What Is Secure Attachment? A Developmental Psychology Podcast Episode.

To kick off this mini-series on attachment styles in developmental psychology, you’re going to learn about what is secure attachment today. Since we constantly hear about the insecure attachment styles, like avoidant, anxious and disorganised attachment and for good reason. Insecure attachments can have damaging impacts on a person’s relationships, mental health and emotional regulation. However, I don’t think there is enough focus on secure attachment because not a lot of people know what secure attachment is and what it looks like. Therefore, in this developmental psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what secure attachment is, what the signs of secure attachment are in adults and children and so much more. If you enjoy learning about social psychology, attachment theory and child psychology then this will be a great episode for you.

Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Your Unshakable Self: A Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology and Mental Health Guide to Sense of Self. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.

What Is Secure Attachment?

Secure attachment is the bond where a person feels supported, safe as well as connected so they can express emotions freely, confidently explore their environment and seek comfort from their partner knowing that they have a reliable base to return to. In attachment theory, this is known as having a secure base and children use this to explore the environment knowing that their attachment figure is close by and will protect and comfort them if anything bad happens.

In addition, having a secure attachment style means they can communicate effectively with others, they can regulate their feelings and emotions, the person is comfortable with intimacy as well as they have good problem-solving and coping skills. Moreover, people with a secure attachment style are comfortable being alone and being close to other people. As well as they are empathetic, compassionate and trusting.

I know some readers or listeners might be confused as to why this is a special form of attachment because this might be so normal for you that you believe this is the only way to be. In an ideal world, I completely agree that it would be lovely if everyone was securely attached. It certainly would have made my life so much easier, but unfortunately because of abuse, childhood neglect and other environmental factors some children develop insecure attachment styles. Mainly because their caregiver was either a source of fear, they were inconsistent with their love and affection or they punished or shamed the child for showing emotions.

All of these go against secure attachment because if a parent shamed you for showing emotions then you are not going to feel safe communicating your feelings and you aren’t going to be comfortable with intimacy because you don’t want to be punished or shamed again for showing your feelings.

What Are The Benefits of Secure Attachment In Children?

The benefits of children having secure attachment include the child having high self-esteem. Since secure attachment helps a child to develop a positive self-image and a healthier sense of identity. Leading to greater feelings of confidence in their abilities as well as decision-making skills so this helps to improve their overall psychological wellbeing.

Another benefit is secure attachment helps to improve a child’s ability to form and maintain relationships with others, so they show higher levels of social competence and empathy compared to others. A smaller benefit of social skills is that secure attachment means children are better at conflict resolution so they have more positive interactions with adults and peers.

Thirdly, children with secure attachment have a better ability to express and manage their emotions, so they tend to have more stable mood patterns and healthier responses to stress.

Lastly for this section, secure attachment allows a child to get a healthy balance between showing self-reliance and seeking support. This means the child shows greater confidence in exploring new situations and improved problem-solving skills when facing challenges without others.

This point about independence is something I often struggle with because my anxious part of my disorganised attachment means I like seeking comfort some of the time. Yet the avoidant part of my attachment means I am extremely self-reliant and I hate depending on other people at times, so I will avoid expressing my own needs and seeking comfort at all costs.

What Are The Signs of Secure Attachment In Children?

Now that we know the benefits of secure attachment in children, let’s see what are the signs.

Personally, I’ll hopefully always remember this really sweet moment when my brother, his girlfriend and her son were round my parents’ once. I think the child was about two years old and he was exploring my parents’ house because it was a new environment and he always loved it round ours. And he would crawl away, look back to see if his mum and my brother were still there and he would crawl forward some more and check again. It was so cute and lovely to see how a child reacts to having a secure base. Of course, I was the only one who understood this was because of his secure attachment but everyone found it sweet.

Anyway, for a child to develop a secure attachment style, they need to grow up in an environment where they feel seen and protected by their caregivers. Since if a caregiver doesn’t respond to a child’s needs then the child might not develop a secure attachment style because there is a lack of a secure and stable bond.

Additionally, children with a secure attachment have a worldview of the world being friendly and reliable. In other words, they learn to trust that the people around them are dependable and kind. As well as these securely attached children use their caregivers as a secure base to explore the social world and they see their caregivers as a safe haven to return to for comfort whenever they’re distressed.

In turn, the caregiver helps the securely attached child to develop self-regulation skills so the child knows how to regulate their emotional, cognitive and social behaviours. These skills are taught to the child whenever the caregiver comforts them when they’re distressed.

In my opinion, I do tend to find there are always moments when I research certain topics in psychology, like attachment, when I’m like “no, that isn’t how the world works,”. When I wrote about people with a secure attachment style seeing the world as a reliable and friendly place, I really couldn’t understand how someone could see the world like that. And it just reminds me that I need to catch myself with my own biased cognitive processes because generally the world is a great and friendly place.

I just need to keep reminding myself that yes, I have a disorganised attachment style, but I need to keep reminding myself that not everyone is unreliable and unkind.

Anyway, some other signs of secure attachment in children can include a child wanting to seek comfort from their caregivers, preferring their caregiver over strangers, comfortable interactions with others, a child comfortably exploring new areas and a positive response to the return of their parents.

