Our attachment styles develop early in life, shaped by how our needs were met in our primary caregiver relationships. Often, these early attachment patterns remain relatively stable throughout life. But is this always the case? If your early experiences were rejecting, inconsistent, or traumatic, does that mean you are destined to have an insecure attachment style forever?
The good news is that our brains are incredibly resilient and capable of rewiring themselves through repeated positive experiences. In other words, healthy relationships can rework early insecure bonds, transforming an insecure attachment style into what experts refer to as "earned secure."
In this blog post, we will explore:
What secure and insecure attachment styles are
A description of earned secure attachment
How earned security differs from continuous security
The characteristics of an earned secure attachment style in parenting, romantic relationships, and mental health
How to achieve an earned secure attachment style
What Is Secure Attachment?
The secure attachment style is often referred to as the "healthiest" attachment style.
Securely attached children feel a sense of protection from their caregiver. As a result, these children use their caregivers as a "secure base" from which they can explore the world before returning to seek reassurance and support.
Parents who foster secure attachment typically provide two key elements:
Comfort when needed.
Flexibility and freedom to explore when the child wants.
This approach to parenting shows the child that they can depend on others, that the world is trustworthy, and that they are competent. As a result, securely attached people are generally:
Self-content
Warm
Social
Easy to connect with
Emotionally aware
Able to form deep, meaningful, long-lasting relationships
We store our early attachment bonds in our minds as "mental representations" of what we believe a loving relationship looks like. These representations then become the template for our future relationships. In this article, we will refer to secure attachment as "continuous secure" to differentiate it from "earned secure."
What Is Insecure Attachment?
Insecure attachment manifests when a child perceives that their needs are not met consistently. As a result, the child may struggle to form a stable, secure emotional bond with their caregivers.
Like secure attachment, children with an insecure attachment style store their experiences as templates that shape how they understand future relationships. An insecurely attached child may grow up to see others as untrustworthy, the world as dangerous, and themselves as "not good enough."
There are three forms of insecure attachment in childhood:
Anxious-ambivalent
Anxious-avoidant
Fearful-avoidant
For more information on the forms of insecure attachment, check out our article on Attachment Styles.
What Is Earned Secure Attachment?
Earned secure attachment is when a person with early insecure attachment eventually achieves security through healthy later relationships. Simply put, someone with earned security has the early experiences of an insecure attacher but develops the later outcomes of a secure attacher.
Earned secure attachment typically looks similar to continuous secure attachment. Someone with earned security may:
Have a positive sense of self
Comfortably share emotional bonds with others
Feel content around others
Experience few fears about rejection or loneliness
Show a healthy balance of intimacy and independence
The key difference is that people with earned secure attachment typically had difficult early attachment experiences that they have overcome.
How Does Earned Security Differ From Continuous Secure and Insecure Attachment?
Attachment experts suggest that you can distinguish between continuous secure, earned secure, and insecure attachers by how they talk about their past experiences.
Continuous secure attachers generally speak about their early experiences coherently and clearly. They don’t have the interference of insecure early experiences and can recall their childhood with balance.
Insecure attachers may describe their adverse childhood experiences incoherently, often providing unclear accounts due to emotional distress. These early experiences often remain raw and unresolved.
Earned secure attachers, after achieving understanding and perspective, can reflect on their negative and positive experiences with more balance. For example, someone with an insecure attachment style might say, "I often felt lonely as a child." However, with earned security, they might say, "I often felt lonely as a child because my mom had to take care of all of us on her own. She tried her best."
Earned Security in Parenting, Romantic Relationships, and Mental Health
Earned Security and Parenting
People with early secure attachment generally find it easier to:
Attune to their child’s needs
Be empathetic towards their child
See their child as an individual
Attitudes like these help children of secure parents develop secure attachment styles. On the other hand, insecure attachers may be less responsive or supportive, reenacting their own childhood conditions, which can make insecure attachment intergenerational. However, people with earned secure attachment show parenting behaviors similar to those of continuous secure parents—even in high-stress situations.
Earned Security and Romantic Relationships
Insecure early attachment often manifests in insecure romantic relationships during adulthood, with challenges like low self-confidence, lack of trust, or difficulty being emotionally vulnerable. Fortunately, earned security can break this cycle.
Research shows that insecure attachers, even in their twenties, can develop healthier relationships through healthy romantic bonds. People with earned security often enjoy fulfilling relationships similar to those of continuous secure attachers.
Earned Security and Mental Health
While earned security may protect against insecure parenting or negative relationship behaviors, it may not fully eliminate the mental health effects of early insecure attachment. Studies show that earned secure individuals may still have more symptoms of depression compared to those with continuous-secure attachment.
However, despite these lingering effects, people with earned security are generally less prone to mood disorders than if they hadn't worked on their attachment. With proper support—such as psychotherapy—people with even severe emotional difficulties can transform an insecure attachment style into earned secure.
How to Achieve Earned Secure Attachment
While an early insecure attachment style can make relationships challenging, evidence suggests that we can foster an earned secure attachment style, thus improving our quality of life and breaking intergenerational cycles of insecurity.
Research suggests earned security requires:
Emotional support: Revising the belief that "I can’t depend on anyone" and learning to trust and rely on others for emotional support and validation.
Making sense of past experiences: Gaining new perspectives on how the past has affected your life and processing the attached emotions.
Altering self-perceptions: Reworking negative self-perceptions and self-worth.
Deliberate changes in thought patterns and behaviors: Identifying and altering insecure behavior patterns, such as boundary issues or avoidance.
In addition to these changes, taking small risks with trust—like connecting with others, sharing experiences, or joining supportive communities—may help as well.
Two key pathways to earned security are:
Alternative support figures: Emotional support figures outside your primary caregivers (like a grandparent, partner, or friend) can provide essential care that helps shift mental templates of relationships.
Therapy: Long-term therapy offers a safe space where therapists can act as a "secure base," helping clients understand and rework their attachment beliefs.
Final Thoughts on Earned Secure Attachment
Earned security happens when someone transforms an insecure early attachment into a secure one. These individuals often show similar characteristics to those with continuous secure attachment, particularly in parenting and relationships. However, the long-lasting impact of early attachment experiences means seeking help is often still important.
The most fundamental pathway to earned security is through emotionally supportive relationships—whether through an alternative support figure or a therapist. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, "Nothing endures but change." With enough understanding and effort, an insecure attachment style can be reshaped and transformed.
Taken from an article posted on attachmentproject.org
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