Trauma and Attachment – Reading Notes Guide Sharing

This text number is 7321 and the estimated reading time is 15 minutes.

The book shared today is Trauma and Attachment.

Written by Jon M. Jon G. Allen, Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, Senior Psychologist at the Menninger Clinic, and President of the Helen Marsin Pali Center for Mental Health, usa, specializes in psychotherapy, diagnostic counseling, mental health education and scientific research, specializing in the treatment and research of trauma-related diseases. His major publications include Coping with Trauma: Hope in Understanding, Coping with Depression: From Distress to Hope, Traumatic Relationships and Severe Mental Disorders, and Clinical Practice of Mentalization.

Trauma has been a central concern for attachment researchers for the past 20 years. Typical attachment trauma includes childhood abuse—verbal abuse and neglect, which can have long-term adverse effects on growth. For therapists and clients, it is essential to have a holistic understanding of trauma in attachment relationships.

The author of the book, Jon M. Professor G. Allen believes that understanding is at the heart of trauma therapy, and developing mentalization in attachment trauma therapy can help the therapist understand the client's experience, make the client feel understood, and learn to rebuild the psychological and emotional connection in a trusting relationship, which can provide a sense of security and stability for the client who has experienced the pain, so that he or she can build a safe attachment relationship that will benefit them for a lifetime.

To enrich the therapists' and clients' understanding of trauma in attachment relationships, Jon M. Professor G. Allen makes a comprehensive exposition of attachment and mentalization in this book, pointing out that mentalization is the fulcrum of understanding the development of attachment relationships, and improving mental ability can effectively improve attachment security and emotional regulation.

He summarizes a range of trauma-related psychiatric disorders, illustrating how mental therapy, a unique treatment, can be applied to treat attachment trauma. In addition, he added neurobiology, pointing out the connection between attachment, mindfulness, and mentalization, helping readers understand the physiological basis of attachment trauma and thus deepen their understanding of themselves and others.

1

Attachment theory

The authors say that if an adult encounters misfortune early in his or her life, he is at higher risk of mental illness when faced with stress. That is to say, if we have suffered neglect from our parents and abused all kinds of misfortunes in childhood, then when we face stress or setbacks when we grow up, we will increase the risk of mental illness. For example, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, suicide, and so on.

Childhood encounters affect the trust that babies place in their parents, unable to gain a psychological and emotional connection. Only by learning to rebuild a psychological and emotional bond in a trusting relationship can you provide a sense of security and stability to your baby, thereby building a secure attachment relationship that will last a lifetime.

Everyone faces two fundamental developmental challenges throughout their lives: establishing and maintaining reciprocal, meaningful, and personally satisfying relationships, and establishing and maintaining a coherent, realistic, differentiated, integrated, and inherently positive sense of self. The combination of these two most basic development directions, the sense of association and self-definition, provides a comprehensive theoretical basis for integrating concepts such as personality development, personality structure, psychopathology and treatment mechanism into a unified model.

Therefore, the author proposes the concept of attachment theory in the book. Attachment theory has several foundations. First, in any case, all infants develop attachments with one or more caregivers, including abusive and neglected caregivers, except in cases of extreme neurobiological impairment. Second, most babies can develop a secure attachment. Third, babies are more likely to develop attachment relationships with caregivers who are sensitive to their needs and responsive. Fourth, secure attachment has a positive impact on children's emotional, interpersonal, and cognitive abilities.

1. Secure attachment

What is secure attachment? Safe people tend to describe themselves as people who are easy to approach, optimistic, and cheerful. They rarely worry about being abandoned, believing that their most important love relationships are pleasant, friendly, and mutually trusting.

For example, when children are closely linked to their mothers, there will be no barriers to communication between them. Even if sometimes he is a tooth and teeth, it is possible that what he says is not as logical as that of an adult, but the mother can always guess what the child is saying. This is because we are very close to each other, and at this time, the mother is always aware of the needs of the child.

