A Crash Course on Attachment, Trauma, and Addiction

In this video, we're going to cover the four primary attachment styles, how they develop, and how all of that relates to addiction. Now, if you don't already know a whole lot about attachment theory, the information in this video is going to completely change the way you see yourself, your loved one, and the relationship that you have. And most importantly, it's going to provide you with the information that you need to turn the whole situation around. If you're new to this channel, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this is put the shovel down, the YouTube channel designed exclusively to help you understand the psychology of addiction so you can outsmart it, break free from it, and ultimately live your best life. If that all sounds good to you, consider subscribing and hit the bell so you'll get notifications. We release new videos every week. Okay, let's get on with it. To understand attachment styles, we really need to go back to some of the beginning theory and research about attachments so you can understand where this information comes from, how we know what we know, and how to apply it in your life. On a practical level, in order to do that, we need to go years back to a psychological experiment called the strange situation. In this experiment, the researcher designed this scenario to try and test and look at the attachment styles of infants or 1 year olds and their mother. And so here's how this setup works. Basically, what would happen would be there was this room, There was a young, like, researcher assistant sitting in the room, and there was a bunch of toys in the floor. And they would invite these mothers to come in with these children that were about 1 years old. And the moms would sit there, and the kids would kind of see all those toys, and they would venture out a little bit, and they would start playing with those toys. And then they would ask the mom just sort of, kind of quietly exit the room. And she wouldn't go far. She would just be outside of the room. And they wanted to see what would happen to these children. Well, naturally, the children would cry and protest and look for their mom, and some would go to the door and they would scream. But the really interesting part happens when the mom re enters the room. Because what they noticed was there were some patterns in the way the children would react once the mother re entered the room. Most children didn't like it when mom would leave the room and they would protest. But there was definitely a difference in how they responded once she came back in. Most of the children would go to the mother. The mom would sort of comfort them and nurture them. And they would, eventually they would sort of calm back down. And a lot of the children would. After that, they would sort of go back out and play with the toys a little bit. Some of the children, however, didn't do that. Some of those children reacted in a really different way. Some of the toddlers were so upset with the mom that when the mom returned, they were sort of in protest. And even when the mom would try to nurture them and love them, they would just sort of like go limp or kind of avoid, feel, be sort of like disconnected from the mom. And other children would be so upset, they would be nearly inconsolable. And so even though the moms would nurture them and love them and kiss them and all that stuff that moms do, and the moms in that scenario had a very difficult time getting those kids to calm down and relax. And so it's from that research done years ago that's helped us form our theories on attachment. Not only how it works for children and one year olds and their mom, but how that plays out over person's lifetime. Okay, I know you might be thinking, where's the addiction part coming? You just hang with me. We're gonna get there, I promise. But first, let's look a little bit closer at those attachment styles. There are four primary attachment styles. Understanding those categories helps us to understand ourselves and the people around us. But don't think of it in a super black and white kind of way. Okay. Attachment style number one is called a secure attachment. And approximately 60% of people have a secure attachment style. So, you know those kids in the research study that we talked about, when the mom came back in the room and she sort of consoled them, and it took a minute, but they calmed down and then they went back to playing. That is a secure attachment style. And that happens when children feel like they can rely on their primary caregiver or caregivers to meet their needs. When children feel more secure, it's like they feel like they have this home base. And if something happens to me or I get hurt or I get upset, I can go here, I can get what I need. And that actually makes the child feel safer to sort of venture out into the world. And I know in the study it's like, venture out into the world is like crawl a few feet away and play with some toys. But that same behavior translates throughout our life. Because you might think, well, if people have this safety net, then they're not really brave enough to go out there and venture. But in reality, it makes them feel safer. They can go further out into the world, they can chase their dreams, they can experiment with things because they know no matter what, they have this secure attachment. But on a deep level, there's a belief that I'm going to be okay, the world's going to take care of me, and I have the things I need to be okay. That creates a secure attachment. And people with secure attachments tend to not only have better relationships, but research also shows that they actually have better physical health than the people with the other attachment styles and have a tendency to be more successful. Next, let's look at the attachment style called the anxious attachment. And this can happen for a variety of reasons. It's not necessarily because someone is a bad parent or doesn't love their child. I mean, there are a lot of things that can go on in life. In the previous video in the series, we talked about some of those things. I mean, heck, think of this. If it's a mom and let's say this mom has quadruplets and there are four little babies, then even though she can be the most loving mom, her ability to meet all of the needs all of the time for four little babies is going to be really hard. And children with an anxious and attachment style may have a tendency to do more acting out, to be more sick, to get their needs met by being bad or a victim of some sort. It's an effort to their connection, bonding, attachment and needs met. But this is like deep hardwired brain stuff that's going on here. Now the third attachment style is one that's called avoidant or you might hear it called anxious avoidant or insecure avoidance, different term for it. But an avoidant attachment style seems like it's more way down here on the continuum. It's sort of opposite of that anxious attachment style. And some research out there says that children that have an avoidant attachment style also grow up in a household where they felt like they couldn't necessarily rely