in boys or girls whose needs for affection and protection were mostly satisfied, and means no more than 30%. That is, if in your childhood you felt protected and loved by your main caregivers, not all the time, but at the most necessary moments, it is likely that you have a secure attachment.

This basically means that social situations or affective relationships as an adult do not generate greater anxiety, unless you are able to separate your needs from those of your partner and thus naturally assume responsibility for what corresponds to you in your relationship. You also identify that certain behaviors of your partner have nothing to do with you. In this sense, you do not require specific protective mechanisms because, just as you felt safe as a child, you will feel safe as an adult in front of other adults.

Protective strategies of the adult with a secure attachment

As I have mentioned, the securely attached adult does not have very conspicuous defensive mechanisms, but in the end, no one is 100% securely attached. As social beings in need of recognition and acceptance, we all have certain insecurities, since no mother or father has been perfect. So types of attachment can be used as poles of reference.

Surely you felt identified with parts of one type and others of another type, since, between the two sides, there are many gray scales.

To understand how in your very personal situation you developed an attachment and what protective strategies you have applied as a result of it, it helps to work on this issue with a therapist.

4. Disorganized attachment and its protective strategies

A fourth type of attachment, disorganized attachment, represents a smaller part of the population, and it develops in children whose primary caregivers turned out to be a threat to them, rather than protection and stability figures. Mothers or fathers with extremely impulsive or aggressive behaviors, physically and emotionally or who presented some addiction and required care themselves, for which reason they could not care for their children.

When the attachment figure is scary, deep confusion occurs in children, who on the one hand demand affection and at the same time feel terror and threat. These children often fail to develop protective strategies, they lack a plan or internal model to accompany them in this situation and present apparently incoherent behaviors, such as physical or mental blocks, catatonic movements or stereotyped.

In adult life, disorganized attachment is associated with mental disorderssuch as borderline personality disorder.

attachment and partner

We must keep in mind that we all have some kind of attachment. Even if you are not 100% on one side or the other, you are most likely on a scale between anxious and avoidant more on one side than the other.

What does that mean for your relationship?

Your partner cannot heal your attachment style, can accompany you in your healing process, but since he/she has his/her own style of attachment with which he/she must lead, the responsibility is on your side.

Your protective strategies are outdated, they served you in your childhood, but when you grow up they cause more problems, because they literally lead you to act like a boy or a girl in situations that you don't justify.

Example: When your boyfriend / girlfriend does not answer the phone and you immediately think that she is cheating on you, you insist and keep calling over and over again. Like as a boy / girl when mom didn't come to your room because she was busy and crying helped you get her presence.

In every couple relationship we have the responsibility to take charge of our childish schemes. If you realize that you present one of the behaviors described in this article and you felt very identified with one of the types of attachment mentioned, it is likely that it also affects your relationship or the way you choose a partner.

opposite poles attract

People with an anxious/ambivalent attachment often get attached to someone of the avoidant type and vice versa, because they represent this counterpart that they know from their childhood, it is familiar to them and they repeat the same dynamic they know from their childhood.

Individual and couples therapy can help identify your type of attachment and discover strategies to better accompany you in your particular situation.