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November 7, 2024 - April 28, 2025
In one pattern, called “avoidant attachment,” the infants look like nothing really bothers them—they don’t cry when their mother goes away and they ignore her when she comes back.
My colleagues and I call this pattern “dealing but not feeling.”12
In another pattern, called “anxious” or “ambivalent” attachment, the infants constantly draw attention to themselves by crying, yelling, clinging, or screaming: They are “feeling but not dealing.”13 They seem to have concluded that unless they make a spectacle, nobody is going to pay attention to them.
Attachment patterns often persist into adulthood. Anxious toddlers tend to grow into anxious adults, while avoidant toddlers are likely to become adults who are out of touch with their own feelings and those of others.
Main called this pattern “disorganized attachment.” Disorganized attachment is “fright without solution.”19
Conscientious parents often become alarmed when they discover attachment research, worrying that their occasional impatience or their ordinary lapses in attunement may permanently damage their kids.
In real life there are bound to be misunderstandings, inept responses, and failures of communication. Because mothers and fathers miss cues or are simply preoccupied with other matters, infants are frequently left to their own devices to discover how they can calm themselves down.
With “good enough” caregivers, children learn that broken connections can be repaired. The critical issue is whether they can incorporate a feeling of being viscerally safe with their parents or other caregivers.20
Interestingly, this large study showed that the child’s gender and basic temperament have little effect on attachment style;
Does this kind of biological dysregulation automatically reset to normal as a child matures or is moved to a safe environment? So far as we know, it does not.