Attachment Issues
What is attachment?
Attachment has become a buzz-word that we often hear but it has become a muddled term meaning different things to different people. Perhaps you have heard of attachment parenting, which emphasizes the physical bond between parent and child. We want to clarify what attachment means in our context and in the work that we do.
When these conditions have not been met at a young age, our sense of having security in relationships becomes endangered. When we learn or have had the experience that relationships are not safe, it can hamper our ability to build close and meaningful connections with others throughout our lives. There are many reasons why attachment issues arise, but the main one is that people are imperfect. Most of us try our best to form healthy relationships with those we care about but when difficult things arise, i.e. mental/emotional health issues, physical health issues, separation, addiction, or trauma, our ability to attend to our emotional needs in a healthy way as well as the needs of others becomes impaired. This can lead to ruptures in relationships and in ways of relating to people. We want to help repair this.
How we can help
At Conscious, we are trained in attachment-related concerns and use effective and evidence-based methods like Circle of Security to help to repair relationships, but more importantly, we believe that a caring and attentive therapist is equally as effective. We genuinely care about our clients and want to see them develop healthy ways of being with themselves and others. We understand that this can take time, but with the right therapist and a personally tailored treatment plan we believe you can have the meaningful relationships you want to have. Book a free consultation to meet our therapists so you can decide who might be the right fit for you!
In its simplest form, the word attachment is used to describe the way we form our initial connections to others. Prior to being born, we are physiologically attached to our mothers in the womb where we experience much less threat. After birth, we are designed to intuitively seek out a similar safe and close connection with our caregivers. This is where things sometimes get a little confusing. Some have been led to believe that simply being close to someone, like in the case of baby-wearing, is the best way to form a healthy and secure attachment. However, attachment goes much deeper than physical proximity, and much beyond our years in infancy. Secure attachment is the sense of knowing that someone will meet our needs both physically and emotionally, a sense of predictability in the caring responses of others, and a general sense that people are safe and can be trusted.