Anxious Attachment and the Sensitive Emotional Radar

I have often heard people with anxious-preoccupied attachment styles refer to themselves as empaths. This statement is usually based on their experience of having a keen and even intense awareness of emotions in themselves and others. But does having this awareness make them more empathetic? If they are in close relationships with the people they are trying to understand or if they have something to lose in the interaction, then they most likely are not.

In childhood, those who go on to develop preoccupied attachment styles usually had inconsistent parents: sometimes warm and accepting, sometimes harsh or rejecting. In effect, what they had was a parental slot machine. Sometimes you approached the parent and got love. But just as often, you got rebuffed and turned away. Rejection hurts, and the child learned to be highly sensitive (hypervigilant) to subtle changes in facial expression, body movement, or vocal intonation—anything that might give a hint that rejection is coming. But the price for this adaptation is high. The person gets stuck in a state of heightened activation and is always on guard for threats in their relationships.

This hypervigilance makes preoccupied individuals very capable of picking up on other people’s subtle emotions. But here is the problem: their emotional radar is so sensitive that it is military grade. It can pick up on small changes that should be ignored; it’s like mistaking a flock of seagulls for a missile attack.

They pick up on others’ emotions by experiencing emotional shifts in their bodies. Consider this example: We are on a date, and you have a disinterested look on your face. I take a little adrenaline hit and feel my solar plexus tighten. If I have a preoccupied attachment style, I might feel my emotions so intensely that I become preoccupied and distracted by them. And the emotions come on so fast that they seem to convey a truth in their own right. I might accept and act on them without slowing down enough to think things through clearly. I ended the date prematurely, felt rejected by you, and cut you off (even though I had no true idea of what you were thinking).

Empathic attunement
This amounts to a “failure of empathic attunement” where my stress levels or preoccupation with my thoughts and emotions deplete my capacity to control my emotions, modify my thoughts, or adjust my behaviors (including what I say) accordingly. Because my emotional energy is depleted, the frontal lobes of my brain don’t have enough energy left over to put the brakes on my suspicious impulses. This is also known as ego depletion.

A low stress example of a failure of empathic attunement: You feel cold so you tell your child who does not feel cold to put on their coat (if you live on the east coast of the U.S., you have probably seen the teenagers standing in the snow wearing their shorts and hoodies as they wait for the bus).

A higher stress example might be: Your romantic interest tells you that they need a little time to themselves and that they are going alone to see a movie. You have such a strong emotional reaction to the feeling of rejection that you conclude that they must be seeing someone else, and you go to the movie theater uninvited to see if they want some company and promptly get rejected; thus enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To summarize:

1. The emotional radar of anxiously attached people is too sensitive and might trigger an alarm that should probably be ignored.
2. The resulting emotional experience might be too intense and distract or interfere with the ability to see or understand someone else’s experience clearly.
3. The preoccupied person is likely to go beyond the facts of what they see and make up stories (that might or might not be correct) about why others behave as they do. They are likely to have secondary emotional experiences that lead to the intensification of emotions and the experiencing or perceiving of things that were not there in the original context.

These factors at least partially explain why, counter to what you might think, people with anxious attachment do not score higher on measures of emotional intelligence relative to those with other attachment styles. Even if they do perceive emotions accurately in themselves and others, they are likely to struggle using that information to effectively problem solve and navigate social interactions.

Recommendations for the Preoccupied Person

1. Use emotions as data, but stick with the facts and don’t elaborate and tell yourself stories based on that data.
2. Know how sensitive your emotional radar is. The amygdala operates on the premise of “better safe than sorry.” It doesn’t care if it makes a mistake and triggers a false alarm.
3. Understand that your conscious brain can usually make sense of what is going on if it isn’t overshadowed by too much information coming in from the amygdala and your emotional system.
4. Develop an attitude of tenderness and understanding for your emotional system and how it is just seeking security. If you can understand how your emotions are triggered and interact with your thoughts, then you should be able to have compassion and develop better empathy in understanding the thoughts and feelings of other people (even when they are not behaving the way you want).
5. Don’t form a conclusion or take an action based on one data point. Give it time and gather more data before making decisions. It isn’t usually a life-or-death situation. Take a timeout and wait for the emotional activation to subside before making a decision.
6. Recognize when you have a confirmation bias. If you are feeling vulnerable or experiencing low self-esteem, you might overinterpret benign events as a threat.
7. Practice perspective taking and mentalizing the other person. You can tell them what you imagine they are feeling and cross-check your accuracy with what they tell you, but don’t overstep your bounds and do this with someone you do not yet have a close and mutually agreed-upon relationship with.

Attachment Essential Reads

Running to Stand Still: Why We Get Stuck in Inaction

"Jeong": A Korean Word for the Felt Sense of Connectedness

On the Bright Side

Because of their highly attuned emotional radar, people with preoccupied attachment styles are likely to be very accurate in detecting and understanding emotional patterns, thought processes, and behaviors when they are not personally involved in the situation. For example, they might be good at understanding what is going on between a friend and that friend’s romantic partner. They might also make exceptional therapists and offer you deep insights into the dynamics underlying your and other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Everyone can benefit from not taking themselves too seriously and having some empathy for their crazy thoughts and feelings, and in doing so, be able to have more empathy for the craziness in others.