Secure Attachment is a Privilege

Secure Attachment is a Privilege.

Secure attachment is a privilege. We don’t get to decide which family we are born in to, which family system we belong to, which society we enter in to, which neighborhood, which religious and spiritual affiliations we inherit, the systems and powers that operate at every level of our being from before we are born, which is when our attachment systems are forged. Our cells, which exist in our grandmothers in part, become our being now. Our societies, our peace or war,  our hunger or satiation, our safety or threat all become the way in which we see our world and ourselves.

To try and heal our attachment systems on our own is to try and heal a systemic issue on an individual level, which we in Western civilization are trained to do. “Work harder” “Try harder” “Self-starter” are phrases that imply if you’re hurting, it’s on you to heal. And that is true - in the context of a much larger system. 

Jim Coan, neuroscientist and brain researcher at the University of Virginia states in his book Perception that to study a human being as an individual is to study a human being at a deficit. There is no such thing as an individual. There is only an individual in the context of that person’s relationships. D.D. Winnicott, Object Relations Psychologist and human attachment researcher says that “There is no such thing as a baby. There is only a baby and a nursing mother.” And Sue Johnson, world-renowned attachment theorist and researcher, creator of the APA’s gold standard for couples therapy says “Relational wounds heal in relationship.” and all wounds are really relational wounds per Judith Herman, PTSD researcher and author of Trauma and Recovery. 

To look at a person’s attachment strategy and to weigh and measure that person based on it is to judge a human being rather than the system that human being was raised in. If a person has an attachment strategy of anxiously pursuing by asking lots of questions, we should be able to see that this person grew up in a system where it wasn’t safe enough to trust that they would have what they need when they need it, and instead,, safety comes from pushing for information with urgency. Compassion comes from understanding the root of people’s issues, not from blaming them for those issues. A better question than what’s wrong with you is why does that behavior serve you?

Secure attachment is a privilege. If you hit the genetic, social, and societal lottery of safety, comfort, exploration, risk, and acceptance, you’ve got the privilege of a calm nervous system, accepting of self because you’ve experienced acceptance from your family, peers, society, etc, willing to risk and have courage because you’ve received comfort and encouragement whether you’ve succeeded or failed, able to overcome triggers because someone in your life helped you learn to regulate your emotions so you can self-regulate your emotions now. All that we see as moral high ground is nervous system privilege. Does this mean that we are stuck with what hands we were dealt? No. But it does mean we aren’t all at the same playing field and it does not cost us all the same thing to move toward attachment security. Nor are we all destined to have it.