06/30/2024
The good news is that emotion regulation can be learned even later in life!
It may seem surprising that attachment and trauma would be interconnected, but once we understand more about the attachment system, it makes perfect sense.
Trauma can overload the nervous system, making it more difficult to stay regulated. Emotional regulation is the ability to stay present and connected even in the face of hard feelings and experiences, as well as to cope with both the difficulties and pleasures of life.
Emotional regulation is a skill that is taught, learned and practiced. People with secure attachment learned this skill through interactions with their caregivers, wiring it into the brain as a natural response to stress or trauma.
In insecure attachment, however, children experience overwhelm and lack of safety, which creates a state of high alert (hyperarousal) or shutdown (hypoarousal) in the brain and nervous system. When they experience trauma or stress later in life, their brain typically defaults to this pattern of arousal, making emotional regulation more difficult.
Rather than move toward attachment or repair, the tendency is to activate the threat response system and react with “fight, flight, freeze or fawn.”
The good news is that secure attachment and emotional regulation can be learned and practiced. And, over time, our bodies and brains will begin to naturally choose more adaptive patterns and behaviors!
- Dr. Diane Poole Heller
