How childhood can affect our future relationships

At the heart of most psychotherapy theory is the idea that our experiences in childhood shape the person we become. I have written about this elsewhere in this blog.

Attachment theory states that the quality of the child's relationship with their caregivers will affect how they relate to others in adulthood.

A child who grows up feeling loved, accepted and listened to - and whose love for their caregivers was well received - becomes an adult who can relax in social settings because they have come to see themselves as loveable and loving. These lucky people are described as having a secure attachment style. Their natural childhood needs for love were met well enough by their caregivers, so when they reach adulthood they are not still looking to the other person to meet their needs. It's a case of ‘I'm ok, you're ok, let's enjoy spending time together'.

The child whose caregivers were frightening or confusing, the child who felt ignored or belittled, becomes an adult who is still in need. Their appropriate developmental needs were not met in childhood, so they become adults who are still looking to others to meet their needs. Such people are described as having an insecure attachment style. They tend to conduct relationships in an anxious style - perhaps being clingy or easily jealous - or they avoid intimacy altogether because they do not want to risk rejection.

The secure person is able to risk honest, open and intimate relationships because they are robust enough to withstand rejection. The end of a relationship will be painful but not disastrous: they are more able to brush themselves off and try again because deep down they have a sense that they are ok as a person.

Ideally, the developing child moves from a place of total dependence on the caregiver (think of how a baby cannot survive without his mother), to partial dependence, to independence. The goal is to develop from a child-who-needs-their-parents into an autonomous adult who is able to look after - to parent - themselves.

Children are like sponges. We come to see ourselves how our caregivers see us. Our first lessons in relating to others occur in our family: our relational/attachment style develops as a response to how our caregivers treat us. If we receive little nurturing as children, we might become attention-seekers, or people pleasers, or manipulators, or angry, or clingy, etc., because we are trying to get our parents to love us better. If plenty of love is available, we are able to relax.

All children go through a phase of ‘separation anxiety'. This happens as toddlers start to sense how dependent they are on their caregivers, so their caregivers' absence can feel frightening: will they come back? When separation anxiety continues into adulthood, it might be a sign that the individual didn't have an experience of secure attachment in childhood. Although they are adults, they still struggle when separated from their loved one - their childhood drama continues into adulthood because it was never resolved.

Similarly, social anxiety is often a result of an insecure childhood. Because they were not appropriately nurtured, the child didn't feel sufficiently acceptable or loveable and other people came to be seen as rejecting or withholding. As an adult, the insecure person is highly dependent on the other's good opinion for their sense of validation - and non-acceptance can feel devastating. The stakes are so high, the anxiety can be unbearable - no wonder people with social anxiety often isolate themselves.

In this article, I've focused on the impact of a difficult childhood, which is a type of trauma. Trauma experienced in adulthood will also trigger anxiety - sadly, the more insecure we are, the more severe the impact of trauma in adulthood will be.

Therapy can help us to identify our attachment/relational style and the circumstances that may have caused it. It can also help us to work through the trauma and build a more secure and robust sense of self. As a result, we can learn to have more satisfying relationships.

In fact, I suspect many of us are at least a bit insecure because our upbringings are rarely ideal. And even with the ideal upbringing, the human condition is a tricky one!

By Mike Brooks, counsellor and psychotherapist