The Nature of Attachment

t h e a t t u n e d p a r e n t TM

Raising the level of human consciousness through authentic parent-child relationships

t h e n a t u r e o f a t t a c h m e n t

Attachment is a biological process that promotes survival. A newborn will instinctively crawl to the breast of his mother to nurse. He inherently knows how to suckle, and seek out her face. He is able to mimic his father’s tongue sticking out moments following birth.

He is able to distinguish his mother and father’s voice from that of strangers. He is capable of direct communication through crying. His biological need to attach to his parents is profoundly apparent from the beginning.

These attachment behaviors in babies are in place to elicit a response from his caregivers.
These biological cues are the neon signs that flash, “I am here, and I need you to see me.”
Optimally, the newborn’s parental preference will invite an empathic response and activate a positive dyadic dance of mutual exchanges between parent and infant, creating safety and security within their relationship.

transgenerational imprints

It is my view that trauma can dominate parental instinct.

For instance, a mother who has unacknowledged, unexpressed, and unresolved early childhood trauma may not be able to rely on maternal instinct to “kick in” for her at the birth of her baby.

The imprinted trauma of her own primary attachment experiences will be her
internal working model (psychoneurobiological "blueprint")
informing how she perceives her infant son, and her ability to mother him.

Thus, a cry in her newborn may not prompt an immediate empathic response, but possibly an anxiously insecure one... or an angrily dismissive one…or an unpredictably punitive one.

I imagine that maternal instinct continues to exist somewhere deep within this mother…
yet, because it has never been nurtured to develop, it may feel inaccessible.

And, if asked, this same mother may be able to speak about and profess how much she loves her baby. And, her baby may never experience this sense of love in a way that feels safe, unconditional, predictable, and non-threatening. The ability to love, in action can be very different than one's idea of love in their own mind. For many parents, their idea of loving their child(ren) remains in their own mind, unable to be fully expressed in relationship because of their own hurt, their own shame, their own unmet needs.

"We bring our relational inheritance with us
and nowhere do we bring it more forcibly
than into our parenting.
And a lot of people
don't realize this.
When they think that parenting
comes naturally, they're correct.
It does come naturally,
but it comes naturally
the way you learned it.
It doesn't necessarily come naturally
to do it differently."

~Roy Muir
"When the Bough Breaks"
Frontline 1995

e m p a t h y

The attachment experience of the human being has a very essential piece that must be put into place.

This is the piece of empathy.
Empathy can only exist within
our core to the degree of which
we have experienced it interpersonally.
Empathy is learned.
Empathy is the heart of humanness.

Lack of empathy allows parents and caregivers to punish, ignore, repress, oppress, spank, hit, punch, belittle, shame, ridicule, molest, blame, abandon, and even kill their babies and children.

Tragically, these innocent children
throughout their lifespan may find themselves emotionally, cognitively, and physiologically compromised; leading to injury of self and others, disconnection from self, addictions, dissociation, interpersonal detachment, criminal activity, mania, depression, anxiety, etc.

Epidemic stories of human pain and suffering, acts of interpersonal violence,
over-medicated children and adults, and overcrowded prisons will continue to exist until we feel able to support one another as a collective consciousness to wake up...and become attuned.