What is Attachment: Creating Secure Attachment Part 1

You I'd like to welcome you to today's show of pacers integrative behavioral health. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. And this week we are talking about attachment and mental health. Today is part one. We're going to talk about, you know, what is attachment? Attachment is a characteristic of relationships. Lack of healthy attachment contributes to low self esteem, high anxiety, anxiety and fears of abandonment. Now, we've talked a lot in other videos about attachment, but we really haven't done a lot to kind, kind of define why it's important and exactly how to enhance attachment. And that's what really what we're focusing on this week. We're not we're going to focus less on the problems caused when you don't have healthy attachment and focus more on what can you do to improve your attachment in your relationships at this point in time and what can you do to help your children improve their attachment. The first attachment relationship is formed with a primary caregiver during infancy and serves to create a love map which shapes children's understanding of their world and other people. So when a child infant cries, if it is, its cries are met with a loving response. If when it's cold, the caregiver helps it get warm. If when it's hungry, the caregiver feeds it. If the caregiver is responsive to its needs and consistently there for it, then the infant begins to learn that, you know, people are kind of trustworthy. You know, they don't, infants obviously don't have these words to use yet, but they start to feel a sense of safety and security. And that is the foundation of the initial attachment relationship. As children get older and they start to, you know, walk, they start to toddle, they start to try to do different things. They need that secure foundation from which to launch, if you will. And it they need to feel like they're safe to begin with. When we talk about trauma, when we talk about a lot of stuff, we've talked about the underpinnings of a lot of those things or the consequences of a lot of those things are a lack of safety and a lack of a sense of personal power to keep yourself safe. And attachment helps develop both of those things. In young children attack their attachment relationship or relationships. It's not always just one caregiver. Sometimes caregivers split time 50, 50. So I think to say that it has to be one caregiver and only one caregiver is not really looking at the whole picture. So it is important to recognize that you have your primary caregiver that may take junior and take care of junior most of the time. But then there's maybe a secondary caregiver, whether that is a spouse or a grandparent or a friend or even the daycare teacher. Whoever is taking care of that child while the parent is at work does take on something of a pseudo caregiver relationship. So there is an attachment relationship formed with that person because we want the child to feel safe. So what does attachment do? What do these attachment figures do for the child? They help the children meet basic needs and teach them that there are safe places in the world and that they're lovable and worthy of care. Remember, children are very egocentric. They may not understand all the nuances of why caregiver is in a bad mood or what have you. But when caregiver meets their needs, when caregiver helps them out and is responsive, that communicates to the child, you're worthy of my attention, you're worthy of love. So this primary attachment relationship really helps people start developing their self esteem, their belief that they are worthy, that they are lovable. And it also helps them start learning how to identify their basic needs. When a child, you know, I remember with my children when, when they were, and something was wrong, you know, once, once they were old enough to try to communicate a little bit more effectively what was wrong. I would ask them, you know, are you hungry? Are you sleepy? Are you thirsty? I would encourage them to identify for me what it was that they needed. And when they were pre verbal, we used sign language, which worked for our family. And then when they were verbal, obviously they would use their words. But it was important not to just meet every cry with a bottle or with putting the child to bed or something. Cries even in infants, they have a minimum, most infants have a minimum of five different cries. When they're hungry, when they're cold, when they're wet. You know, there are different tones in those cries and it's important for, for caregivers to be able to identify those. And yes, we have to learn, you know, you're going to learn with the child, you know, once they are in this world, what, when the child makes this particular sound, what is it that they need? And then we meet that need. And when they get older, we help them start identifying what their needs are so they become more aware of what they need and they can meet it if we just, you know, give them a cookie every time that they start getting cranky. That is not teaching them to be mindful of their needs. And it's not teaching them to address their needs, it's teaching them to pacify themselves. So this attachment relationship is really important in teaching children how to physically self regulate, in teaching them that they are lovable, in teaching them that if they ask for something, even if it's an as an infant, if they cry and they need something, that those needs will be met. Attachment relationships also help children learn emotion identification, distress tolerance and coping skills. We are not born with these things. And in that attachment relationship, when the baby or the child is upset, we may say, oh, you're very angry or you know, you're sad that that happened. We help them, you start identifying basic feelings so they can develop that emotional vocabulary. We also start helping them figure out how do I deal with this when I am feeling angry, what can I do? So the parent may have to provide suggestions to the child, or the caregiver may have to provide suggestions to the child when they're angry. You know, why don't you try doing this? And depending on the child, there are different techniques for helping them deal with distress. A lot of times with children, helping them do something that's active or helping them deep breathe can be very helpful. In some of my videos on distress tolerance skills, we talk about having a dragon breather for, for kids. And you take a, you know, red solo