In honor of Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about love. Love can fall on a spectrum of admiration and affection to a deep, emotional connection – you love your Aunt Edna, but you LOVE your husband.
While love is a feeling like no other and a powerful force that can connect us to someone else, reduce loneliness and isolation and cultivates empathy, trust and selfless acts of kindness, researchers have found that the feelings of love involve a series of neurotransmitters and hormones that affect us scientifically. These brain circuits are formed by our earliest relationships with our caregivers. These earliest relationships are called attachments and can form the basis for how we perceive love and feel love and are foundational to healthy, secure relationships.
Our attachment is a deep and enduring bond that connects us to another human being. As newborns, we seek out attachments to our caregivers to get our basic needs met including food, safety and security and, when those basic needs aren’t met, we become distressed and anxious. These earliest models of attachment carry into our adult relationships and our view of love.
Different Models of Attachment
In secure attachments, we are self-confident and able to connect with another easily. Those with secure attachments are more satisfied in their relationships and do not fear rejection or abandonment. Those with secure attachment styles tend to be loving and nurturing to their children and emotionally available.
Those with an avoidant attachment style are uncomfortable with intimacy and tend to like their independence and freedom. An avoidant attachment fears relying on others and values self-dependence. The avoidance parenting style is detached, disengaged and emotionally unavailable.
An anxious attachment style requires closeness and tends to be insecure about the relationship. When their partner doesn’t exhibit the extreme intimacy that they would like, they believe the other is rejecting or abandoning them. Many times, this intense need for intimacy causes conflict in relationships and drives people away. The parenting style is more of inconsistency – I am available, I am not available, which causes confusion in children and makes them anxious and insecure.
Someone with a disorganized attachment typically struggles with unresolved trauma and strong emotional reactions from the past. People with disorganized attachment fear emotion and use anger, detachment, and sometimes self-medication – alcohol and drugs – to disconnect from their own emotions. The parenting style is typically maltreatment or abuse.
Based on our past experiences with these attachments, we may view love in an unhealthy way and tend to gravitate toward relationships that are consistent with our childhood models of attachment. However, just because we struggle with insecure models of attachments, doesn’t mean we aren’t worthy or capable of healthier, loving relationships. Awareness is the key to change.
Erin Swinson, LMHCA, LPC
Therapist
Clarity Clinic
Vallas, M., MD (March 4, 2015). The positive effects of love on mental health. Retrieved on February 13, 2018 from https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/mood-disorders/the-positive-effects-of-love-on-mental-health/article/401655/
Firestone, L., PhD. (July 30, 2013). How your attachment style impacts your relationship. Retrieved on February 13, 2018 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201307/how-your-attachment-style-impacts-your-relationship.
Levy, T. (May 25, 2017). Four styles of adult attachment. Retrieved on February 13, 2018 from https://www.evergreenpsychotherapycenter.com/styles-adult-attachment/