That is, the mother can bring a sense of security and comfort to the child. This kind of interaction, in the author's words, is to build an emotional bond, and the relationship is healthy. Conversely, if the mother ignores the child, when the child has needs, the mother cannot meet the needs of the child for a long time, then the child will form an insecure attachment.

Attachment relationships are important. The book "Every Child Needs to Be Seen" says that children need to find the direction of life in their relationship with their parents. We know that when a parent doesn't have time to take care of the child, the child can't communicate with you, and he will pass on these issues to other people he trusts. If a child has established a good attachment relationship with his parents, he will not be displaced by other relationships.

Between children and parents, there is always a role in which parents are the guides of the children and parents give the children the right direction. Once the attachment relationship between us and the child is not enough, it will cause the child to inexplicably ask for help from the companion, or be distracted by other things, so that the main attachment relationship is dependent on some unreliable things, so the attachment relationship between the parent and the child is particularly important.

Imagine a toddler on the playground: The child feels safe in attachment, stumbles around the playground, looks back from time to time, and gets in touch with his mother, father, or sister. Then the child fell, bruised his knee, felt frightened, and began to cry. It's time to return to the safe harbor of attachment to regain a sense of security. After being adequately cared for and comforted, the child can continue to play – going back and forth between exploring behaviors and seeking care as needed. This is a manifestation of secure attachment.

The authors say that a loved child will feel cute and a child who is cared for will feel worthy. As a result, children with secure attachment will show high levels of self-esteem.

Second, babies with secure attachment are confident in attachment and feel relatively less distressed during a brief separation from their mother; less anxious; prefer intimate physical contact with their mother, are more inclined to cooperate, and are more obedient to their mother's demands. They are more outgoing, more comfortable with other people, more enthusiastic in their play and problem-solving tasks, and less prone to frustration.

Finally, secure attachment is the backbone of emotional regulation. That is to say, when the child feels fear, hunger and crying, if the mother can react in time, such as hugging the child and coaxing, then the child's fear of emotion will disappear.

So how do you get a child to form a secure attachment with a caregiver (usually the mother)? The authors point out that parents need to react to sensitive sexual behavior. What is reactive-sensitive behavior? It is the caregiver who provides warmth and affection to the child; is sensitive to infant signals and can accurately interpret these signals, especially to respond quickly and appropriately to the baby's painful state; and actively participates in and integrates into the baby's activities in a cooperative and synchronized manner.

2. Insecure attachment

Insecure attachment can be divided into three types: contradictory, avoidant, and disorderly. The attachment styles of corresponding adults can also be divided into three categories: contradictory, avoidant and disordered. For disordered attachment we will talk in more detail later.

First, paradoxical attachment. Babies with ambivalent attachments hide their insecurities. They cannot enter the safe circle and are reluctant to leave the safe harbor. Contradiction manifests itself on the one hand as a desire for closeness and comfort, and on the other hand as a confrontation due to lack of care and comfort.

What does a baby do? In a Ugandan study, Ainsworth described the behavior of a baby and mother: "He drilled into his mother's arms and, once he was put down, he cried until he was picked up again." His mother would hold him until he fell asleep, but as soon as he let him go, he would immediately wake up and cry. ”

These insecure babies snuggle anxiously with their mothers, who are reluctant to explore and whose mothers fail to provide a safe base. In addition, these babies are ambivalent towards their mothers, resisting comfort: they seek contact with their mothers and then resist angrily, for example, by asking to be picked up one moment and pushing them away the next. As a result, these paradoxical babies, while showing intense pain, are difficult to soothe.

So why do babies develop conflicting attachments? Ainsworth argues that the core problems with ambivalent attachment are intense activation of attachment and the frustration of the need to alleviate attachment. This frustration stems from a prolonged period of unresponsiveness or inconsistent responses in caregivers. His parents were hot and cold to him, and he couldn't be sure how to win his parents' love. Angry protests can be seen as a punishment for caregivers, as a tactic to elicit more response from caregivers.

