Attachment and trauma are two things many humans experience. While there can be a correlation between the two, not all attachment comes with trauma. On the other hand, all trauma can have an impact on attachment.
Attachment starts to form in the first month of your life and becomes more complex and intricate over time, with each experience helping to shape and mold who you are and who you may become into adulthood (1). Attachments are formed as a response to your needs as a child. They’re influenced by how your caregiver responds when you’re in danger or distress.
The more appropriately your caregiver responds, the more likely you are to form a secure attachment style (1). The more your caregiver’s response isn’t in line with your desired response, the more likely you are to form an attachment style that has anxious or avoidant characteristics.
As you can imagine, having an experience where your caregiver isn’t available can have a profound impact on your attachment. If your caregiver has substance abuse issues and is unavailable, this can be a type of trauma. Attachment trauma can also occur if you experience verbal or physical abuse as a child or don’t have a stable living situation.
There are many different types of trauma that can occur that result in attachment trauma and they’re not limited to childhood experiences. Being in an abusive relationship as an adult can also result in attachment trauma.
How to Identify Attachment Trauma
Attachment trauma can be identified in a variety of ways. Firstly, the impact trauma has on attachment can vary based on the age at which the trauma occurred, how often the trauma was experienced, and whether or not a caregiver was available to provide support and comfort as a response to the trauma.
Trauma isn’t always quickly or easily identified, but when it is, it’s often due to a display of concerning behaviors or signs of stunted neurodevelopmental growth. When you experience trauma, your body tends to have a physiological stress response (2). This means that while you may feel emotionally troubled, your body is also having a response as it’s trying to protect itself.
Unfortunately, when your body is constantly dealing with a stress response, this can disable its ability to function properly, which can lead to apparent delays in development and on a social level. This can also result in displays of inappropriate or abnormal behavior (2). Professionals typically look for signs of these delays and behaviors and can further assess an individual based on initial observations as a means of determining if they’ve experienced attachment trauma. Clinicians use various screening tools and examinations of patient history to assess patients for trauma and related attachment issues.
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What Does Attachment Trauma Feel Like?
The way attachment trauma feels depends a lot on the intensity and frequency of the experienced trauma and the age at which it occurred. How you feel can also depend on whether or not you had a caregiver to provide comfort and support as you dealt with the trauma and can also be influenced by whether or not you’ve addressed the trauma by speaking to a professional.
Some people with highly dysregulated attachment may feel that they’re quite controlling, extremely self-reliant, or compulsive when it comes to caregiving. In addition, you may always feel the need to comply with the demands of others or be easily coerced. Some people may even develop mental health conditions later in life (2).
It’s also common for people with attachment trauma issues to feel a great deal of shame and guilt (3). You may experience negative feelings about who you are and feel guilty about the things you have done (even if they weren’t particularly bad).
Read more: Somatic Healing Exercises: Finding Inner Peace
What Is the Root Cause of Attachment Issues?
The root cause of attachment issues is not having a caregiver who properly responds to you when you need comfort and protection. People are constantly trying to either get close to someone they want to connect with or remain close to the person they’ve connected with.
When this connection isn’t obtained or maintained, it can cause feelings of distress, which result in behaviors such as crying, yelling, whining, smiling, or clinging. These behaviors are used as an attempt to get the attention of the desired person, and if that person doesn’t respond to your attempts, this can cause further distress and confusion and ultimately lead to attachment issues (4).
Both children and adults notice whether their caregiver or partner responds to their signs of distress and their response, or lack thereof, determines how the attachment bond forms. That being said, attachment issues can arise as a result of unstable relationships in childhood and adulthood and could potentially even result in adult romantic relationship issues (4).
How Do You Break Attachment Trauma?
Breaking attachment trauma can be a long and complex process. Attachment starts to form in infancy and all of the experiences you have after that contribute to your personal attachment style. In order to ‘break’ the attachment that you’ve formed as a response to trauma, you’ll likely need to seek professional help from a clinician. Clinicians can use a wide variety of psychological practices to help you safely acknowledge and start to cope with the trauma you experienced. This may ultimately help you start the healing process and clinicians can give you tools and guidance for forming new and healthy attachments.
You can also try additional treatments such as somatic movement and trauma-informed yoga, which have been known to help release trauma and emotions. Engaging in different types of somatic therapies can encourage a mind-body connection and lead to emotional releases, which can allow personal growth to occur (5).
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At What Age Is Attachment Trauma Formed?
Attachment trauma can be formed at any age when trauma is experienced. While you start to form your attachment style in infancy, experiences that occur all throughout your life can influence your attachment and have both positive and negative impacts on it. It’s possible to experience a happy and loving childhood, which can lead to a secure attachment style, but have a traumatic experience as a teenager or adult and end up with attachment trauma.
