Emotional Dependence: What Do We Know From Neurobiology?
It has caught my attention lately that some patients ask me reasons for consultation such as: “I want to not care about others, I don’t want to need anyone else.”
Inquiring more about their reasons for consultation, I have noticed that they have the expectation that a healthy person can resolve difficult moments and advance completely alone When I asked them where they learned this, they told me that it is common to see content on social networks (self-help accounts) with messages that transmit the value of self-sufficiency, positioning it as the pinnacle of mental health and inner strength (and attributing seeking help and/or company to be fragile).
I see with concern that some have tried to build their self-image by trying to achieve this social ideal of self-sufficiency, but… How healthy is it to follow that path? What do we know about emotional dependence?
In the late 1960s, John Bowlby presented Attachment Theory a theory that maintains that brain development depends mostly on the stimulation of caregivers in early childhood.
Attachment is a characteristic of mammals and, as Bowlby showed, from an evolutionary framework, the Attachment System has the purpose guarantee the creation of emotional bonds in human offspring so that they have a protective figure that guarantees their care and safety, and thus survive.
It is a neurophysiological system (we could say that it is “wired in our brain”) that programs us from birth to choose a particular person in our environment, and turn them into someone valuable, through a bond of dependency.
Sustained interactions with this person (primary attachment figure) build a unique type of affective communication, which creates shared mental states that allow us to modulate our physiological (e.g., hunger, sleep) and emotional (e.g., fear, frustration) processes. The latter is what we know as emotional regulation
We are not born knowing how to calm ourselves, so we need another person to help us return to calm through emotional contact (this is why a baby has signals – such as crying – so that the adult can come to help). When this fails, attachment wounds and emotional dysregulation occur.
That’s what childhood attachment is all about: through experience we learn who we have, and what the response of those people will be; we can learn to resort, and also learn not to resort
Due to the efficiency of our mental energy, we tend to generalize this learning, building beliefs about the world, ourselves and others: how safe we feel in the world, how trustworthy others are, how much we can count on another, how much we deserve it, etc. This set of beliefs is called Internal Operating Model This model, derived from the Attachment System, tends to remain stable over time, so depending on how we have related to our attachment figure in childhood, we will relate to the people we choose to bond with in adulthood.
The importance of bonding in healthy dependency
In childhood, when we become attached to someone, and they respond to our needs, we have a secure base In quiet moments, this secure base is a platform that allows us to venture out and explore. In adulthood, this manifests itself when we know that we have people who are going to be there, who we can turn to if something goes wrong.
In fact, the Paradox of Dependency It tells us that when we depend healthily, we have a greater capacity to be autonomous; Knowing that we have someone else if we need it, gives us the courage and drive to take risks or undertake projects.
Contrary to what many self-help and/or mental health accounts on social networks say, depending is healthy, it is desirable. We are not self-sufficient, neither as children nor as adults. Dependency changes throughout the life cycle, but it does not evolve, we will always depend on others. The difference between adulthood and childhood is that The dependency (the link) is not vertical, but horizontal
Dependency becomes unhealthy when the verticality of early bonds is perpetuated. Mutual and horizontal dependence is healthy, and is a requirement to build a secure bond. People who are not willing to depend on others will not be able to build healthy bonds.
In the field of human attachment neurobiology, there is research that has concluded that attachment is supported by neurobiological systems that are formed in our early bonds with primary caregivers (Ruth Feldman). When we grow up, the same neurobiological systems operate (the Attachment System is reactivated) and this will be the support of future human bonds (friendships, relationships, etc.).
The bonds we experience throughout our lives are transformative, and when they are healthy, they have the potential to repair the damage of those negative relationships we have had and the damage caused by social isolation.
Taking into account the above, what we see in some social media accounts that promote self-sufficiency to achieve good mental health is an illusion, and a very harmful one, because it does not allow us to bond and imposes on us the burden of having to get ahead ourselves. alone. This will inevitably lead us down a path of constant frustration, since, no matter how much we want and strive to get out of everything alone, we are neurobiologically programmed to develop alongside significant others, and there find part of the emotional regulation that on so many occasions, need.