So what kind of behavior will the contradictory child grow up? Conflicting people will quickly establish an intimate relationship and choose a partner at will. Adults with contradictory tendencies form a contradictory and unstable relationship between themselves and their upbringing. When this type of child grows up, they will show a deep sense of anxiety, both a desire to have intimate relationships with others and a fear that their partner will not respond to their love and will not be with themselves.

Contradictory people feel unloved and unworthy, weak and helpless. This tendency to be self-critical may also be related to sensitivity to the criticism of others. To overcome this negative, self-critical feeling, you may go to great lengths to seek validation, but this will only increase dependency and weakness.

Therefore, even in the best cases, self-esteem is unstable and depends on the responsiveness of others. Unfortunately, in childhood, they were too eager to dock in the harbor of attachment, and the lack of a safe base hindered their exploration, so they were unable to develop a sense of competence and self-reliance, as well as to construct a more positive inner working model of the self.

Second, avoidant attachment. Avoidant babies act as if nothing had happened when the mother left and returned to the room. However, the test results showed that their heart rate, stress hormone and cortisol levels were all on the rise, indicating that they were more stressed.

Avoidant babies expect their attachment needs to be rejected, so they stay on the outer edge of the safety circle and fall into constant exploration, yet they do not have the confidence and enthusiasm of safe babies.

Avoidant people who grow up cannot develop a kind of trust in others. For them, it is very important to remain independent, and the importance of independence often exceeds the intimacy between them. In fact, they also want to be intimate with their partners, but excessive intimacy makes them feel uncomfortable, so they often choose to keep a certain distance from their partners.

They often refuse to acknowledge their attachment needs, believing that the failure of a relationship has little impact on life and is more focused on work. When describing the most important love relationships, they talk about emotional ups and downs, jealousy, and fear of intimacy.

So you might ask the question of whether this insecure attachment is innate or a parenting style? The authors argue that attachment is rooted in caring behavior, and that care behavior is rooted in a broader environmental context. If the environment is stable and the care behavior is stable, attachment will be stable, whether safe or not.

On the other hand, the impact of changes in the environment on caregiving behavior can also lead to changes in attachment, for example, when the mother of a safely attached baby is divorced, she must find full-time employment and often cannot find adequate childcare. Second, the combination of stability and change can be understood through the inner working patterns of attachment relationships that contribute to stability but can also be modified according to new experiences.

That is to say, attachment security can be changed at any time, and we can intervene artificially, because changes in the environment and parenting style of parents may affect children.

2

Attachment trauma

The author introduces us to attachment trauma in a chapter of the book. What is attachment trauma? The term has two meanings: one refers to trauma that occurs in attachment relationships, and the other refers to the long-term adverse effects of such trauma on the ability to develop and maintain a secure attachment relationship. In short, deep distrust is a major manifestation of attachment trauma. Distrust can destroy relationships, and it's in this relationship that trauma is generated.

Peter Funaji and Marie Targeted mention the double downsides posed by attachment trauma in early life: first, this trauma triggers intense emotional distress; second, it undermines the development of the ability to regulate the painful emotions it causes.

Attachment trauma can not only bring us conflicting and avoidant attachments, but also disordered attachments. We know that secure attachment provides the basis for emotional regulation, and that disordered attachment undermines attachment security and hinders the development of an individual's coping style with painful emotions. In addition, attachment trauma can also impair the development of mentalization.

1. Disordered attachment

As we said earlier, the basic distinction between secure attachment, paradox-confrontational attachment, and avoidant attachment powerfully predicts early function, and they also have corresponding adult patterns that play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of attachment. While most babies easily fall into one of the three attachment types, there are also some that can't. Repeated observations of these unregistered babies, the book created a new category—the disordered type—and then they discovered the complex role of trauma in disordered attachment.

