Have you ever felt mad or anxious after being left “on read”? Or maybe you’ve watched those little iPhone blue dots dance on your screen, feeling that rush of anticipation for a reply. Those emotions can reveal how your attachment system responds to connection.
What is the Attachment System?
Many people come to therapy with feelings like these. “Why am I so upset over an unanswered text?” you might wonder. It’s because of your attachment system! Humans are hard-wired to connect; this is what keeps us safe and helps us survive. To connect with others, we naturally form attachments.
Sometimes, repeated stressful or inconsistent interactions with a caregiver can leave what’s called an attachment wound. These wounds affect how we feel safe and connect with others. In extreme cases, relationships can feel threatening, creating what feels like attachment trauma.
You might not notice these wounds until adulthood. For example, a romantic relationship may stir strong emotions. Conflicts with friends might feel harder than expected. Or becoming a parent could bring up unexpected challenges. That’s when childhood patterns quietly shape how you relate to others.
To understand attachment, it helps to consider our attachment figures, the people who cared for and responded to us as children. These figures shaped our sense of safety. They also influenced our self-confidence, emotional regulation, and ability to trust the world. How they responded then often guides how we connect with others now.
So, what exactly is an “attachment figure”? This is usually a caregiver, but it doesn’t have to be a parent. It could be an older sibling, grandparent, teacher, or any adult you turned to as a child to have your needs met. Maybe you had a coach who truly understood you and made you feel safe. Try thinking back and listing the adults you had a back-and-forth relationship with during childhood. Even one safe attachment figure can have a lasting impact on a child’s development.
Ideally, your attachment figure provided a reliable connection and were emotionally present for you. Some key traits of a healthy attachment figure include:
- Presence: paying attention and listening to you
- Consistency: being there when you need them
- Safety: offering kindness and acceptance, without causing emotional or physical harm
These traits help a child develop trust and optimism about the world. According to psychotherapist Ana Gomez, a child begins to develop a sense of self through these repeated, back-and-forth moments of mirroring and connection.
Signs of Attachment Wounds
It might seem obvious, but many of us didn’t have attachment figures who always met these ideals. Sometimes, they missed the mark entirely. That’s where attachment wounds come in. These wounds are often invisible and hard to pinpoint.
Unlike a major accident or life-changing event, attachment trauma usually appears in small, repeated ways:
- Feeling invisible
- Feeling like your needs don’t matter
- Experiencing difficulty in connecting deeply
- Feeling pressure to be perfect in order to receive care and love
- Experiencing a lack of emotional availability
To better understand what an attachment wound is, think of this example:
Little Johnny is playing with his father when he accidentally knocks over a water bottle, spilling water on the rug. In a supportive response, his father reassures him that accidents happen, cleans up the spill calmly, and continues playing. This teaches Little Johnny that mistakes are okay and that his father is a safe, reliable presence.
Now imagine a different scenario:
After the spill, his father stops playing, storms out of the room, and tells Little Johnny he is a bad kid. If reactions like this happen repeatedly, the child may develop attachment wounds. Over time, Little Johnny could start to feel unsafe bonding with his father and may adjust how he responds based on real or perceived threats to his safety. This is an early example of how attachment trauma can form.
Attachment is Connected to Safety
When we think about our most basic needs, safety comes right after food, water, and shelter. In other words, once our physiological needs are met, we start to assess whether we feel safe. Safety isn’t just physical; it also includes our emotional connection with the people who care for us.
Attachment figures act as “psychobiological regulators,” helping a young child’s body and brain stay balanced while their nervous system develops. The quality of these early attachments shapes a child’s sense of safety. It influences how their brain and nervous system detect threats and respond: through fight, flight, or freeze reactions.
A lack of safety in childhood can lead to attachment wounds, which often show up as:
- Taking things very personally, even when it’s not about you
- Feeling “needy,” like constant texting or calling
- Difficulty calming yourself down
- As a parent, longing for love or comfort from your child
- Dreading loneliness
- Being defensive to avoid vulnerability
- Difficulty accessing deep emotions
Sound familiar? Don’t worry! Most people experience some of these feelings from time to time. If you get stuck in one or more of these patterns often, it could be a sign to reflect on possible attachment wounds. Maybe a partner or friend came to mind as you read this. Recognizing these patterns can help restore compassion in your relationships and toward yourself, acknowledging the wounds that shaped your early years.
It’s never too late to heal these wounds. Just like when we get a scrape or cut, our body has the ability to heal itself. Sometimes it takes extra time, effort, and care, but ultimately, our body can heal wounds to attachment as well.
Therapy Can Help
There are many ways to heal attachment wounds and build more nourishing, easier, and deeper relationships with yourself and others. Therapy is a powerful tool because it lets you explore attachment with a safe, supportive adult in real time. Already in therapy? You’re doing great!
Your relationship with your therapist mirrors the patterns you experience in other relationships. In therapy, you can learn to trust yourself and your therapist enough to explore how your caregivers may have missed the mark. This is the first step toward understanding unmet needs from childhood and beginning to heal your attachment system.
In the next part of this series, we’ll explore attachment styles, how they show up in intimate relationships, and which therapy tools can help repair attachment wounds.
About the Author
Eva Shpak, LGPC, is a licensed therapist at Montgomery County Counseling Center in Rockville, Maryland. With a focus on mind-body connection, Eva integrates EMDR, Internal Family Systems, mindfulness, and expressive techniques to support healing from trauma, anxiety, grief, and more. They work with children, teens, and adults, tailoring therapy to each individual’s needs, and have specialized experience supporting LGBTQ+ clients and their families.