cup and you cut a hole in the bottom and you tape little streamers to the top side, to the wide side. And when they're upset, they take a deep breath and they push all that air out through the dragon breather and it makes the streamers flutter, just like, you know, fire breath, if you will. But that encourages them to breathe deeply and breathe slowly, which can help to downregulate them. And obviously that's appropriate for very small children. Blowing bubbles is something that is useful for older children and even grownups sometimes, but helping them learn ways that they can re regulate when they start feeling emotionally overwhelmed, what can they do to get, get a hold of those emotions? And you can watch caregivers on the playground. You can watch, you know, preschool teachers working with children and there are a lot of different techniques and we're going to talk about each one of those things a little bit each day. So, you know, we will talk about some techniques as we go through, but today we're really focusing on why do we care? What is attachment and why do we care? The final thing that attachment does is it creates a secure base from which children can explore and then return to receive encouragement or comfort. And if you look at Eric Erickson's, stages of development. There is trust versus mistrust is the first. And then there's initiative versus guilt. And. And when children start taking initiative, when they start doing things on their own, they wander out of that comfort zone where caregiver is doing everything for them. They try to take initiative. If they get criticized or punished for that, then they may develop a sense of guilt and it may feel like it's not safe to take initiative, to be empowered to do anything. And a secure attachment, A healthy attachment relationship encourages children to start and empowers children to start doing things that they can, when they can not. Every child operates at the same pace, but when they are ready to start toilet training, when they are ready to start cutting with the little safety scissors, when they are ready to start. You get where I'm going with this. Even with young children, when they're ready to start crawling and then taking a step, you know, in order to do some of those things, those are really scary things for little kids to do. It's like, oh, gosh, I might fall on my bum and it might hurt. But knowing that the caregiver is there, trusting that the caregiver is going to keep them safe, trusting that if they do, you know, try something new, that they won't be shamed for it, and if they try something new and it doesn't work out well, that the caregivers will still be there, still be loving, still be encouraging, and they won't be rejected, they won't be abandoned when they fail. The same thing is true in adult relationships, you know, on a slightly different. With a slightly different tone. But we need our friends, we need our significant others that can help be supportive for us later in life after we've developed that initial attachment relationship, that kind of shapes what we expect out of other people. If the person who gave us life or the person who is responsible for keeping us safe acts a certain way, you know, that is what we believe we deserve. That is what we believe other people will provide for us or should provide for us. So if that relationship is bad, then we may have a lot of fear about life. We may have a lot of guilt about trying to have our own opinions or taking initiative. You know, there are a lot of things that we learn in that initial relationship that shape our behaviors with others, you know, potentially for the rest of our life. Now, the key is, if you don't have a great attachment relationship when you're a child, it doesn't mean that all is lost, but it means you have to be aware of the fact that some of the lessons you learned when you were younger don't necessarily apply to everybody. If your caregivers were not able to be consistent and responsive and attentive to your needs, okay, we can't change that. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't deserve it and that other people can't do that. And the beauty of it a is as older people, as adults, as teenagers, we are able to use that higher order logic to understand that, okay, you know, this isn't the same relationship. Functions of adult attachment provide continued support and encouragement. We need a continued secure home base. We need to know that we've got friends who are going to love us even if we try something and fall flat on our face. We have to know that we've got significant others who are going to love us even if we do things that they don't necessarily like or maybe have opinions that they disagree with. And that is so key in adult attachment relationships to have that security now in adulthood, we don't have to rely on just one person, which is really awesome. A lot of times we have different friends and significant others that serve slightly different needs. You may have one friend that you call up whenever you've had a bad day. You may have another person that you call up when, you know, maybe you're struggling, your kids are acting out or something. You don't have to have all of the input from one person. Now that you are an adult and you are more mobile and you're able to reach out. An infant can't pick up the phone and go, well, I don't like what mom has to say, so I'm going to call grandma. You know, maybe when they're five, they might try starting to do that, but when they're an infant, they can't. As an adult, you do have options, which is great because that means all your eggs aren't in one proverbial basket. Adult attachment relationships are a resource in times of distress. They are that person or those people that you can show up on their doorstep or give them a call at 2 o' clock in the morning and go, my world feels like it's crumbling. And they're there, they're there to listen, they're there to empathize. You know, you're an adult, a lot of times you can deal, fix it on your own, but you need somebody to be there kind of to prop you up when it feels like all the wind's been taken out of you. And adult attachment relationships provide love and unconditional positive regard. It's not just about distress. It's about eustress. It's a. Which is what we call good. Good stress, good energy. We want to have these relationships that regularly reinforce in our minds that we are, you know, lovable, that we are worthy, that we are nurtured and cared about. It doesn't have to be