The author mentions understanding away from this concept. What is dissociation? You can think of dissociation as a way to protect yourself and defend yourself against anxiety and fear. Corresponding connection refers to connecting things together, and dissociation refers to separating things.

What are the effects of the disordered type? Disordered children do not manage their emotions well and cannot rely on the help of others. For example, they manage relationships by harsh commands, verbal threats, physical attacks, and humiliation of their parents. The authors refer to children who behave in this way as control-punishment. So why do disordered attachment relationships occur? The authors say that disordered attachment is associated with early trauma, such as abuse and neglect.

Numerous studies have shown that the incidence is significantly higher among high-risk groups, such as children with disorders and abuse in 43% of infants whose mothers are addicted to alcohol or drugs, and the incidence is estimated to be between 48% and 77%.

There are three early forms of abuse associated with disruptive infant behavior in unfamiliar situations: physical abuse (e.g., frequent and vigorous spanking, and serious injuries caused by outbursts of parental anger, such as cigarette burns), psychological inaccessibility (e.g., parental unresponsiveness, passive rejection, withdrawal, or alienation), and neglect (failure to provide health or physical care, or failure to protect children from dangers at home). Obviously, abuse is terrible for babies and puts babies in an insoluble dilemma: need but fear of emotional intimacy.

Bibby's research most directly shows that the key to triggering the precursors of these disordered attachments (whether or not direct abuse is involved) is the lack of psychological tuning among parents when babies are in emotional distress. This lack of tuning can be described as a lack of mindful attention and parental mentalization, which are most needed by infants. As a result, babies are unable to find comfort from others or to comfort themselves.

2. Intergenerational transmission

The authors argue that this disordered type of attachment is passed on to children intergenerationally, for example, babies with secure attachment are likely to have safe-autonomous parents; infants with conflicting-confrontation are likely to have entangled parents; and infants who avoid it are likely to have contemptuous parents.

That is to say, parents in ordinary life will subtly affect the baby, it is like the genes in the body are passed on from generation to generation by the ancestors, if the genes of a species have not changed, then our physical characteristics and behavior will be like the old ancestors, and there will be no change.

The authors say that parents with secure attachment are able to provide coherent narratives in adult attachment interviews with their mental capacity for attachment history; that these parents interact mentally with their babies; that by holding their thoughts, babies are safely attached; and that as their experience of mental interaction grows, infants grow into children with solid mental capacity. Mentalization promotes mentalization.

Parents with disordered attachment exhibit impaired mental capacity and problems with organization; their ability to mentalize their infants is impaired due to experiencing trauma again in the face of their infant's pain; and it is conceivable that when the infant is in pain, their thoughts cannot be held in frightening interactions, and they thus show a disordered attachment. Babies do not learn to mentalize when they are in emotional pain due to the failure of their parents' mentalization; as a result, they grow into children with impaired mental capacity.

So, the mother's behavior directly affects the child's behavior, and if you are a disordered mother, then your child is likely to become a disordered child as well.

3

How to avoid the formation of insecure attachments

As we said earlier, insecure attachment can put us at risk for mental illness, such as depression, suicide, etc. So how can we avoid trauma-related mental illness? The author gives us the answer in the book.

1. Mindfulness

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the experience of focusing on the present moment. Mindfulness consists of two basic parts, focusing on the experience of the present moment and cultivating a non-critical and accepting attitude toward the experience, even if it is emotionally painful.

At the heart of mindfulness is pure attention, that is, paying attention to your perceptions or feelings without thinking or judging. Therefore, the book argues that mindfulness is a technique for regulating attention, that is, being alert to what is happening in the here and now. Mindfulness requires not only the technique of sustained concentration (such as trying to focus on your breathing), but also the flexibility to shift your mind when you find yourself losing mindfulness.

For example, mindfulness about a flower, your breathing, or the process of washing dishes. Because the experience of the present moment also includes what is happening in your mind (what you think, what you feel), you can also be mindful of your mind. Often, mindfulness practice can develop awareness not only of your own mental state, but also to awareness of the mental state of others—you can be mindful of other people and your own mental state. And mindfulness has a good effect on drug addiction, smoking, and eating disorders.

