Depression symptoms in adulthood are often the result of difficult experiences in childhood. Disturbances in early attachments are some of the most common early experiences that can lead to depression in adults. That’s why we are talking with Dr. Jane Rubin about depression symptoms and early attachment.
What is Early Attachment?
Early attachment refers to the types of relationships we have with our caregivers in early childhood. If we securely attach to our caregivers, we generally avoid mental health problems in adulthood. However, insecure attachments often foster emotional difficulties later in life.
Parents who are overly critical or detached of their children can lay the groundwork for their children’s depression experience as adults. Children of critical parents feel that they can never live up to their parents’—or anyone’s—expectations. Children of detached parents feel that their parents’ lack of interest in them means that they don’t matter. It’s not much of a stretch from having these feelings to feeling depressed.
How Does Early Attachment Affect People?
Our early relationships provide the template for how we experience the world. If our parents are critical of us, we think everyone will be critical of us. If our parents are indifferent to us, we think everyone will be indifferent. These things seem so obvious to us that we don’t question them.
One of my goals as a therapist is to help people begin to question these assumptions. Once they’re able to begin to do that, their depression begins to lift.
Why Do People Hold Onto Those Feelings?
One reason is that people don’t know that they can experience the world any differently. One advantage of having a relationship with a therapist is that, as a person develops trust in her therapist, her expectations about who she is and what she can expect from other people change. As she feels accepted for who she is, she is able to accept herself and expects to be accepted by others.
People hang onto their negative perceptions of themselves for many reasons. Often, people recognize that their parents’ criticism or neglect evolved from their parents’ own vulnerabilities. They may feel that feeling better about themselves will make their parents feel worse.
For example, I have a patient whose parents were always giving her career advice that didn’t make any sense. They knew nothing about the work she did. Nonetheless, she would take their advice and things would go badly for her at work. As we explored her reasons for doing this, we came to see that her parents’ own self-esteem depended upon their feeling that they were right about everything. My patient worried that not taking their advice might undermine their sense of self-worth. This belief wasn’t conscious, of course. At first, it seemed preposterous that it influenced her decisions. But, as she continued to make work decisions that weren’t in her own best interests, she was able to see that she undermined herself to protect her parents.
So How Do You Approach Treating These People?
I think it’s really important for therapists to understand their patients’ struggles from the patient’s perspective. In other words, while it might look irrational for someone to keep taking advice that doesn’t work, a person always has good reasons for doing what she does. If therapists convey to their patients that they think their behavior doesn’t make sense, their patients are only going to feel worse about themselves.
So, the first step is to be empathic with our patients. Once they feel that we’re on their side and genuinely want to help them, we can begin to explore how their early attachments might be responsible for their current struggles. Gaining perspective on the role of early attachment issues in creating and maintaining their depression symptoms goes a long way in helping people find relief.
Click to learn more about depression therapy and treatment with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.
Jane Rubin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Berkeley, California. She works with individuals in Berkeley, Oakland, the East Bay and the greater San Francisco Bay Area who are struggling with depression and anxiety. She also specializes in working with people who are trying to find meaning and direction in their lives.