Attachment Styles and Highly Sensitive People. What predicts healthy romance?

This is chapter 8 of my bestselling book, The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self. Available on Amazon. Search for “Benita Esposito.”

Let’s look at the research on attachment styles to help us understand how to create healthy romantic relationships.

We unconsciously act the way we do in romantic relationships for a good reason. Human beings have an innate drive to form emotional bonds with people who are precious to us. We suffer when we aren’t able to create secure bonds. The need for secure attachment is part of our inherited survival strategy.

Historically, we survive better in packs than alone. Solitary confinement is one of the most devastating forms of punishment. Even though children in orphanages in war-torn countries have food, clothing and shelter, they get sick and sometimes die without adequate loving attention. That’s how important emotional attachment is to us.

Healthy relationships are the number one predictor of our ability to heal from serious disease and maintain emotional and physical health. We live four years longer when we have healthy bonded relationships. (See reference 5.)

Psychological research shows that when we’re babies, we develop one of four attachment styles based on the parenting style of our caregivers.

According to Dr. Edward Tronick’s research, the attachment style of a one-year-old predicts the attachment style of a 25-year-old. (See reference 1.)

As adults, our childhood attachment style influences all of our thoughts, emotions and behaviors at an unconscious level.

Attachment styles have two categories: (1) secure and (2) insecure.

The insecure styles are divided into two sub-categories: anxious and avoidant. Some people have a third insecure style called anxious-avoidant.

1. Secure attachment style
Fifty percent of us enjoy a secure attachment style. Our parents were emotionally healthy, responsive and physically present. As children, we felt understood and cherished. We felt safe and secure. Our physical needs were met. There was no harsh discipline or emotional neglect or icy distance. Appropriate discipline was coupled with warmth and reassurance that we were loved and liked. We were given the appropriate amount of freedom to explore the world in a safe way, and encouraged to develop our unique personality. As adults, we anticipate that people will like us and we will like them. We develop healthy relationships and set appropriate boundaries for self-care.

2. Insecure Attachment Styles

2a) Anxious Attachment Style
Twenty percent of our population has an anxious attachment style. Our parents were inconsistent in meeting our emotional or physical needs. We became watchful, trying to figure out how to please our parents so they wouldn’t abandon us. As adults, we worry that our partner will leave us if there is conflict. We still try to please people. We might feel jealous.

When we don’t get our needs met, we get angry because anger is easier to feel than the loneliness of separation. This is called protest anger.

When we feel misunderstood and unloved, we become stressed. We may act in a manner that is critical, defensive or contemptuous. We’re trying to get our partner to connect with us, but inadvertently we push our partner away. We’re called “pursuers” in the language of Adult Attachment Theory.

An anxious attachment style isn’t right or wrong. Don’t beat yourself up if you have this style. The description helps us understand each other and ourselves. Pursuers often mate with avoidant styles who distance from deep emotional connection in the heat of conflict, leaving us feeling more anxious because we feel the pain of being left alone.

2b) Avoidant Attachment Style

Twenty-three percent of us have an avoidant attachment style. Our parents were emotionally or physically unavailable, neglectful or downright abusive. Scared and tense in our bodies, we became hyper-vigilant trying to intuit our parents’ unpredictable behavior. We had a big dilemma. How could we protect ourselves from parents who emotionally or physically hurt us while being dependent on them to meet our basic needs for food, shelter and clothing? Without the much-needed emotional nurturance, our bodies didn’t feel safe, and we braced ourselves for potential threats. We emotionally distanced and tried to become as self-sufficient as possible.

As adults, people with avoidant attachment styles may be independent high-achievers, driven to succeed. We hesitate to ask for help. The USA culture promotes this type of behavior.

We may experience physical pain, chronic fatigue, addictions and other diseases predictable from a lifetime of physiological hyper-arousal. We may fall into depression, or swing between anxiety and depression. Even when we want to form healthy relationships, we anticipate people won’t like us if they really know us, or we won’t like them. We guard against getting too close. We may assume people will judge us, hurt us or try to control us. We’re called “withdrawers.”

2c) Anxious/Avoidant Ambivalent Attachment Style

One percent of us have this combined style. We may jump into relationships quickly, loving the endorphin high of romance … or we may hang back for a long time trying to determine if we’re safe with a potential partner.

We’re often unconsciously attracted to a person who also has an insecure attachment style. When conflicts arise, we try hard to work it out, but if our partner doesn’t respond positively, we withdraw to protect ourselves. It’s difficult to open our hearts again, even when our partner begs us to connect, unless there’s a strong friendship already established.

The healthiest relationships contain at least one person with a secure attachment style.

When conflicts arise, the secure attachment style partner provides a stable emotional base so the other partner feels loved. To use an analogy, when the couple is dancing and the insecure partner stumbles, the secure partner is grounded and warm-hearted enough to help the other regain their balance. (See reference 4.)

Hope and Help

With individual and couples therapy, people with insecure attachment styles can learn how to repair attachment injuries, heal childhood wounding patterns, and connect in emotionally healthy ways. They can develop “earned secure attachment” so they both feel safe, understood and loved.

The science of Adult Attachment Theory is relatively new. With the development of fMRI machines, neuroscience has been able to understand the interplay between our emotions, our physiological reactions and our behaviors, and what happens to make us feel safe or scared in our relationships. (See reference 3.)

