Even in today's day and age, it is not uncommon for families of prospective brides and grooms to fuss over matching horoscopes before the wedding is solemnised. While one can only hope with time we will get rid of such outdated practices, soon-to-be-married couples or even individuals who are in long-term committed relationships need to sit together and ponder over a far more scientific and psychologically sound paradigm of judging compatibility.
Psychoanalysts call it “attachment style”. Interestingly, this in particular doesn't have much to do with your partner per se. Understanding your “attachment style” is an exercise in gaining self-knowledge, identifying your needs and red flags in a relationship, and ensuring that your orientation and that of your partner's do not come in the way of clear communication with each other.
The American Psychological Association defines attachment as “the emotional bond between a human infant or a young nonhuman animal and its parent figure or caregiver; it is developed as a step in establishing a feeling of security and demonstrated by calmness while in the parent’s or caregiver’s presence. Attachment also denotes the tendency to form such bonds with certain other individuals in infancy as well as the tendency in adulthood to seek emotionally supportive social relationships.”
Our first brush with attachment comes in our infancy. For the first few weeks, the infant thinks of itself as one with the primary caregiver. There is no split. But with time, the child learns to dis-identify with the parent figure and learns of its existence as a separate entity. That is when the attachment part comes into play. The bond between two individuals.
Psychologists John Bowlby's theories and Mary Ainsworth's famous experiment named 'Strange Situation' form the basis of identifying Attachment Styles. In Ainsworth's experiment, babies between the age of nine and 18 months are observed on how they behave in the presence and absence of their mothers, and how they interact with strangers. Ainsworth identified that infants react in four different attachment patterns (secure, ambivalent, avoidant and disorganised) based on the extent of their bond to their primary caregiver.
In the experiment, a child with secure attachment always seems to be distressed when the mother leaves the room, but immediately feels comforted when she comes back. The baby can develop positive interaction with the stranger in presence of the mother, showing that the child uses the mother or the primary caregiver as a secure base to explore the world.
In the case of an anxious type, the child shows extreme negative emotions when the mother doesn't greet her positively when they return and refuse to interact with the stranger altogether. In the avoidant type, the child shows no distress when their parents leave. This study has been repeated over and again and remains one of psychology's most stable theories. Over the years, research has shown that early life attachment styles impact how we forge romantic relationships in the future as we tend to project our unmet needs from parents onto our partners.
The good news is a majority of people are capable of secure attachment and that even those with malfunctioning attachment styles can work through their patterns and learn to attach securely. Interestingly, attachment style doesn’t have so much to do with early life trauma. It is entirely dependent on whether an individual had their needs met in their formative relationship with their primary caregiver or faced rejection or neglect from their parents.
Our early life experiences shape a lot of who we become and how we relate to the world. Each of us is damaged in some way and there is no damage that cannot be healed by consistent love and self-knowledge. Other than us, the only individual who is most affected by our psychological make-up is our better half. Understanding each other’s attachment styles and early life trauma is a love language in itself. So, chuck the horoscope and get to know each other's attachment styles.
What secure attachment looks like in a romantic relationship:
1. Readiness to communicate one's needs.
2. Being comfortable with exhibiting vulnerability.
3 Believing that relationships are enduring.
4. Believing in interdependence in a relationship.
5. Appropriate response to non-crisis situations, an ability to differentiate between crisis and non-crisis situations in a relationship.
6. Ability to understand and meet the partner's needs.
7. Consistency in showing affection and appreciation.
How non-secure attachment manifests in relationships:
1. Volatile or disproportionately anxious response to non-crisis situations, a tendency to misread even mildly distressing matters as a major crisis.
2. Withdrawal or guarding when a partner becomes vulnerable, or when one is in a vulnerable state (avoidant).
3 Extreme fear of abandonment, high separation anxiety.
4. Not being able to deal with changes in a partner's life — like job change, or change in their appearance due to weight loss.
5. Inconsistent show of affection.
6. Inability to recognise and respect distinct motivation and goals of the partner (ambivalent).
7. Extreme guarding of one's individual space in a relationship and insistence on self-reliance, reluctance to ask for help from partner (avoidant).
8. A staunch belief that love is temporary (avoidant).
(The writer is a mental health and behavioural sciences columnist, conducts art therapy workshops and provides personality development sessions for young adults. She can be found as @the_millennial_pilgrim on Instagram and Twitter.)
