Healing Anxiety through Mindfulness & Meditation

Mindfulness & Attachment Styles

Little is known about how mindfulness can be utilized to develop a secure attachment as an inner resource for clients to call upon outside the therapeutic context. Although some psychotherapists might recommend meditation classes or practices, no one seems to know if mindfulness meditations are prescribed specifically to treat anxious and/or disorganized attachment styles. Daniel Siegel (2010) explained the importance of attachment history: 

Developing a personal understanding of memory and narrative processes enables you to change how you make sense of your life. In this way, reflecting on your attachment history is a fundamental way to monitor the internal architecture of your mind and then to modify it toward security. (p. 71)

Through a caretaker, children learn how tend to themselves physically and emotionally, as this is where attachment styles are formed (Van der Kolk, 2014). The first attachment researchers, John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, Mary Ainsworth, and Mary Main, paved the way to what are now recognized as the following four attachment styles: (a) secure, (b) anxious, (c) avoidant, and (d) disorganized (Van der Kolk, 2014). Although researchers began with mother–infant attachments by associating it to child development, they also found that attachment is important throughout the life cycle (Crain, 2011, p. 58). Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychotherapist Rachel Heller (2010) stressed that adults who are secure often experience intimacy with ease. In contrast, anxious adults worry, fearing their partner might not love them back; as a result, they are often consumed with their relationship, yearning for intimacy (p. 8). In addition, they explained, adults who are avoidant generally consider closeness to be some sort of loss of autonomy and consistently attempt to curtail intimacy (p. 8).

I view mindfulness and trauma as opposites. As mindfulness expands awareness or “integration” (Siegel, 2018), trauma contracts perception, which results in a disconnection to Self (Herman, 1992; Siegel, 2010). According to Herman (1992), “A secure sense of connection with caring people is the foundation of personality development. When this connection is shattered, the traumatized person loses her basic sense of self” (p. 52). As mindfulness creates adaptive responses, trauma causes helplessness and maladaptive experiences that disconnect people from Self and the community at large (p. 45). I capitalize Self to denote its definition as the organizing center and totality of consciousness and the unconscious (Jung, 1955/1983, p. 237). The utilization of mindfulness should create a balanced position between the aware Self and the shattered Self, enabling expansion and wholeness to come into play so that a secure attachment can be integrated. According to Van der Kolk (2014), mindfulness meditation and yoga are considered a “top-down regulation” technique that strengthens the brain’s ability to respond to traumatic stressors in an effective way (p. 63). In addition to psychotherapy, the recommendation for specific mindfulness meditations to clients with anxious and disorganized attachments may assist in reducing suffering, improving social conditions and social attunement, cultivating more compassion for Self and others, and motivating them to function in a more positive and mindful way of being (Boellinghaus, Jones, & Hutton, 2012, p. 129; Litz & Carney, 2018, p. 204; Pagis, 2015, p. 42).

Seventeen studies were identified supporting my belief in the link among meditation, attachment theory, and mindfulness. As a case in point, clinical psychologist Janis Leigh and experimental psychologist Veanne Anderson (2013) introduced studies indicating an association between attachment style and mindfulness (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Shaver & Farley, 2010). Their findings noted that anxiety and avoidance tendencies among adults were associated with lower levels of mindfulness (Leigh & Anderson, 2013, p. 267). Leigh and Anderson suggested, “Additional research is needed to clarify the roles of autonomy, attachment style, and self-esteem in the development of mindfulness” (p. 265). Another study presented by Leigh and Anderson (2013) posed three possible connections between mindfulness and secure attachment:

First, they could develop in tandem in response to a caring and responsive caregiver during childhood. Second, they are both related to attentive and securely attached relationship styles. Finally, secure attachment and mindfulness might relate to the development of adaptive qualities and strategies for dealing with stress. (p. 267)

Research on the use of mindfulness meditations to form a secure attachment with Self is important because nonsecure attachment is a major source of pain for nearly one-third of the population (Siegel, 2010, p. 67). According to psychiatrist Martin Paulus (2016), “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has been proposed for almost every psychiatric condition” (p. 373). From a neuroscience perspective, “MSBR has been associated with increased cortical thickness in the insula and somatosensory cortex, which can be associated with reduction of worry, state anxiety, depression, and alexithymia” (Tang, Holzel, & Posner, as cited in Paulus, 2016, p. 373).

More research is still needed to understand thoroughly how mindfulness contributes to attachment theory and the field of psychology as a whole to impart a sense of hope and wholeness to clinicians and their clients. Attachment theory and mindfulness-based philosophies and practices are growing and becoming highly regarded, but not necessarily in tangent with one another to create a secure relationship with Self. Exploring mindfulness-based resources alongside assessing interpersonal styles for non-secure individuals so that they can develop a compassionate relationship with Self would be helpful. In addition, the notion that attachment to Self is a reflection of attachment to others merits further exploration. Testing this interrelationship and specific meditations that can be practiced by the client could lead towards healing attachment wounds.

© 2019 Marcelle Mae Little All rights reserved

References:

Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self- report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27-45.

Boellinghaus, I., Jones, F. W., & Hutton, J. (2012). The role of mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation in cultivating self-compassion and other-focused concern in health care professionals. Mindfulness, 5, 129-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/ s12671-012-0158-6

Crain, W. (2011). Theories of development: Concepts and applications (6th ed.). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.

Epstein, M. (1995). Thoughts without a thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Epstein, M. (2007). Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Herman, J. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence—From domestic abuse to political terror. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Jung, C. G. (1983). Mandalas (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In A. Storr (Ed.), The essential Jung (pp. 235-239). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1955)

Leigh, J., & Anderson, V. N. (2013). Secure attachment and autonomy orientation may foster mindfulness. Contemporary Buddhism, 14(2), 265-283. https://doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2013.832082

Levine, A., & Heller, R. S. F. (2010). Attached. The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love. New York, NY: Tarcherperigee.

Paulus, M. P. (2016). Neural basis of mindfulness interventions that moderate the impact of stress on the brain. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(1), 373. https://dx.doi.org/ 10.1038%2Fnpp.2015.239

Siegel, D. J. (2010). The mindful therapist: A clinician’s guide to mindsight and neural integration. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Siegel, D. J. (2018). Aware: The science and practice of presence. New York, NY: Tarcherperigee.

Tang, Y. Y., Holzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16, 213-225.

Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, NY: Penguin Books.