If you have a secure attachment style throughout your life but find yourself in an abusive marriage, attachment trauma may still form, depending on the frequency and intensity of the abuse you experience (6). Depending on how the abuse looks, it’s possible you may even form a trauma bond with your abusive partner, which is a type of attachment.
Unfortunately, abuse can strengthen attachment bonds due to the ability it has to activate the attachment system. The attachment system works in the same way in an abusive relationship as it does in childhood, which can encourage dysfunctional relationships (6).
Read more: Somatic Couples Therapy: Everything You Need to Know
How Do You Love Someone with Attachment Trauma?
Forming a healthy and loving relationship when you have attachment trauma can be challenging, but it is possible. This is particularly true when you’re attempting to love someone who has a secure attachment style. In the same way that attachment trauma occurs, attachment healing can also occur. When regularly exposed to healthy and happy experiences, the new experiences can slowly overshadow the traumatic ones and promote healing and healthy attachment. This often requires the use of psychotherapy and other healing practices.
It can be challenging for someone with attachment trauma to even form a bond with a therapist, but it’s possible with the right therapist and the use of appropriate therapeutic techniques. In order to heal from attachment trauma, you must increase your ability to cope with stress in a relationship and work toward restoring the loss of security you feel as a result of attachment trauma.
When you’re in a relationship that allows you to feel safe and as if you can depend on your partner, this may start the healing process and make you more able to feel and display love. Studies have found that insecure people (those with attachment trauma) can actually modify their attachment patterns within 5 years of being married to a secure partner if proper healing techniques are incorporated (7). The healing process and improving your ability to feel and display love when you have attachment trauma can be long and slow, but with hard work and dedication, it’s absolutely possible to form a new and healthy attachment to your partner or other people in your life.
An attachment cry occurs when the attachment system is activated. It is essentially used as an alert system to communicate that comfort or protection is needed from a caregiver (8). An attachment cry is a necessary means for survival and if not responded to, attachment formation can be negatively impacted and have long-term effects on development. There are many ways unprocessed trauma can manifest, depending on the person and type of trauma that has been experienced. Some people experience intrusive thoughts and memories that may disrupt their daily lives and result in physiological symptoms. People who are dealing with unprocessed trauma may also become avoidant and steer away from certain places or activities and even the formation of healthy relationships. Unprocessed trauma can also cause low self-esteem and mental health struggles. In some cases, it even manifests as chronic pain, fatigue, and somatic symptoms, which can often be mitigated by using somatic practices such as somatic emotional release and somatic exercises. It’s unlikely that a trauma bond will become true love as these bonds are often formed on the basis of unhealthy and toxic behavior. Although various therapies may be used to sort through trauma bonding, it would be uncommon to see a trauma bond form into a healthy, functional, loving relationship. The removal of trauma bonds can occur with the guidance and help of a professional who specializes in healing trauma. It can be a long and tedious process, but a healthy outcome can occur through commitment and the right guidance. Frequently Asked Questions
What is an attachment cry?
What does unprocessed trauma look like?
Can a trauma bond become true love?
How do you remove trauma bonds?
The Bottom Line
Attachment trauma can be quite challenging to deal with and can negatively impact your life in many ways. Although it can cause some struggles in your life, there are many tools and therapies you can utilize to help mitigate the negative impacts attachment trauma can have on your life. With a commitment to the process and support, it is possible to work through attachment trauma.
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SOURCES:
- Purnell, C. (2010). Childhood trauma and adult attachment. Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal, 10(2), 1-7.
- O’Neill, L., Guenette, F., & Kitchenham, A. (2010). ‘Am I safe here and do you like me?’Understanding complex trauma and attachment disruption in the classroom. British journal of special education, 37(4), 190-197.
- Barker, G. A. (2010). The effects of trauma on attachment.
- Nelson, A. M. (2024). Adults With Avoidant Attachment Styles and Their Online Dating Experiences (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).
- Shafir, T. B. (2015). Bridging the trauma-adult attachment connection through somatic movement. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 10(4), 243–255. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432979.2015.1067256
- Henderson, A. J., Bartholomew, K., & Dutton, D. G. (1997). He loves me; he loves me not: Attachment and separation resolution of abused women. Journal of family violence, 12, 169-191.
- Siegel, D. J., & Solomon, M. F. (Eds.). (2003). Healing trauma: Attachment, mind, body and brain (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology). WW Norton & Company.
- Bernstein, R. E., & Freyd, J. J. (2014). Trauma at home: How betrayal trauma and attachment theories understand the human response to abuse by an attachment figure. Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis, 8(1), 18-41.
