The Neurobiology of Attachment and Your Nervous System

Because the vagus nerve is involved in both our social connections and how we cope with stress, the health of our relationships offers a really important clue about the health of our nervous system.

If you're having trouble sustaining and nurturing relationships, it's worth looking at what's happening in your nervous system.

The ventral branch of the vagus nerve runs from our heart up to our face. This pathway, which we collectively call the 'social engagement system', is involved in how we listen, how we speak, and how we connect with others.

Anatomically this branch of the vagus nerve is also known as the 'vagal brake'. It runs from our brainstem to our heart's pacemaker, and it actually initiates recovery of our nervous system when we've been through difficult times. When it kicks in you feel yourself setlle. 

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Oxytocin works directly with your vagus nerve to support both attachment and regulation. It's released during moments of connection and safety. It dampens threat responses while enhancing your ability to read social cues and feel trust (Uvnäs-Moberg et al., 2015). But oxytocin can only do its work when your nervous system is regulated enough to receive it.

So your nervous system state directly influences your capacity for connection. And your relational experiences directly shape your nervous system. They're inseparable.

Attachment and regulation aren't separate systems. They actually share the same neural networks.

When you're regulated, you can connect, you read social cues accurately and you're a co-regulator for others. In a regulated state you respond flexibly and you maintain your sense of self while staying open to others.

When you're dysregulated, attachment feels threatening.

In sympathetic activation, you become hypervigilant to signs of rejection or abandonment. Your social engagement system goes offline, replaced by mobilisation. In shutdown, you withdraw. Connection feels too risky or requires too much effort. Your face becomes flat, your voice monotone, your gaze avoidant. These aren't character flaws. They're protective strategies driven by your dorsal vagus.

This is why you can be in the same relationship or workplace but experience it completely differently depending on your state. The people haven't changed. Your capacity to process relational information has.

For practitioners, this is so important to our work. 

Regulation comes first, before insight. Before processing. Before deep work. You need to support your client's nervous system into a state where attachment and connection are even possible.

The same applies to you. Your capacity to stay present, attuned, and connected to your clients is determined by your own nervous system state. When you're dysregulated, your vagus nerve withdraws its support for social engagement. 

Understanding this overlap changes how we work.

The Regulated Practitioner: The Neurobiology of Co-Regulation & Therapeutic Use of Self. 

FROM DRAINED AND DEPLETED TO REGULATED AND RESOURCED

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References:

Cozolino, L. (2014). The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain. W.W. Norton & Company.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.

Uvnäs-Moberg, K., Handlin, L., & Petersson, M. (2015). Self-soothing behaviors with particular reference to oxytocin release induced by non-noxious sensory stimulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1529.