Childhood and Attachment

On Childhood and Attachment

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”.

Victor Frankl

Hello Friends,

When children are born, they are born with a nervous system which is undeveloped.  The eye-to-eye contact with the primary caregiver begins the process of setting up the baby’s nervous system.  If the caregiver is warm and responsive and calm, the infant begins to feel soothed, calm, and safe which impacts their nervous system.  First children often pick up the nervousness of the caregiver and this also has an impact.  This is also the beginning of attachment. 

Human to human attachment is one of the most important and necessary aspects of our lives.  For the infant, this is the beginning.  Human babies are totally dependent during the first 7 years of their lives unlike other mammals.  A positive beginning will shape these small humans as they grow.  A strong early attachment impacts how a child grows, learns, socializes, and develops self-esteem.  When there is an insecure attachment with caregivers, the baby develops behaviors to try to connect to the caregiver.  The baby then begins to change to try to draw the caregiver to focus on them.  However, it is still an attachment.  It will lack total trust and safety but will still be an attachment. 

Every parent reading this will immediately begin to self-question themselves, please don’t do that.  Instead focus on yourself and your background without blaming parents who always do the best they know to do.  “Early experience influences later development, but it isn’t fate:  therapeutic experiences can profoundly alter an individual’s life course.”  Dr. Dan Siegel

The brain is an amazing organ.  It remodels itself frequently in response to life situations and interactions with others.  One can start with insecure attachment but through life experiences, develop strong secure attachments as an adult. 

In my life, the person I most attached to as a child, was not my main caregivers but my grandmother and my sister, Donna.  When I saw my sister after we had not been together geographically for many years, I immediately felt at ease and knew I was with a completely safe person.  I could say anything and feel safe and loved with her.  This was from early attachments as we shared a room and shared time, and we shared trust in one another.

My partner was able to hold his daughter as an infant soon after she was born and was the only one who could soothe and comfort her.  He remembers holding her for hours, rocking and soothing her.  Their bond, their attachment,  many years later is both very strong and extremely safe.  They have a totally secure attachment.  This is the foundation from which we grow.

This is, oddly enough, not about love.  Parents love their children, partners love one another.  This is about attachment.  Men and women often form the most secure attachments to close friends while still cherishing their partners.  An important later attachment that often helps is between a therapist and client.

“We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of the past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of our past and are thus able to live with it.”
― Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Next week, I will focus on how to choose a therapist, the different styles and what to look for.