Written by: Vicki Farnell, RCC
The world of “attachment” seems to have come to belong to birthing people and their partners as they navigate the early stages of parenting and determine what type of parent they want to be. Will they breast/chest feed? Will they co-sleep? Will they pick up their baby when they cry? What about all homemade organic food? That makes a good attachment-based parent right? The conversation becomes more muddled and blurred as we begin to explore our adult relationships and how those continue to be attachment relationships. Have you ever thought about your relationship with your boss? Your colleague? Your best friend? All of those connections will activate your attachment system, down to a level that is hard to comprehend.
I have a passion for working in attachment; no I am not talking about breast-chest feeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing or homemade organic food, but REAL attachment. How do we support the relationships that we have with children in our care to be the best we can be and the best to support the growing child. How, probably my favourite work, can we reflect on our adult relationships to see how attachment is playing a role, how adults foster stronger connections with others and where is there healing that needs to begin.
My biggest learning around how we attach came from the work of Glen Cooper, Bert Powell and Kent Hoffman. These minds melded together to create one of the best parenting models out there, the Circle of Security. From their research, they adapted historical ideas around attachment and created the notion of a core attachment sensitivity. What is a core attachment sensitivity? It is everything in my world. Tricky to put into a succinct sentence. Core attachment sensitivities are mechanisms that very often dictate how we engage in relationships. They activate to guide us unconsciously in how we interact with or guard ourselves from others. Before I get into what these sensitivities are, let me explain to you how they form.
Growing up, whatever that story looks like for you, we had primary caregivers. For some of you, caregiver could be too strong of a word, what I mean is that we all had big people in our life at some point whose job it was to take care of us. Whether they did a good job at this or not is part of our attachment story. This could be a biological parent, or an aunt, or a foster parent or multiple foster parents. This relationship may be strong and secure or it may have caused fear, mistrust and even harm. Through these interactions, we have learned, good or bad, how to be in relationship. Kids are smart little creatures, as early as 10 months old, children will choose to attach or to maintain a relationship with their caregiver, over authenticity, or their own needs (Gabor Mate has a lot of work on this if you are interested in more). Can you believe that? 10 months old? As we grow in relationship, we will continually sacrifice our wants/desires/beliefs to keep things status quo with our caregivers if that is what we perceive is required to be loved and connected to them.
Through this process and our continued time in relationship we begin to learn how to interact with people. We learn what feels good, what makes us feel close to people and what causes us to feel insecure in these relationships. This is where the core sensitivities come into play. Cooper, Hoffman and Powell identified three core sensitivities that are on a spectrum. What does that mean? It means that that the more disruptive your childhood relationships were the more intense the sensitivities will be in your life and it means we ALL have one sensitivity that drives how we interact in others
So, let’s get into the meat of this before I lose your attention completely and talk about the each of the sensitivities in turn. Now granted, this is the condensed, blog post style explanation of each of these. There are many facets of each sensitivity and how they impact our interactions with others. My intent is to hit on the basics and offer some pieces that you can reflect on in your own relationships.
Safety Sensitive
Have you been told that you keep people at an arms length? Do partners/friends ask for more of you and that makes you want to run for the hills? Does the feeling of being in a relationship and allowing someone to see all the parts of you illicit a physiological response even as you are reading these words? If you answered yes to any of those, you may fit onto the safety sensitive spectrum. Folks who have this as their core sensitivity have often been encouraged to be independent as a child and have been shamed, rejected, or dismissed when they have needed caregivers to help them with big emotions and true parts of self. They have been encouraged to, or had to, become self-sufficient from a very young age and this was praised by caregivers. Now is this to say that we should not encourage independence in our children? 100% not what I am saying. Safety sensitivity is developed when a caregiver is promoting independence DESPITE a child’s need for dependency and threatening the relationship when a child is too “clingy”. Remember as young as 10 months children can determine what makes their caregivers uncomfortable.
In adult relationship, safety sensitive people often push people away when they get too close, fear long-term relationships and easily feel suffocated by their partner if the partner is too “needy”. As a parent, this can look like encouraging independence at young age, and feeling a physical distress when your child had big emotional needs. “It’s okay honey, you aren’t hurt. Dust off your knee and keep on going.” You fear being isolated (emotionally or physically) with your child, you fear loss of self, and struggle to see value in vulnerability.
