Annette Kussin M.S.W., RSW

Announcement: I have written a  second self help book on Adult Attachment and Parenting, titled "Secure Parent, Secure Child:  How a Parents Adult Attachment Shapes the Attachment of the Child. The book was launched on April 2, 2023  and April 19 at Caversham Booksellers.  It is available on Amazon,  Guernica and Caversham Books. 

 

My first book, Its' Attachment, A New Way of Understanding Yourself and your Relationships", is written for individuals looking to understand themselves better. This book is available as an audio book as well. 

A video of me presenting the book can be found on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/annettekussintherapy

​

The podcast Attachment in Action will interview me about the book, Secure Parent, Secure Child  conducted by Karen Buckwalter in April 2023.  Watch for dates of the interview.  Karen interviewed me for the first book, It's Attachment which is available on her podcast. 

​

Both books are available on Amazon.ca, at Caversham Books, at Indigo,  at my publisher, Guernica Editions at https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771835183, at Caversham Books  and other bookstores throughout Canada.  It's Attachment has been translated into Chinese and will be translated into Arabic and Spanish. 

​

​

Articles: 

1. Understanding Attachment and Children with Insecure Attachments

2. Redeveloping Secure Adult Attachment 

 

 

1. Understanding Attachment and  

Children with Insecure Attachments

 

by Annette Kussin M.S.W., RSW

 

 

Attachment is a deep and long lasting relationship that develops between an infant and primary caregiver, usually a mother, in the early years. Infants are born with the instinct to survive and from birth onward signal their needs to a caregiver. Caregivers often instinctively respond to these signals with nurturing and comfort. Not responding to the signals leaves infants very vulnerable. Without their physical needs being met infants will die. Without their needs for nurturing and comfort met infants will not thrive.

 

When caregivers respond to the infant’s signals with the appropriate response, empathy and caring, infants learn to trust that the caregiver will be available and understand their needs and desires. Such infants develop secure attachments. When caregivers are inconsistently available or unavailable and rejecting infants develop insecure attachments. When caregivers are neglectful or abusive, infants develop severe disorganized attachments.

 

As infants interact with their caregivers over time these attachment patterns become internalized and stabilized in the brain and act as templates for relationships for life, operating at an unconscious level. Such templates hold expectations of relationships, beliefs about oneself and perceptions of others. As children move out into the world and continue to interact with others they operate from these internalized beliefs, unconsciously encouraging others to treat them similarly to their caregivers. As other people treat such children in uncaring, angry, rejecting or inconsistent ways the belief that they are unworthy of care and that relationships are untrustworthy is confirmed.

 

For example, children who experience physical and emotional maltreatment from their parents or caregivers will perceive caregivers as dangerous and believe that they have to protect themselves. They may do this by avoiding closeness and controlling others or responding to innocent or accidental slights by other with threats and aggression. Their perception that others will hurt them is distorted by their early harmful relationships but very real to them. As they become more aggressive and controlling, others avoid these children, reject them or punish them which feels similar to the treatment they received from their caregivers.

 

If insecure attachment templates are entrenched neurologically how can they be changed? Therapists who work with children with severe attachment problems have been struggling with this issue for the past few decades, particularly after so many East European orphans were adopted in the 1970ties. Therapy focusing on attachment became the model to understand such disturbed adopted children and to treat them. Attachment Focused Therapy has evolved over the decades and with today’s understanding of Attachment Theory and Brain Development certain core elements now underpin Attachment Focused Therapy:

1.      Therapy includes the child and primary caregiver(s), whether adopted, foster or birth parents.

2.      The elements that constitute a secure attachment relationship are incorporated into the therapy. These include:

•    Structure:  creating safety and predictability, by providing limits, routines and expectations only as benign      elements to create a safe environment 

•     Empathy and attunement by connecting with the underlying emotional state of the child

•     Comfort and Caring, particularly during times of stress, fear or illness 

•     Unconditional Acceptance,  although the child's behavior may be aggressive, rejecting or clinging and needy

• ·   Reflection and Curiosity:  being curious about your child's behavior, feelings and needs and reflecting to them your thoughts on what they may be experiencing 

•     Enjoyment and Playfulness,  althought your child's behavior may be challening and sabotaging of pleasure.

