Understanding attachment using DMM

Let’s just name it: most of us didn’t get out of childhood unscathed.

Not necessarily because something dramatic happened, but because we were little humans growing up in a big world, trying to make sense of things with developing brains and nervous systems that were wired for survival. And sometimes, in order to feel safe, we had to adapt in ways that shaped us long after the danger passed.

Pat Crittenden’s Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment (DMM) doesn’t just make space for that truth; it’s built on it.

Unlike traditional attachment theory that tells you which “style” you are in relationships (anxious, avoidant, secure, disorganised), the DMM isn’t interested in categorising you for a quiz result or labelling you as “insecure.” It asks better questions:

What were you adapting to?

How did your body, brain, and relationships teach you what was safe or unsafe?
And what might it mean to see your current struggles, not as flaws, but as brilliant adaptations that once protected you?

Let’s unpack this. Gently. Honestly. With zero judgement.

Because this isn’t just theory, it’s your life. And understanding the DMM might just be the key to making peace with the strategies that got you here.

Survival isn’t dysfunction

Before we get into what the DMM is, we need to clear something up:

"Survival behaviours aren’t dysfunctional. They’re clever".

If you grew up in an environment where it was emotionally or physically unsafe to express needs, feel feelings, or rely on others, you adapted. Full stop.

Maybe you learned to become invisible. Maybe you became the fixer, the achiever, the one who never asked for anything. Perhaps you swung between numb and flooded. Maybe you learned that people can’t be trusted – or that love always comes with a catch.

That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your nervous system did its job.

The problem is, those strategies don’t always work when you grow up. They can keep you from real intimacy. They can make parenting feel like walking a tightrope. They can pull families apart, even when everyone’s trying.

That’s where the DMM comes in.

What is the DMM (in real words)?

The Dynamic Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM), developed by Dr. Patricia Crittenden, is a nuanced, developmentally-focused theory of attachment. It expands on Bowlby and Ainsworth’s foundational work, but it doesn’t stop at infancy, and it doesn’t assume you’re stuck with the style you formed at 12 months old.

Instead, it tracks how attachment strategies evolve across the lifespan in response to danger, perceived or real.

It’s not about personality types.

It’s not about “fixing” your attachment style.

It’s about decoding the strategies you’ve built to stay safe – especially in unsafe or inconsistent environments.

The DMM looks at how we process information, both cognitive (facts, logic) and affective (feelings, emotions), to form internal working models of ourselves, others, and the world. These models guide our relationships, our sense of identity, and even our parenting.

So… what are these strategies?

In DMM terms, there is a range of strategies, but they fall into three broad categories:

A-Strategies: Cognitive-Dominant

These are people who deal with threats by minimising emotion and focusing on behaviour, rules, and outcomes. They often come across as composed, independent, and even avoidant. They’ve learned that expressing emotion is risky, and they tend to keep feelings locked down.

Think: perfectionism, over-functioning, logical detachment.

C-Strategies: Affective-Dominant

These folks manage danger by amplifying emotion. Expression becomes a survival tool, crying, protesting, and dramatic displays. It’s not attention-seeking. It’s connection-seeking. But it can overwhelm others and lead to relationships that feel like emotional rollercoasters.

Think: intensity, reactivity, big feelings that can’t always be contained.

A/C Strategies: Blended or Alternating

These are the trickiest. Often linked to early, unpredictable or frightening caregiving (think: abuse, neglect, addiction, or mental health difficulties in a parent), A/C strategies involve switching between extremes, numb and explosive, compliant and controlling, charming and volatile.

These strategies form when a child has to read the room to survive. The danger is unpredictable, so the child adapts by becoming hyper-attuned, flexible to a fault, or disorganised in how they respond.

What shapes a strategy?

This is where the DMM shines. It doesn’t treat “insecurity” as a flaw; it sees it as a function of context.

If your parent was depressed, angry, absent, or emotionally enmeshed, your developing brain had to interpret what that meant for your safety. You learned, even if unconsciously, whether it was safer to go silent, stay small, speak up, or soothe others.

That strategy becomes your blueprint. And it sticks, unless or until something interrupts it, often therapy, crisis, or a relationship that makes you question your patterns.

So when people say, “I always date emotionally unavailable people,” or “I shut down every time I feel close to someone,” that’s not self-sabotage. It’s an old strategy playing out in a new setting.

DMM in real life: What it looks like

Here’s what DMM patterns can look like in daily life. Maybe you’ll see yourself or someone you love:

• You’re the go-to at work, always calm under pressure, but in relationships, you struggle to say what you need. (A-strategy)
• You’re endlessly scanning for emotional cues, terrified of abandonment, and feel like you care more than anyone else in your life. (C-strategy)
• You’re deeply intuitive, creative, and complex—but your relationships feel chaotic, and you don’t know which version of you will show up. (A/C strategy)

None of these are “bad.” They’re just information.

And once you understand the why behind your pattern, the shame starts to lift. You stop asking “what’s wrong with me?” and start asking “what did I need to survive?”

That’s the turning point.

Families and the clash of strategies

Let’s talk about the part no one prepares you for: the way these strategies collide in families.

