Reactive Attachment | Oppositional Defiance
Attachment issues are more common than is generally thought. Attachment itself is the security we develop with our primary caregivers from consistent attention, rules, and behaviors. With secure attachment, people are more likely to be curious in others, comfortable with change, and able to participate in groups. (1)
Disruptions in Attachment can develop in multiple ways:
Not having trustworthy caregivers, or caregiving experiences can disrupt attachment.
Being forced to move from place to place can disrupt attachment to consistent safety in living.
Living through shocking changes in finances, or poverty, can teach us that being supported in our lives isn't guaranteed and possibly something to feel chronic fear about.
Having emotionally unstable parenting, or having emotionally unstable filters can create a difficulty in attaching to our own emotions or emotional experiences
Having emotional or physical disabilities can disrupt our attachment to consistency of reality, and can even support developing a reactive or oppositional disposition.
The professionals at Resonant Life Counseling and Wellness are explicitly trained in attachment needs and protocols. Our unique approach to Attachment needs involves a multi-faceted approach.
At RCLW, we first meet clients where their level of attachment allows. Being able to maintain presence is the first and ultimate indicator of success in future health and development. Witnessing attachment is necessarily about RECEIVING FIRST. We have to feel attachment before we can provide attachment, or maintain attachment to others.
Once the environment of attachment has been developed, we then encourage exploration. Exploring our world is the way we both learn new things, and test our attachments. One might argue testing attachments is a primary mode of learning for humans (2)
Once we're exploring our world, testing attachment, and learning about emotional safety, we can process our developmental wounds and traumas.
To learn more about trauma processing click here: (Link to trauma processing)
Attachment Styles
We utilize the information developed about Attachment Styles to craft our therapeutic interactions to best fit you (or your kids). Attachment Styles are a way to meet our clients as individuals, bring them the therapeutic interventions that are best suited to them, and then allow the style to release it's grip so that an individual can receive the attachment that most nurtures them again. You get to be whole, and here are ways we might help:
Anxious Attachment:
Definition: Fearful of Attachment and Commitment.
Practical Understanding: Someone who has experienced enough nonconsensual separation or abandonment that there is resistance to experiencing those feelings again, keeping them stuck in a state of disbelief that the attachment they really need is possible or wanted.
Ambivalent Attachment:
Definition: Not engaged by Attachment and Commitment
Practical Understanding: Someone who likely has been attached to fairly consistently or thoroughly, but having it never feel satisfying or overtly successful. If attachment happens in language, but never consistently meets our internal innate attachment desires, then we might find it to be less useful or important than it is. "It didn't do anything for me, so why would I need more of it now."
Avoidant / Dismissive Attachment:
Definition: Actively aggressive towards or dismissive of attachment
Practical understanding: When people are punished - especially children, for having needs and wants that are reasonable, then they can develop their own aggression towards others that similarly either have those same needs and wants for attachment - or those that offer the attachment they've frequently wanted or needed. In other words, "I'm angry at you, because you are nice to me - and I know that's a trap, because it always is." If someone can be gifted with a freely given experience that isn't punishing later, then slowly they can warm up to the receptivity needed to feel attachment again as a positive.
Disorganized Attachment:
Definition: Internally dysregulated by the possibility or presentation of attachment or engagement
Practical Understanding: In support groups this is frequently called "Come here, now go away." When we are either in the presence of mental illness - especially emotional mental illness, we can develop an unconscious reactivity to that experience and this is frequently a symptom of that reactivity. Conversely, if we have trauma (either overt or developmental trauma), we can have filters that makes us feel hot and cold, happy and sad, up and down - for much of the time. This can lead us to having a pervasive sense of fear that is frequently unexplainable, and unavailable to hearing messages or experiences that would otherwise communicate safety to a person. This is a more specialized situation that requires higher levels of structure, processing, and guidance - and is thought to be the precursor experience to Reactive Attachment Disorder and Oppositional Defiance Disorder