Highly Sensitive People (HSP) and Attachment Styles

Let’s circle back and apply attachment theory to highly sensitive people.

Research by Dr. Elaine Aron indicates that highly sensitive children raised by parents who meet their emotional and physical needs develop secure attachment styles just like non-highly sensitive children who have healthy parent styles. (reference 8) As these highly sensitive people mature, they thrive in relationships and they reach their life goals even better than many non-highly sensitives. They are creative, conscientious, compassionate, intuitive and innovative.

However, when the emotional and physical needs of highly sensitive children are not met, they react stronger to deprivation or abuse than non-highly sensitive children.

HSP’s nervous systems respond with more hyper-arousal, like pressing their foot on the car accelerator which can result in chronic anxiety if left unchecked. Or they experience more hypo-arousal, like pressing their foot on the brake to slow down which can result in depression. Or they vacillate between the two, fluctuating between anxiety and depression.

Highly sensitive people are more prone to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when they experience trauma. But there is hope and help. With adept psychotherapy the effects of trauma can be healed. (See reference 6.) It’s best to seek therapy as soon as possible after a troubling incident to return the nervous system to resilience.

Highly sensitive people are no more likely to report insecure attachment styles than non-highly sensitive people.

Nothing about highly sensitivity impairs a person’s ability to form a healthy intimate relationship. Highly sensitive people are more attuned to subtle meanings of conversations, and they are able to gain more benefit from loving attention. They’re more empathetic, and better equipped to detect the unmet needs of others and fulfill those needs. They are more adept learners than non-highly sensitive people when healthy relationships skills are modeled for them in therapy. When they receive affirmation and appreciation, they thrive. (See reference 8.)

Conclusion

It’s challenging to form healthy bonded intimate relationships as an adult if we have an insecure attachment style. However, if we’re fortunate enough to mate with a secure attachment-style person, or we learn how to change our patterns in a course of successful psychotherapy, we can change our style to “earned secure attachment” and enjoy flourishing relationships.

This is chapter 8 of the book, The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self. Bestselling Author: Benita A. Esposito. Available on Amazon. Copyright 2018. The Esposito Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.

Addendum: There’s a fourth type of insecure attachment style called “Dissociative Attachment Style.” You can read about it in the “Fragmented Child: Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation” article in the June 20, 2014 edition of Psychology Today. Here’s an excerpt:

“… disorganized attachment, occurs when the caregiver mistreats the child, frequently frightens the child, miscommunicates feelings, and has highly unrealistic expectations of the child (relying on the child for care).

Caregivers who act in ways that give rise to disorganized attachment may behave very inconsistently (for example, at times they are intrusive, at times they withdraw), which creates confusion for the child. The child may end up with multiple, incompatible views of the caregiver (seeing the caregiver as a source of protection and danger at the same time) and incompatible views of themselves (feeling confused about whether they are good or bad). These incompatible views are very difficult to reconcile and hard to combine into a coherent structure.”

Author’s Contact Information

If you are a highly sensitive person who wants to heal and learn how to form healthy adult relationships, contact Benita A. Esposito, MA.  She is a life coach and spiritual counselor who specializes in helping highly sensitive people. Complete the Contact Page to schedule a 10-minute complimentary phone interview to see if her services are a good fit for you.

References and Resources

1. Aron, Elaine. (2001). The Highly Sensitive Person in Love. p. 92. New York, NY. Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

2. Aron, Elaine. (2001). The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You. New York, NY. Broadway Books.

3. Poole Heller, Diane. (2017). Healing Your Attachment Wounds: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships. Audiobook – Original recording by Diane Poole Heller (Narrator, Author),‎ Sounds True, Inc. Louisville, CO.

4. Poole Heller, Diane. Attachment Style Quiz. https://dianepooleheller.com/attachment-test

5. Levine, Amir and Heller, Rachel. (2010). Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love. Jeremy P Tarcher/Penguin Group. New York, NY.

6. Levine, Amir and Heller, Rachel. (2018). Attachment Quiz. http://www.attachedthebook.com/compatibility-quiz/?step=1

7. Tronick, Edward. (2007). Still Face Experiment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

8. Johnson, Sue (2013) Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships. New York: Little Brown.

9. Johnson, Sue. (2011). Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. New York: Little Brown.

10. Johnson, Sue. (2014). How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pruIGfJewhs&t=1s

11. Ornish, Dean. (1998.) Love and Survival: 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Health. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

12. Bolby, John. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York, NY. Basic Books/Hatchette Books. (John Bowlby is the father of attachment theory.)

2 replies
  1. Jodie liggett says:

    I’ve lived with feeling so different empty anxious and depressed forever . Since a baby I think. I suffered trauma but only recently have began to understand this attachment stuff, because now my 10 year old daughter suffers the same and I feel so sad it took me so long to get to the bottom of it. I’m ultra introverted , sensitive and creative. I’m also extreamly determined to get better and fight on through. Every day is a battle inside myself just to be a person! Your arrival has already offered another piece of the puzzzle for me. My life has been a constant search for truth. Thanks for putting this out there.

    Reply
    • benitaesposito says:

      Hi Jody, I hope the resources I provide continue to help you. Being an extreme introvert with an insecure attachment style can be very challenging. I hope you and your daughter find more inner peace each and every day.

      Reply

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