People who have experienced trauma tend to avoid traumatic situations, thereby shielding them from painful feelings, images, and sensations associated with traumatic memories. Avoidance is at the heart of the diagnosis of PTSD, in part because avoidance will keep you from getting out of it all the time.

The book effectively distinguishes between situational avoidance and empirical avoidance. Situational avoidance is straightforward, and empirical avoidance is much more complex: It occurs when a person is unwilling to connect with specific personal experiences (e.g., physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories, behavioral tendencies) and takes steps to change the form or frequency in which these events occur, as well as the circumstances that trigger them.

Therefore, when caught in empirical avoidance, you may try to avoid recalling, imagining, thinking, or talking about traumatic experiences, thereby avoiding the painful feelings associated with it. However, it is one thing to avoid a particular situation, but it is another to avoid one's own thoughts.

Studies of mental processes have shown that empirical avoidance is often counterproductive: to avoid the things you don't want to think about in your mind, you must always be vigilant; but oddly enough, your vigilance instead keeps the thoughts, feelings, and memories you want to avoid in your mind.

Situational and empirical avoidance is entirely natural and excusable; there is no greater reward than escaping from suffering. Avoidance can certainly keep you away from pain, but only to a certain extent. Avoiding emotional pain can make it impossible for you to face problems and deal with them; in the worst case scenario (such as PTSD), you will live in fear of your own mind. It will also restrict you from living a free life.

Therefore, one of the main goals of mindfulness practice is to counter empirical avoidance through empirical acceptance, that is, to open your heart to accepting your thoughts, feelings, and feelings no matter how painful they may be.

2. Mentalization

What is mentalization? Mentalization requires not only conscious attention to the mental state of oneself and others, but also a more complex interpretation of the behaviors associated with the mental state.

When it points to awareness of the mental state of others, mentalization includes both external and internal levels. On the outside, you can see a frowning facial expression or a vaguely visible posture; you can also infer inner states from the outside, such as anger, criticism, or hostile thoughts. Explicit and implicit mentalization together form the core of the term.

Explicit mentalization is the easiest to understand because it is a more conscious process, something you deliberately do, and often requires effort. Most often, we use language for explicit mentalization.

When you say a feeling or anything else that's going on in your head, you're doing explicit mentalization. For example, "I'm angry", "I want a drink", "I'm imagining the beaches of the French Riviera".

For example, if you suddenly feel anxious while reading this book, you will naturally try to find out the reason, and you will be mentally enlightened. If you're sitting in a coffee shop with a friend and he suddenly bursts out laughing for no reason, you'll wonder why he's like this and ask him, "What's so funny?" "You're mentally, and when your friend explains himself, he's also mentally.

Implicit mentalization is a relatively automatic, relaxed, unconscious process, just like driving a car, and after learning it, you will do it naturally, without thinking.

For example, take turns speaking in a conversation, or take into account the other person's background information when explaining something. However, implicit mentalization is more related to our emotions. We naturally resonate with each other emotionally without having to deliberately think about it.

So how do we avoid the damage caused by trauma by mentalization? In fact, mentalization is a series of psychological activities, including empathy, observation and awakening of the self, Vipassana, metacognition, mind reading, social cognition and so on. When you're anxious, you have to recognize your anxiety, empathize with yourself or others, and try to understand each other.

Mentalization enables children to conceive of other people's beliefs, feelings, attitudes, desires, hopes, knowledge, imagination, disguises, plans, etc. While interpreting and predicting the behavior of others, they also have the flexibility to activate the most appropriate representations for a particular interpersonal environment from a variety of self-other representations. Exploring the meaning of other people's actions is crucially linked to a child's ability to label and give meaning to their own experiences. This ability can have important effects on both emotion regulation, impulse control, self-monitoring, and the experience of autonomy.