Here’s a classic example: one parent (let’s say, A-strategy) values order, independence, and emotional control. Their child (a budding C-strategy) is expressive, sensitive, and constantly seeking connection. The parent sees this as dramatic. The child feels rejected.

Or the adult daughter who’s done years of inner work, learning to name her needs and set boundaries. Her mother, still operating from an older A/C strategy of compliance and control, sees this as betrayal. She calls her “selfish.” She doesn’t understand why the old rules don’t apply.

Different strategies. Different realities.

This is where rupture happens.

Not because anyone’s evil. But because everyone’s trying to stay safe in the only way they know how.

Understanding the DMM doesn’t fix family conflict overnight, but it gives you a map. And when you understand why the other person can’t meet you where you are, you can stop internalising it as failure or rejection.

When secure meets survival: The tension between A/C adult children and well-meaning parents

Let’s take a moment to talk about a dynamic that rarely gets named in therapy rooms but shows up all the time.

What happens when a securely attached parent is raising, or trying to stay connected with, an adult child using an A/C strategy?

On paper, this looks like it should work. The parent is emotionally available, consistent, and non-reactive. They’re doing their best. They didn’t hit, didn’t abandon, didn’t gaslight. They tried to listen, to be kind, to keep the door open.

But here’s the heartbreak: the child still doesn’t feel safe.

They swing between craving closeness and pushing it away. They might test boundaries, explode emotionally, then go cold. They might ghost, idealise, criticise, and loop back again. They feel misunderstood – and often, so does the parent.

The securely attached parent is left thinking: What did I do wrong?

The child is thinking: Why do I feel this way when nothing bad happened?

Here’s what the DMM would say: safety isn’t just about what happened. It’s about how it was processed.

That A/C strategy often develops when the child experiences inconsistent caregiving, not always from the parent, but from the environment. Maybe there was a traumatic birth or separation during hospitalisation. Maybe there was bullying, undiagnosed neurodivergence, or unacknowledged medical trauma. Maybe the child experienced another caregiver (like a grandparent, sibling, or even nursery staff) as frightening or unpredictable.

Or maybe the parent was indeed available but overwhelmed, grieving, and unsupported themselves. The child, perceiving that stress, learned to twist themselves into whatever role was required: the good one, the funny one, the silent one, the chaos-maker.

A secure parent may try to “make it right” through reason, reassurance, or boundaries. All of which are good things. But the A/C adult child isn’t always operating in a logic-based state. Their nervous system is filtering for danger, even in connection. Safety feels unsafe. Calm feels like a trap.

So what helps?

• Curiosity over control. Ask what it’s like for them, without trying to fix it.
• Recognise the pattern, not just the behaviour. What might this reaction be protecting?
• Stay steady. A/C strategies expect instability. Your calm, consistent presence matters – even if it isn’t met with instant closeness.
• Name the elephant. “I can see something feels unsafe right now, even though we’re not fighting. I want to understand, not correct.”

None of this is about blame. It’s about attunement.

Because sometimes, a child doesn’t need a perfect parent. They just need one who stays when things get confusing.

And if you’re the parent reading this, wondering why your best efforts aren’t landing: it’s not because you failed. It’s because your child’s nervous system formed around a world you may not have fully seen or been able to protect them from.

That’s not your shame to carry. But it may be your opportunity to relate differently now.

What this emans for therapy

Most of us come to therapy thinking, “I want to feel better.” But often what we actually mean is, “I want to understand why I keep repeating the same patterns and how to change them without losing myself.”

The DMM helps us decode those patterns.

DMM-informed thinking (whether used explicitly or under the hood) can help clients:

• Understand their early environment without pathologising it.
• See their behaviour as strategic, not broken.
• Learn how to feel feelings and think clearly (even if that’s new).
• Build new ways of relating that aren’t rooted in fear, shame, or survival.

It’s especially powerful for people navigating trauma, family estrangement, relational burnout, or parenting while healing.

We can’t change the past. But we can stop reliving it on repeat.

Why this model matters, especially now

We’re living in an age of disconnection. Post-pandemic, pre-collapse (if we’re honest), many of us are navigating burnout, emotional shutdown, and nervous systems stuck in overdrive.

Pop psychology offers quick fixes: “Just be secure!” “Set boundaries!” “Heal your inner child in three steps!”

But healing doesn’t work like that. It’s not a TED Talk. It’s a slow return to safety, in the body, in relationships, in the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

The DMM offers a compassionate, nuanced, and clinically robust way to walk that path. And it doesn’t label you. It listens.

If something in this landed, it’s not by accident. Maybe you’ve been holding shame about the way you attach, the way you love, the way you protect yourself.

Maybe you’ve spent years calling yourself “too much” or “not enough” because your needs didn’t match the people around you.

Maybe you’re tired of trying to fit into a version of “secure” that doesn’t account for what you’ve been through.

You’re not broken. You adapted.

And now, if you’re ready, you can choose to do things differently, not because the old ways were wrong, but because you deserve more than survival.

Therapy can help with that. You don’t have to do it alone.