Esteem Sensitivity
Shout out to my praise loving peers. Yes, we all enjoy a little “way to go” every now and then but folks who are esteem sensitive strive for these moments. To the point that any criticism feels like a direct hit to your core. Folks who have an esteem sensitivity were often raised in an environment where being average was not good enough. They were encouraged to be the best, to strive for perfection and often, there were intense and beautiful attachment moments with their caregiver when they did something well. They may have been rejected or shamed when they performed to less than the caregiver’s expectation and this would have felt like a direct threat to the relationship. Folks who identify with this sensitivity feel as if a relationship may crumble if they do or say something against their partner’s thoughts/feelings/beliefs. They may not often say what they desire or believe out of fear of rejection. Often considered “easy going” because they seem to not have an opinion, however this is more fear of giving an opinion and having it be rejected.
Often times people with an esteem sensitivity are career driven, they desire to do better and be better. They thrive off of people telling them they have done a good job and they feel an increase in self-worth when this is the case. Can we see how this might be tricky in parenting? Sure, babies will coo and smile when do you are doing things right, but have you ever tried to get a 4-year-old to do something they don’t want to do? Parents in this sensitivity will be triggered by children who have their own views and values, they will be sensitive to words such as “I hate you mom” or “You are the worst dad ever”. When a parenting day isn’t going well, these folks will find it 100x harder.
Separation Sensitivity
Separation sensitivity folks are triggered by a perceived or real separation, both physically and emotionally. They will often, if not always, put the needs of others before themselves to ensure that the relationship remains intact. These people have often been called “needy” or “clingy.” These traits are all protective, and have maintained relationship when they have been vulnerable in the past. Caregivers of separation sensitive people have encouraged dependence and stifled independence. They struggled to let their child grow and develop for fear of being rejected and not needed anymore. These folks were raised in environments where their desire to move away from their caregiver in a developmentally appropriate way made their caregiver feel uncomfortable and threatened the relationships, so they chose to stay close.
In adult relationships, separation sensitive people may feel physical activation when their partner is away for periods of time. If there is a delay in a text message response, or a phone call that doesn’t come in when it is supposed to, these folks fear that their partner does not love them anymore and the relationships is over. In parenting, this looks like parents who intend to keep their children as close as possible and likely feel physical activation when the child desires to do something independently when they previously needed help. A parent may perceive that as rejection and struggle to allow that independence to happen. The underlying fear that drives the actions is the fear of not being needed anymore. Self-worth is placed on how much they are needed in relationship.
Woah, let’s take a deep breath. This is a lot. For some of you, having those beautiful a-ha moments can be intense. It might feel hard to think about where you lay on what sensitivity. I have had folks say that they see themselves in two sensitivities, and I do challenge that. We tend to find that with a bit more digging we can see one sensitivity shining through.
So now what, I have just opened you up to a whole can of relationship worms and had you reflect on how you are in relationships and why. Well now comes the learning, reflection and change. Once we recognize what sensitivity we have, we can begin to see where it patterns in relationships and where those patterns are not helpful. Reflection is the first step to healing. I can assure to you that wherever you land on a sensitivity it is not your fault, you are the way you are because of your experiences as a child. And, in the same breath, your caregivers were the way they were because of their experiences being raised, rinse and repeat. Only when we come to reflect on our sensitivities can we begin to recognize that our partner, boss, child is not trying to challenge the relationship when they hit on our triggers. We can begin to keep ourselves in the present, notice that this is our past coming up and choose to ignore it. I see you, I know where you came from, and I am choosing not to listen to you. Does it take work? ABSOLUTELY, all good growth does. But is it worth it? 100%. Once you know your sensitivity then we increase effective communication and growth in a relationship. It really is beautiful work if you are willing to do it.
I hope this leaves you with some questions for yourself. Where do I land? What seemed to hit home for me? This is where we begin. If you are ever wanting to explore this more, please reach out and I would be happy to work with you. Take a breath, and take care. – Vicki