·       

·         

The challenge for parents who have adopted or are fostering children with severe attachment issues is to retain a calm detachment from the harmful and self-harming behaviour while remaining engaged and caring. Parents may need professional help to better understand the effects of the hurtful early history and learn effective interventions to live with and help their children. If adoptive and foster parents are able to provide a secure loving environment for their children, not be provoked regularly by the challenging behaviour and help their children reflect on their feelings and behaviour, children with insecure attachments can redevelop attachments that allow for greater self-worth, trust in others and an ability to manage their feelings and behaviour.

 

 

2. Redeveloping Secure Adult Attachment 

 

By Annette Kussin M.S.W., RSW

 

When a child is born an important process begins that will influence the child for a lifetime. This process is called Attachment.   Attachment is the development of a deep and enduring connection between an infant and caregiver, usually a biological mother. The infant communicates his or her needs, such as anger, discomfort, tiredness of stress or pleasure to the mother through behaviors such as crying cooing, smiling and movement of arms and legs. If the mother or caregiver is sensitive to the needs of the infant and responds with consistency and caring the infant will develop a heathy and secure attachment to the caregiver. If the caregiver does not respond to the needs of the infant, responds in unpredictable ways or worse, neglects or hurts the infant, the infant will develop an insecure attachment or connection to the caregiver.

Infants who have responsive mothers or caregivers, come to believe that they are lovable, worthy of caring and that relationships are trustworthy and protective. Infants with insecure attachment come to believe they are unlovable and that close relationship are not where one receives caring, understand and safety. Over time these beliefs about relationships become internalized in the brain of the child and influence the development of the child’s relationship with the caregiver and others for a lifetime.

In later childhood and adolescence insecure children continue to repeat problematic patterns in relationships. They often engage teachers, peers, foster or adoptive parents and others with their difficult behavior and are then treated similarly to the poor care of their early caregivers.  For instance, children who were neglected of abused by their biological parents will be so mistrustful aggressive and rejecting of their foster parents that foster parents may become angry and rejecting in return, This response confirms for these children that all adults are hurtful and abandoning and cannot be trusted. The repetition of these difficult relationships also confirm for insecurely attached children the belief that they will not find comfort, consistent caring and security in intimate relationships. By adolescence and adulthood these attachment patterns are firmly established.

Similar to childhood, adults want to be understood, find support and feel nurtured in their close relationships. However, whether an adult will be able to achieve this in a healthy manner will depend on the combination of early attachment experiences plus the failures or success in relationships in childhood and adolescence. Adults who had caring parents or caregivers and continued to seek and find positive relationships in adolescence will have secure relationships as an adult. Those adults who had poor early caregiving experience and continued to develop impoverished relationship in childhood will have deprived adult relationships.

Similar to child attachment there are 4 categories of adult attachment: Secure and 3 types of insecure attachments.1

• Secure or Autonomous Attachment:  Adults with Autonomous or Secure Attachments usually had positive childhood experiences, are secure within themselves and value relationships. They are able to reflect on their early childhood experiences with openness, acknowledge both positive and negative aspects. They are aware of their feelings and are able to establish mutually satisfying adult relationships.

 

• Preoccupied Attachments: Adults with this insecure attachment had caregivers who were inconsistently available. Adults with Preoccupied Attachments remain highly sensitive to others not being available, are emotionally demanding and become preoccupied and suspicious about their partners’ availability and trustworthiness.

 

• Dismissing Attachments: Adults with Dismissing Attachments had caregivers who were unavailable and/or rejecting. Such adults learned to avoid intimate relationships believing that no one would be available to meet their needs. They rely mostly on themselves and focus more on activities and work rather than close relationships. They are not in touch with their emotions and not able to establish emotional intimacy.

 

• Unresolved Attachments: Adults with Unresolved Attachments have a history of neglect and physical or sexual abuse and continue to perceive relationships as dangerous. They may be avoidant of relationships, victims in relationships, aggressive and abusive in relationships or have dissociative symptoms.

