Early attachment trauma and how to begin healing

Early attachment trauma is something many people experience, but few find ways to fully come to terms with. It is such a deeply ingrained part of our culture to "respect and honour" our parents that many of the clients I work with feel guilty or wrong somehow for expressing some of the deep hurt they experienced being raised by parents who didn't always get it right.

When children don’t feel seen or understood

As small children, we look to the world for validation, or for 'mirroring'. Psychologist Donald Winnicott talks of this – the need the baby has to see themselves reflected back in the eyes of a loving other.

What can be challenging is when our parents are busy, distracted, or unable to fully attune with their own emotions or self, perhaps due to insecurities or attachment trauma from their upbringing. This is not to blame or judge them. However, what can happen is that the baby/child doesn't feel fully seen. Their healthy anger is met with fear or rage, their sadness met with shut down or emotional withdrawal, or their joy met with jealousy or hostility.

It becomes hard for the child to truly know themselves. They receive inaccurate messaging, such as that healthy emotions are bad. Yet, as a child's survival is dependent on a good relationship with their parents, they assume they are the bad ones. It's a survival instinct, and there is nothing wrong with it.

What unfortunately happens, however, is that the child grows up without a healthy level of self-trust. They enter adult relationships thinking there is something wrong with them, or that they are to blame when things go badly. They can also look for their needs to be met through others. As they never received the early mirroring needed for healthy development, they might seek this elsewhere.

Relationships can become co-dependent and unhealthy. The child (now adult) cannot trust their own judgement, as they never developed the skills needed to trust their own emotions.

How therapy can help

When someone grows up without the healthy mirroring needed for secure attachments in adulthood, part of their system does something quite logical: it goes out seeking it from others. This part hasn't quite caught up with the fact that they are no longer a child. The window for the 'unconditional love' that, in ideal but unfortunately quite rare circumstances, comes from the mother (or primary caregiver) has closed. Now, as an adult, they are responsible for themselves. 

What often happens is that we seek relationships that remind us of a familiar pattern. There is an unconscious need to re-create certain dynamics in order to heal from them.  When there is still self-healing needed, however, this rarely works as a strategy, and we are left feeling even more frustrated and even broken as a result. 

However, this is where therapy can help. 

Therapy is a trusting relationship between an attuned therapist, who can provide the mirroring and Carl Rogers' idea of 'unconditional positive regard', that the client did not fully receive in childhood. 

Therapists provide a safe space for us to grieve the lost attachment we never had, develop compassion for ourselves as the child who wasn't fully seen, and slowly develop the skills and resources to see and hold ourselves as adults now.

With time and empathy, we can come to see we are not broken by our childhoods. The lack of secure attachment then does not define our reality now. The healthiest attachment is the one we give ourselves. In many ways, in forcing us to go within, our parents offer us a valuable opportunity to learn and grow. This is not to absolve them of responsibility, but merely reclaim it as our own. 

Finding the right therapist

When we've experienced early attachment trauma, it can be very hard to trust people. If we cannot trust ourselves, how can we trust others? This is why finding the right therapist is so important, but also potentially challenging. 

While credentials and a reputable background are important, what's of most value is how you feel with the other person. If you can, book an introductory call or online session. Notice how your body feels as you interact with your potential therapist. Do you soften or tense?

When we experience attachment trauma, it can be easy to live in our heads. But, as trauma specialists like Bessel Van Der Kolk and Gabor Mate know, "The Body Keeps The Score", and it is our body that we must trust over our thinking minds. 

Don't be afraid to ask questions of your therapist. Ensure they are open to you and non-defensive. You have to feel safe to challenge them. As an 'authority', it is important that this is someone you feel comfortable with. 

If this article has resonated with you, reach out. It is never too late to develop healthy attachments and resolve early relational trauma.