on their parents to meet all their needs. But one interesting thing about an avoidant attachment style is many times these people come from parents who sort of put the child in a little bit more of a parentified role. Somewhere along the way the child learns that they are also responsible for the parents feelings and emotions. This can happen if like, let's say you have like a mom and a dad and the relationship's not happy and they're really disconnected. Sometimes the parent will start to form a relationship with the child where they, the parents getting the parent need Met through their relationship with the child. In counseling, we call that, like, enmeshment. It's like you're overly enmeshed with the child. And so we frequently see it where. And this can happen with moms or dads, but, like, for example, a mom might confide in the child. You know, your dad is like this. He's like that. He's probably gonna be so grumpy when he comes home, like, help me clean up the house so we don't have to deal with dad. It's like there's this secret little alliance going on here where the parent and the child have the type of relationship that really the two parents should be having with each other. And so in this kind of situation, the child, they like the att and they like the affirmation and the validation. I mean, that makes you feel really cool and big to be relied on like that and for your parent to confide in you. But on another level, it creates this thing inside where you feel sort of burdened. And many times, people with an avoidant attachment style will do things more out of obligation than want or desire. And deep down in there, there's this sort of a counselor word for it might be called fear of engulfment. It's almost like, if I get too close to you, your needs might overwhelm me. And so people with an avoidant attach attachment style will come across as fairly confident and independent, and they're going to want their space in a relationship in adulthood. They like the relationship because they like the attention and the validation of it, but they also are avoidant or distancing of that because they can also feel overwhelmed by the needs of the other person. And sometimes it's not what this other person is necessarily doing. This is stuff that we're bringing from our childhood into our current adult relationships in a way that we don't even know that we're doing. Which is in contrast over here to this anxious style attachment who can be really clingy and needy and need a constant reassurance from the other person that, hey, we're okay. You know, the anxious person is constantly scanning the other person to sort of read the situation. They may want frequent contact throughout the day. You know, this is the person that wants to text and communicate a lot. They can get jealous easily. They can misinterpret things as personal that are not personal. Whereas, on the other hand, this avoidant person wants to distance, physical distance and emotional distance. It's not that they don't want a relationship, but they require A lot more room and freedom to operate independently. And that helps them to feel more safe and secure in the relationship. And then the fourth attachment style is sort of a combination of the anxious and the avoidant. And so when you have this type attachment style, it's like, I'm scared to death to not have this relationship. And I'm also scared to death of being overwhelmed with this relationship. So you get this sort of push pull thing going on where it's like, I pull you close and then as soon as you're close, it's like, oh my gosh, I don't want to deal with you and I push you away. And so it's push, pull, push, pull. And obviously that can become very difficult in relationships. I know I'm condensing down a lot of information and giving it to you really fast here, but I don't want to finish this video without giving you the little tie of how all this connects to addiction. All that stuff you just learned, put it right here. And I'm going to add something in and we're going to put it together. Okay? So if you've watched some of my videos, you may have heard me talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's like this pyramid you learn in psychology and it talks about human needs. And at the bottom is sort of your survival needs. It's, you know, your physical needs and your safety needs. And then it's like love and belonging. And then it's like esteem, which is like career and being proud of yourself. And then at the top it's like self actualization, which is a really cool model because essentially the theory is you have to meet those base needs before you can meet the next need. So it's like, I have to be physically okay before I can worry about, you know, I'm cool and people like me, you know, that sort of thing. But with the advancement in science on attachment, I would begin to say that there maybe there is a layer at the very bottom of that, which is attachment and bonding. That maybe our needs to have healthy connections and attachment and bonding is even stronger than our needs for food and shelter and safety. I mean, think about it. Are there people in your life that you would literally starve for? Are there people in your life that you would literally put yourself in harm's way for? I bet there are. And that comes from a very prim need to feel connected. In an earlier video we talked about when babies are born and they hand the baby to the mom and you get that skin on skin that is such a primary need. That is literally one of the first things that happen between the mother and the baby. That's how very important this is. And when that is not happening correctly, whether that is from childhood attachment trauma or teenager attachment trauma or adult attachment trauma, when you're not getting those attachment needs met correct. Directly, you are in distress physically, your body's not operating the way it should, your neurochemicals are different, your emotions are not being balanced and regulated. And it's in this kind of situation where a person is prone to developing an addiction because the chemicals, whatever those chemicals or those behaviors are, produce the right kind of brain chemicals that make this feel better. Now I want you to stop and listen. I said feel better, not be better. I always say it's kind of like if you're starving to death, but the only thing you can find to eat is Cheetos, well, you might feel less hungry. You can eat all those Cheetos, but it's not really helping your body nutritiously. You're still really malnourished. So that's what it's like. This person is subconsciously self medicating this attachment need that is not being met correctly. And what really sets the problem on fire is once a person gets dependent on drugs, then they become so preoccupied with this drug over here, any relationship that they do have in their life, they end up destroying, pushing away, hurting other people. And so they end up losing and destroying any hope and chance of a healthy attachment and relationship, which is actually the thing that can heal addiction. Which is exactly what we're going to talk about in our next video. I'll put it right up here.