 

An example of how individuals with Insecure Attachments develop unhealthy relationships comes from my therapy practice.  A woman, whom we will call Mary had a mother who was very inconsistently available. Mary had a Preoccupied Attachment. She was emotionally dependent demanding in relationships and desperately seeking a partner who would take care of her. She married a man, Bill, whom she believed. Was strong reliable and hard-working and who loved her. She married this man only to discover that he was a workaholic, spent more time with sports activities than with her, and resented her spending any money on material goods. When they had children he became active in their hockey games, neglecting her even more.  When she became upset by his unavailability he expressed confusion and anger. He believed he was a good husband by being a good provider and involved parent. He truly could not understand her needs for more emotional involvement.

Mary had married a man who had a Dismissing or Avoidant Attachment. Such people can be strong, stable, reliable and hardworking and such qualities may be mistaken for emotional availability. Yet, adults with Avoidant Attachment are not aware of their needs and feelings, have difficulty expressing them and do not understand a partner’s needs for emotional connections. The more demanding the partner is for emotional closeness, the more frightened and distance the avoidant person becomes. The more distant the Avoidant partner is the more insecure and emotionally demanding the preoccupied partner is. Each confirms for the other that adult relationships are not safe and nurturing. In this case example Bill described being genuinely perplexed when I asked him how he felt about his wife and her demands. He had learned as a child that if he was a good boy who was responsible and hardworking he would be loved and appreciated by his parents. He had no other means to demonstrate his love and caring for another.

Can adults with insecure attachments develop a more positive view of themselves and change the long-term interactive patterns they demonstrate in relationships? Since these patterns have existed since childhood and are deeply embedded in their unconscious beliefs and neurological pathways change is not easy, but certainly possible. Change can come about in a number of ways.

Some adults, despite their insecure attachments, may engage with a partner who is able to accept and understand their insecurities, not respond in negative ways and over time repair the damage from early childhood relationships. In time the positive experience in the adult relationship overrides the early belief that intimate relationships are not trustworthy and safe.

Although such a positive experience can occur, most adults with insecure attachments will need to enter therapy to change their beliefs about and patterns in relationships. They will need to develop a relationship with a therapist who has knowledge about Attachment Theory, who will understand their attachment patterns in relationships and allow this pattern to develop in the therapeutic relationship. Over time the therapist will need to help the adult client/patient develop insight into himself/herself, worth through his or her losses and hurts from childhood and risk change in both the therapeutic relationship and “real life” intimate relationships.

The insecure person may have to mourn for what they did not receive from their parents as a young child. Longing for the early nurturing and closeness is a normal feeling but must be understood and resolved in order to develop a secure and realistic adult relationship. This can be a painful stage in the therapy and it is important that the therapist allow for the sadness to be supported until the mourning process is complete. Without the resolution of this longing, individual adults will seek what they missed as a child in an adult relationship, when this is no longer appropriate.2

Adult relationships differ from infant/child relationships in that they are mutually interactive. In parent/infant relationships the parent is the giver not expecting the child to meet the adult’s needs. Each individual in an adult relationship must be both a giver and receiver. At times in an adult relationship one partner may be more stressed and in greater need of support, requiring the other partner to be more nurturing and giving. At other times of stress, the other partner may be more the recipient of the support and nurturing. It is this mutual give and take with understanding and the capacity to receive less for a period of time, which characterizes healthy adult attachment relationships.

Redeveloping a secure adult attachment is possible and essential if one is going to be a healthy parent, develop satisfying intimate relationships and have self-awareness and a feeling of self-worth. There is good evidence that if a mother has an insecure adult attachment she will have an insecurely attached child.3 Individuals with secure attachments have self-awareness, are able to accept differences in others and have a positive view of themselves and of relationships. They become parents who provide secure based environments for their children.  Redeveloping a secure adult attachment is possible through Attachment Focused Therapy and worth the effort and pain required to achieve this.

 

1. Cassidy, Jude, Shaver, Phillip, Handbook of Adult Attachment, Guilford Press, New York, 1999

2. Sable, Pat, Attachment and Adult Psychotherapy, Jason Aronson Inc., Northdale, New Jersey, 2000

3. Main, M: Hesse, E. Predictability Of Attachment Behavior and Representation al Process at 1,6,8 years of age, The Berkeley Longitudinal Study, in Grossmann K.E, Grossman, K, Water, E., Attachment from Infancy to Adulthood Guilford Press, New York, 2005

​

​

​