in response to something negative. It's, you know, hopefully also in response to just the fact that we are who we are. So attachment. Healthy attachment is characterized by six things. Consistency. The person to whom you are attached, you can count on them being there. They are consistent in, you know, picking up the phone, in, you know, being there for you. Responsiveness. If somebody is there for you but they're not paying attention, they're not really engaged, that's not responsive. Somebody who is consistent and responsive, they hear what you're saying, and they're able to empathize or support or validate or encourage. You know, that's what we're talking about. They're. They're not just, you know, bumps on a log. They're actually responsive to your needs as children. That could be physical needs as well as emotional and cognitive needs as adults. Most of the time, it's emotional and cognitive needs. But, you know, even this weekend, I. I got really sick. I got some sort of stomach bug. And my husband was very responsive. You know, he was. And whenever I'm sick, he's consistently responsive because he gets on me if I'm getting up out of bed and trying to do a bunch of stuff. He's like, get your butt back in bed and tell me what you need, you know, and he's responsive. He'll, you know, sit down there and rub my head or whatever, you know, in order to help me feel better. So being consistent, being responsive is important in ch. In child attachment as well as adult attachment. And think about the people in your life. Who do you have in your life right now that is consistently there for you, that is responsive. When you're having a good day, they celebrate with you. When you're having a bad day, they commiserate with you. Attention is what we were talking about just a minute ago. We can be consistent. We can be responsive when there's, you know, good or bad things. But we also need to proactively provide attention. Think about the child who. Whose caregivers are only reactive. They pretty much ignore the child unless the child demands something. What does that communicate to the child versus a caregiver who regularly comes and sits down and says, hey, Johnny, what are you doing? Why don't you tell me about what, what you're building or what did you do in school today? You know, that give, proactively, give them attention. How does it make you feel as an adult when one of your friends just out of the blue texts you and asks you, you know, how's your day going? Or calls you up and says, hey, let's go to dinner, not because I need something, but just because I want to spend time with you? You know, attention is so important. It reinforces the, our self esteem. It reinforces our belief that we are lovable. Validation is another characteristic of attachment. It doesn't mean that the people in our lives agree with us necessarily. You know, your child may be really angry because they have to go to bed, bed and they don't want to go to bed. And as the caregiver, you're like, oh, it's time for you to go to bed. I, I disagree with the fact that you don't need to go to bed right now. However, we can validate their frustration. We can acknowledge how they feel because it's how they feel. It's not wrong, it's how they feel. We don't have to agree with it. It's important to validate that their feelings are, you know, accurate at how they feel and, and not try to take those away or tell them that they're wrong. Encouragement is important. Just like you encourage a child when they're starting to walk, you know, you, you let them go and you cheer them on or, you know, you encourage your, your child when they are going to school the first time for the first day, you provide them in for information and you provide them encouragement about what they're getting ready to do. You know, that's always important. And even if they go and they have a bad day and they come home, you know, we're still there to welcome, welcome them with open arms, to be consistent, to respond to the fact that, you know, lovingly respond to them when they had a bad day. You know, validate how they're feeling, encourage them to, okay, how can you get through this? What is the next thing that you need to do in order to cope with it? So we're encouraging them to keep putting one foot in front of the other and then support goes along with encouragement. We're not doing it for them, but we're there to be their cheerleader. And, and again, I, I can't emphasize enough how this is important in adult as well as child relationships. If you didn't have this as a child, a lot of us didn't. Okay, that sucks. And there may be a. A bunch of grieving and some anger to deal with because of that, but it doesn't mean that you are completely unable to form attachments in the future. What's important to start out with is to start identifying in your mind and we're going to talk about each one of these characteristics. Consistency, responsiveness, attention, validation, encouragement and support over the next four days. But think about in your mind, what would this look like in a healthy relationship for me? What would it look like if someone were consistent? What do I wish would happen? Who in my life right now is consistent? You know? And do that for each one of these characteristics because we're going to talk in depth about those in the coming days. Are there questions about attachment or how attachment might relate to mental health or, you know, healthy relationships? Remember that self esteem is how we feel about ourself. It is our relationship with ourself. When we feel like we deserve love, when we believe that we are deserving of love, then we are able to ideally give ourself love. We're able to treat ourselves as we want others to treat us. And that is sort of the opera opera the example of what self esteem is. If we treat ourselves badly, that often means we have low self esteem because we believe we don't deserve any better. If we treat ourselves well, then it shows that we hopefully believe that we deserve love and compassion and all those other fun things. Alrighty everybody. Thank you for being here today. I am glad to be in this new time slot which henceforth we will be meeting at 3 o' clock on the weekdays and to the best of my knowledge, we are not expecting any more snow this year, so I shouldn't have any problems with Internet. I appreciate y' all being patient with me last week as I was snowed in and had no Internet which was about to drive me bonkers and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.