Can Attachment Wounds Heal?

#21 in the series: What I Wish I had Known Before Beginning Therapy

I ended last week’s newsletter with the following paragraph:

“It is possible to heal with the help of attachment-based therapies, but for me, it is far more difficult than healing from traumatic events. Next week, I will discuss what I wish I had understood about healing from inadequate attachment and the wounds of neglect.”

In a comment, a reader affirmed my direction in addressing attachment-based therapies. I set far too big a task for myself to accomplish in a week but this will be my best first step—with more to follow at some point.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Almost every picture of an adult and child interacting available through the stock photos for Subtack/Unsplash appears similar to the one above. This is what we wanted as children. This was what we needed as children. This is not always what we received.

It isn’t always clear abuse or obvious neglect that impacts us. Sometimes, it is the impact of parents who could not meet our emotional needs. Dr. Jonice Webb describes this as Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN):

“It’s a failure to notice, attend to, or respond appropriately to a child’s feelings. Because it’s an act of omission, it’s not visible, noticeable or memorable. Emotional Neglect is the white space in the family picture; the background rather than the foreground. It is insidious and overlooked while it does its silent damage to people’s lives.” (Source. The CEN Website is worth exploring!)

There is no question that unmet emotional needs impact development. At a deeper level, it often involves either inadequate attachment or attachment wounds. What I explain here about attachment-based therapy is a bit different slant, though it is related.

Many identify the adult symptoms of the inadequate or ruptured attachment and help the adult to recognize the patterns and work to change the behaviors resulting from those patterns. This is a valid approach but may not always address why those patterns exist or encourage healing at a root-cause level.

The root problem is that early attachment wounds impair the essential piece that attachment provides for the child—co-regulation. Co-regulation is how the child’s nervous system learns to self-regulate. Without these skills, adults are trying to drive a car that was wired incorrectly. You can either compensate for the problem (control or change behavior) or rewire the car.

What I did not understand when I began therapy was that I had lived my life controlling my emotions without any idea what it would mean to regulate those emotions. I also did not understand that I had missed this foundational building block during my early development. Much of the impact of this felt like “who I was.” I became an expert at controlling and suppressing the rumbling emotional turbulence caused by trauma!

As I began to heal, recognize individual emotions, and release the tight control over them, I felt emotionally out of control. That was when I understood that I had almost zero self-regulation skills. It was frightening! A therapist might say, “This is hard right now, but it will get better.” True, but I have seen many leave therapy at this stage and return to controlling their emotions.

At this phase, I began to understand that my story included both trauma and insecure attachment. This probably kept me in therapy. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I stayed because I trusted my therapist’s ability to co-regulate. While her skill in providing therapy was essential, it was the therapeutic relationship that kept me coming back. I needed co-regulation to understand what it felt like to achieve self-regulation.

What I wish I had understood was that I wasn’t being needy as I depended on the co-regulation of my therapist. I had unmet attachment needs that were being wired—not even rewired because that foundational piece never existed. My three-year journey of intensive therapy is detailed in my first and second books—it is how I experienced what I identify as attachment-based therapy.

This type of therapy includes building what has been called an earned secure attachment. Can that occur in other relationships—yes, it is possible. What I am not confident can happen is the re-framing of trauma and neglect that impacted my earliest years. The following explanation describes this:

“As we discussed, a key element of forming a secure attachment is the idea of the primary caregiver acting as a secure base. Therapists can act as an excellent makeshift secure base for people with insecure attachment styles. 

Similar to alternative support figures, therapists listen to you when you’re upset and provide empathy and care when necessary – essential conditions for achieving earned security. 

In studies, people reported that a safe, secure relationship with their therapist helped to rework their mental representations of relationships. In some cases, people described their therapist as a “surrogate attachment figure.” This sense of security allowed these individuals to make sense of their past experiences, process related emotions, and develop a more balanced perspective.” (Source)

I highly suggest reading the entire blog on earned secure attachment.

Can attachment wounds heal? Yes. Will it be exactly like someone who had a secure attachment from birth? Unlikely. I still have moments when my attachment wounds take me off-roading—but I quickly recognize it and use self-regulation skills to get back on the highway. That is the result of the hard work of healing and my determination to trust my therapist to be my co-regulator as I healed.

Again and again, I would ask, “Dr. Sue, do you believe I can be rewired?”
The answer was always yes.
Brave: A Personal Story of Healing Childhood Trauma

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Recommendations from Reader Comments:

“Childhood Emotional Neglect occurs when parents fail to validate the child's emotions, and it leaves an adult who feels lonely and empty. CEN goes hand in hand with attachment ruptures, and it leaves its mark in many ways. Dr. Jonice Webb coined this term, and I highly recommend her two books, which are Running on Empty and Running on Empty No More. She's a great resource.

“I recently read Adult children of emotionally immature parents by Lindsay Gibson and that was really helpful to understand the parentifiction I went through and how they couldn’t handle my emotions (let alone theirs) and so I grew up in an emotionally neglectful environment and I had to manage their emotions instead.”

Note: All information and resources presented in these newsletters are drawn from my personal story and do not replace professional psychological care for mental health issues. My legal and ethical advice is always to seek professional help.