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Earning security

By Mark Furlong

Rather than treat them mean to keep them keen, we tend to marry our pet ideas. That humans bond with the ideas they value is not a practice restricted to lay folk. Professionals of all kinds, including therapists, can also default to having an abiding, and unthinking, contract with the theories they have internalised.

This pattern was respectfully referenced by Masud Khan in his introduction to Donald Winnicott’s celebrated Therapeutic Consultations in Child Psychiatry. In his forward Khan argued that many of Winnicott’s innovations should be understood as ‘regulatory fictions’ rather than as truisms. In detailing his argument Khan points to several terms identified with Winnicott’s work – think ‘transitional objects’ and ‘the holding environment’ – and suggests these ideas should be viewed as useful constructs rather than eternal facts. These ideas, Khan argues, are guides that help us order and interpret experience, but they are not from The Stone Tablets. Beware, he cautions, if these constructs come to insinuate themselves into the circuitry of professional culture and practice.

In this argument Khan, a psychoanalytic insider, asks practitioners to take a critically reflective approach to the ideas that are embedded in the standard accounts that have been passed on. Rather than singling out specific examples, a key assumption that has long been the axle of received developmental theory might give Khan’s point broader purchase.

It is often assumed that ethical and affectionately able adults have had childhoods that were steady and disruption free. At first, this statement seems bullet-proof yet, standing back, it can be argued that some degree of childhood trauma is not aberrant, but rather expected, even necessary. For example, in Civilization and its Discontents Freud argued that the imposition of the Reality Principle was psychically explosive for each and every infant. Depending on the breadth of the chosen definition, disruption can be understood as a normative experience rather than as an adversely rupturing life event. Of course, this is not to say bonding is not essential: you don’t need to be familiar with the details of Michael Rutter's Romanian Orphan Study to know there are severe emotional and cognitive consequences if infants are attachment deprived. This knowledge he ‘held’ as valid, even as the ambit, and sanctity, of certain aspects of attachment theory is questioned.

Introduced in John Bowlby’s The Nature of the Child's Tie to his Mother, the premise of the theory is that reliable attachment builds the ‘secure base’ each child requires. Initially, it was contended that reliable attachment depended on the presence of a single maternal care-giver. As the theory developed it quickly it became clear to practitioners and theorists that children can develop a ‘secure base’ – an internalized dynamo-object that steadies and soothes – without this being an entirely mum-centered business. More recently, theorists have broadened their conceptions. The conditions enabling healthy attachment are now said to be inclusive of child rearing practices that are diverse, with more collectivist assemblies especially valorized. This broadened understanding sees current research acknowledging that, to this point, the role of other key attachment figures (e.g. second parent, grandparents, & teachers) and of wider socio-familial context has yet to be adequately explored (Opie et al., 2021). As recently noted by Painter et al (2025) ‘only a few studies examined the place of kin and cultural connection’ (and there) ‘is a notable gap in studies that track developmental trajectories across diverse cultural backgrounds, care relationships, and kinship systems. In Australia, this especially includes relational pathways in collectivist First Nations communities.’ As we now know, the hetero-normative, late modern, Western nuclear family cannot be considered the necessary cradle for healthy development.

This re-visioning is notable, but in some quarters there remains a stubborn assumption that early life experience has a linear relationship with the psyche of adult self. This assumption proposes that the child’s inner life, and subsequent attachment style, will be drop-forged in proportion to their early attachment needs being met. In contrast to this mechanistic view, contemporary attachment theory is more optimistic. For example, like Bowlby before her, Mary Main (2000; 1093) has stressed that attachment "security is in no way fixed or fully determined in infancy” (Main, 2000: 1093). In this view early attachment mediates rather than determines.

Mindful it was historically proposed that there were three ‘attachment types’ – secure; avoidant; anxious – the current view is that each child will develop one of four ‘attachment styles’ – secure; avoidant; anxious; disorganized. Given this evolution, it seems likely there will be further revisions in how development is classified and ‘normified.’ For example, although currently under-examined, it is possible that a greater capacity to develop meaningful affinities might be mobilised across the life course. Rather than sequestered within the developmental epochs of early childhood (infancy; toddlerhood; pre-school/early school), it seems likely individuals can develop this capacity across their adult life. How might this happen?

As adults we can choose to, or we can have the good fortune to, participate in interactions that aggregate trust. That a sense of camaraderie will be achieved is not a given; belonging, a secure sense of ‘us-ness’, is generated if and when we engage with, and stay the course with, others in whatever form meaningful involvement takes – joining with others to look after a dying friend; repairing a neighbour’s dam, keeping the band playing. The human capacity for connection is anarchically creative as we witness the endless number of forms friendship, romance and sociality manifest. We can choose to interact securely and ethically. For example, one can choose to not ‘flake’ – to turn up to events and occasions one has agreed to even if you don’t feel like it. In many instances this stance can embed solidarity even if a preferred outcome is not achieved. As George Schulz, a former US Secretary of State, observed: trust is the coin of the realm.

Trust is a key theme, arguably the key theme, in studies of early attachment. This same theme has been explored in many genres and disciplines. For example, Sissela Bok, a moral philosopher, argues that ‘Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.’ Bok asks: if I cannot trust your word, I cannot know I will be treated fairly, that my interests will be taken to heart and that you will not do me harm.’ Many current practices endanger trust by rendering personal relationships provisional. A concrete example is the practice referred to as ‘flaking’ – the cancelling of social arrangements at the last minute. Rationalized as self-care – I’ll give it a miss. Looking after myself needs to come first – this practice undermines the expectation that trust can be placed in the words and actions of the other. Once de-centred, the reliability of the axle around which significant-other networks orbit loses its bearings.

Amongst others, Filosa et al (2024) contend that ‘Earned-Secure Attachment (ESA) can be defined as the process by which individuals with insecure childhood attachment rise above malevolent childhood experiences to develop secure relationships patterns in adulthood.’ Mindful it might be considered a misuse of expert vocabulary, an optimistic view says that each of us can build ‘earned security’ in practicing trustworthy, other-oriented relationships.

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