This reminds me of a conversation I was having recently with a mature student studying social work during one of the reading support sessions I run as a student ambassador. She was telling me how she couldn’t imagine not responding to her child’s needs even though she admitted she might be overresponding and giving them too much attention at times. And it made me smile because I know this ambassador very well and of course, you are not going to tell a work friend the bad parts of your parenting or your life because everyone has them. We are simply human after all. Yet I know this woman is very authentic, she loves her kids and she would never imagine not responding to their needs.

It was a weird feeling for me to see that, but I guess that’s why I’m working on my attachment style. I don’t want these perfectly normal things to be weird for me anymore.

On the whole, securely attached children show balanced behavioural strategies where they’re able to express their need for autonomy and intimacy. With autonomy being important because it facilitates a person’s interaction with the environment.

This is even more important when we remember that the attachment style we develop in early childhood, whilst it can thankfully be changed, it does have a lifelong influence on our ability to communicate our needs and emotions, how we form expectations about our relationships and how we respond to conflict.

What Are The Benefits of Secure Attachment In Adults?

Shifting away from children for the majority of this remaining episode, secure attachment doesn’t only matter in children. Adults need to have secure attachment too because it helps them with their parenting skills because they are more likely to create secure attachments with their own children so they can continue this positive relationship pattern across the generations. As well as adults having secure attachment means they can have healthy relationships because they find it easier to trust others and maintain healthy boundaries in relationships. Therefore, like children, they show higher levels of social competence and empathy as well as they can develop better conflict resolution skills.

This all helps adults have more stable and satisfying professional and personal relationships.

Finally for this section, secure attachment helps adults to have improved emotional well-being. Due to secure attachment increases a person’s stress management skills and emotional resilience because they are better able to handle life’s challenges and they can bounce back from setbacks more easily. As well as they have improved emotion regulation skills so adults with secure attachment have healthier responses to stress and more stable moods.

What Are Some Signs of Secure Attachment In Adults?

As I briefly mentioned earlier, the attachment style we develop in early childhood is critical to the attachment style we have as adults. This continues to impact our relationship expectations, our worldview and how we interact with others as adults. Therefore, there are five main signs of an adult having secure attachment and you’ll learn about these signs now.

Firstly, adults with secure attachment are able to open up about their emotions and how they feel, so they don’t hide their emotions or bottle things up. As well as they are comfortable asking for help when they need it, and opening up about their feelings so they don’t worry about being rejected or being let down.

Another sign is that adults with secure attachment are resilient so whilst they might experience negative attachment-related events, they can still objectively assess events and people and assign a positive value to the relationship in general. In other words, a person, like a caregiver, can still let them down and not respond to their needs as an adult but the adult is still able to see that this isn’t a pattern and they don’t need to develop the anxious or avoidant behavioural patterns.

Penultimately, secure attachments mean adults are comfortable with intimacy and closeness with others. Therefore, adults are okay with being close to other people and letting others be close to them so they feel good about themselves and they trust others. Also, people with secure attachment are comfortable sharing intimate moments with others and having their own space.

I’ll have to admit that what is interesting about learning more about secure attachment is that I can really see and understand how disorganised my attachment style is. For example, I love sharing intimate moments with other people but equally, I seriously love having my

own space away from other people, so it’s interesting seeing how I have two extreme behavioural strategies activated a good chunk of the time.

Finally, secure attachment allows adults to show healthy interdependence, now this is a fascinating topic for me personally because I understand it from a psychology viewpoint. I do not understand it as a human being. As a result, healthy interdependence involves securely attached people being able to maintain a healthy balance of relying on their partner and meeting their own needs. This balance helps them to create deeper intimacy through being vulnerable whilst maintaining their own individuality.

Developmental Psychology Conclusion

I’ve really enjoyed learning about secure attachment because in clinical psychology and in psychology lectures, we spend a lot of time looking at insecure attachment styles. This is a good thing most of the time because it means we can understand what causes children and adults to have difficulties with social relationships and this has a massive impact on their mental health in turn. Yet if we don’t understand what secure attachment is then, how are we meant to know what attachment and relationship point of view, we’re helping them towards?

I’m sure that question mainly comes from my own abuse, trauma and disorganised attachment background, but it has been a lot of fun focusing on secure attachment today.

In future podcast episodes, you’ll learn about anxious, avoidant and disorganised attachment styles and they are even more fun.

Here are some questions to get you thinking at the end of this developmental psychology podcast episode:

·       What moments from your life do you remember seeing signs of secure attachment? It can be from seeing other children or yourself.

·       Are you securely attached?

·       Think about your friends and yourself as adults, what signs of secure attachment can you recognise in them?

·       If you don’t fit into the secure attachment style, what signs don’t you have?

·       Why do you think attachment is important to learn about?

I hope you enjoyed today’s developmental psychology podcast episode.

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Child Psychology References and Further Reading

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Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Volume I. Attachment . London: Hogarth Press.

Brazelton, T. B., Tronick, E., Adamson, L., Als, H., & Wise, S. (1975). Early mother-infant reciprocity. Parent-infant interaction, 33(137-154), 122.

Brennan, K. A., & Shaver, P. R. (1995). Dimensions of adult attachment, affect regulation, and romantic relationship functioning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21 (3), 267–283.

Brennan, K. A., Clark, C. L., & Shaver, P. R. (1998). Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview. In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships (p. 46–76). The Guilford Press.

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Cassidy, J., & Berlin, L. J. (1994). The insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment: Theory and research.  Child development,  65 (4), 971-991.

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