How is psychological attachment formed?

Attachment is a bond that draws and keeps a person close to someone or something when neither a feeling of love, nor interest or benefit binds him to it.

To whom or to what only people do not become attached! To your favorite spoon and puppy, to work and place of residence, to an old jacket and to each other … Some of these attachments are understandable and justified, others are more like eccentricities, some are a big trouble in life. Most modern people are attached to comfort, to TV, the Internet, mobile phones — all this is drawn to, even when a person understands that it is possible and even better to do without it. People get used to their favorite chair, to jeans, to a tennis racket — these are also variants of everyday attachments. Moreover, everyone is familiar with affection between people — friendly affection, affection between children and parents, love and marital affection.

Such interpersonal attachments can be of a different nature: once worldly, and sometimes psychological attachment. Worldly attachment is attachment to the usual comforts and circumstances of life, sometimes unwillingness to strain oneself with discomfort and trouble in the event of a departure. “Why don’t you leave, it’s hard for you to be with each other? — Where will I go alone with the child? I have nowhere to go, no apartment, no money to rent an apartment either.” More interesting is psychological attachment — the connection between people, manifested either in the desire for constant closeness and a sense of security next to some person, or in pain from the loss of intimacy or fear of such a loss.

The most famous type of psychological attachment is the attachment of the child to the mother, as, indeed, the reverse version is the attachment of the mother to the child. As the child matures, one should distinguish between the child’s affection for the mother and the child’s love for the mother. The more children become adults, the more love and less affection should be in the relationship.

Psychological attachment can be both healthy and sick. Healthy (conditional) attachment is a close emotional connection when it is needed, and the ability to easily end the attachment when it is irrelevant. If the attachment ceases to be soft, when the absence of the object of attachment already causes pain, one already speaks of a sick attachment. Neurotic, sick attachment is a rigid psychological connection, when even the idea of ​​existence without an object of attachment causes fear and pain, breaking at the level of the soul. All the more difficult are the experiences in the case when a person is deprived of the object of his sick attachment …

In cases where attachment turns into something that deprives a person of any freedom, we already talk about dependence, such as dependence on alcohol or drugs.

Once again, let’s go through the concepts: I’m used to apples for breakfast and eat them without noticing them — this is a simple habit. I’m used to it and I want apples for breakfast — this is already attachment as a kind of habit. I can’t have apples, I scold myself, but I eat apples for breakfast — this is an addiction. Attachment is like glue — if the glue is like Velcro, it’s a light attachment. If the glue grabbed tightly and you have to tear it off with blood, this is an addiction.

Indeed, psychological attachment is formed primarily as a habit, simply as a result of continued contact, that is, the repetition of significant experiences. If people who previously did not know people begin to live next to each other and relationships develop between them, over time these relationships almost inevitably develop into affection.

Women, entering into a close relationship with an attractive man, usually initially gravitate toward relationships with attachments, to the WE family, while on the part of a man, fear and a desire for a more distant, freer relationship I plus I are more often manifested. Wise women who know the nature of occurrence attachments, «dutifully» agree to the relationship I plus I, and sometimes slyly offer them to especially cautious men, they know the main thing: over time, all relationships I plus I naturally melt into the WE family …

If people are indifferent to each other, then attachment between them is not formed even with a long time of contact. Hostile people paradoxically also become attached to each other (see Stockholm syndrome), psychological attachment occurs most quickly in relationships where the background of a mutually positive relationship alternates with bright moments of negative outbreaks. The longer the relationship lasts and the brighter the experiences that accompany it, the faster the attachment arises and the stronger it becomes.

Small additions of discomfort from the loss of intimacy increase attachment, but in large doses, attachment either destroys or transforms it into a sick attachment format.

As a habit, psychological attachment is formed gradually, but it is not uncommon for attachment to arise almost instantly, according to the anchoring mechanism. In the animal world, this is a phenomenon of imprinting, in human life it is imprinting and falling in love at first sight … It is important to understand that in people such anchoring works only in the case of a special state of a person, namely hormonal support, an internal psychological mood (“her soul was looking for him” ) and a specific philosophy of life, where love affection is one of the main life values. The more a person lives at the level of a human organism, the more often and easier he (she) becomes attached. A person-personality with a developed mind and will allows only those attachments in his life that are useful, and stops attachments that are not needed.

Attachment is experienced in a variety of ways — as a feeling of closeness, as love, as a feeling of burden, as deprivation of freedom, as fear. Often, affection takes the form of love: we take care not to lose and obey, so that they do not get angry with us and do not move away from us. Indeed, strong psychological attachment is very similar to love, and in life love and attachment are easily confused, especially since we can have both love and attachment to the same person at the same time. In addition, we are dependent on the one to whom we are attached, and therefore, being afraid of losing him, we are forced to take care of him. And then attachment really turns out to be very similar to love, turning out to be love in a voluntary-compulsory version.

Love attachment is a special kind of psychological attachment, usually with the features of a sick attachment, and even dependence on the object of love. The main feature of love attachment is not the joy and care associated with the object of love, but love suffering, with which a person is sometimes tormented, and when he revels with voluptuousness.

Smart people themselves are happy to become attached to what will support them in life, as well as to those people with whom communication is joyful or useful. At the same time, when tying themselves, they prefer not rigid, but conditional attachment, arranged like a carbine for climbers: when necessary, we are securely tied. If a halt and it is better to be free, the carbine snaps off and we are free.

Attachments are good as long as you need each other and your attachments are not sick, soft, rather playful. If in a relationship your partner shows a tough, painful attachment to you, then this situation is dangerous. How to prevent such relationships and how to behave when not the most adequate people become attached to you, see Prevention of sick attachments.