Distinguishing Two Kinds of Attachment

Attachment is an important idea in both contemporary psychology, and in the genesis of Buddhist thought. However, for folks who share an interest in each of these disciplines, it’s possible to get tripped up on the word—that is if we are trying to connect the attachment in psychology to attachment in Buddhism we may begin to scratch our heads. Despite utilizing the same word (at least in translation), these two concepts are totally different.

Attachment in psychology is based on the research of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. This research focused on the bond between infant and mother. In essence, the theory postulates that the child may develop different “styles,” of attachment bonds based on their relationship with their primary caretaker. The ideal attachment bond being a “secure” one. Developmentally speaking, this bond forms a kind of template that the child then brings into future relationships—even into adulthood.

Let’s zoom out a little to address the importance of security for a child. As humans we depend on our parents for a long time relative to many other species. Security in relationship to our parents quite literally could mean the difference in our survival nowadays and also in our evolution as a species.

Yet, when that security is absent from the side of the caregiver (and there are many ways this can happen… I won’t get it into all of them here) then the child has to develop other strategies to cope with this insecurity. This idea lends itself more to the more traditional psychoanalytic concept of defenses… however it is definitely relevant to attachment.

While I am taking a very broad brush stroke here, I am attempting to illuminate the connection of these ideas of attachment and security in relationship to our development as individual and relational human beings. In an ideal sense we need relational security as human beings in order to feel at ease. When we don’t get that, it’s possible we can have trouble regulating our own emotional realities, and relating to others.

However, the reality is that we live in a fundamentally insecure world. While developing security is essential to emotionally healthy relationships, there is also the idea that existentially speaking, nothing can ever be that secure. This is what Buddhist thought seeks to address.

There are many different strands of Buddhist thought, however they all seem to emerge from the idea that not only is our world fundamentally in flux, always changing, but our self is too. In fact, according to Buddhism, if we look closely what we call “the self,” is more of a conglomeration of constantly changing streams of consciousness than a static entity. If we look even more closely, we might discover that “the self,” is not able to be found.

Attachment here is when we try to concretize or fixate something that is by nature always changing. We try to hold on to that sensation of joy as long as we can only to find out that it’s replaced by a loss. Inversely, we might try to get rid of the feeling of loss by eating a whole bunch of ice cream. We might feel better momentarily, but then we might feel sick. This is sort of a game our minds play to try and somehow keep us from pain, but according to Buddhism the end result is always that we end up feeling quite sick. That is because we try to dictate to “reality,” the terms that are acceptable to us, but this is not really possible because everything is always in flux.

So attachment in Buddhism, the literal translation of which is “thirst,” is really considered to be the primary cause of dis-satisfaction in life—which is sometimes translated as suffering.

Why am I making this distinction? Well, terminology is difficult. In the US, Buddhist thought is often lumped into the psychology category and for better or worse these two traditions are associated here. The two kinds of attachment are about entirely different topics: relational development and existential malaise. Sure they may intersect, but their contexts are different.

I believe both are relevant to our understanding of psychology and mental health as a whole. We should just be careful about defining our terms clearly, understanding their appropriate contexts, and discussing how they are functionally relevant to us as human beings.