Thai Gibson is a person with great and deep insight into the attachment style we develop as children to our caregiver(s) and how the different ways of minor and major childhood trauma can show up later in life.

Attachment styles are patterns we learned early in life to help us navigate relationships and stay emotionally safe. They’re like relational blueprints our brains developed to adapt to the world we grew up in. Think of them as strategies your younger self used to connect with caregivers—strategies that might still show up in relationships today.

These patterns aren’t about being “good” or “bad” at relationships. They’re simply how our brains learned to balance two natural human needs:
The need for closeness (to feel loved and supported).
The need for safety (to protect ourselves from hurt or disappointment).

There are 4 attachment styles.
Secure Attachment – Feels like: “I can trust others and myself. It’s okay to be close, and it’s okay to be independent.”
How it forms: Caregivers were consistently loving and respectful of the child’s needs. (Or at least 30% of the time according to circle of security)

Anxious Attachment: – Feels like: “I worry about being left or not being enough. I sometimes need reassurance to feel safe.”
How it forms: Caregivers were inconsistently available—sometimes nurturing, sometimes distant. The child learned to “track” others’ moods to stay connected.

Avoidant Attachment – Feels like: “I’m most comfortable relying on myself. Depending on others feels risky.”
How it forms: Caregivers discouraged vulnerability or were emotionally unavailable. The child learned to minimize needs to avoid rejection.

Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) – Feels like: “I want closeness but fear getting hurt. Relationships feel confusing.”How it forms: Caregivers were unpredictable or frightening. The child faced a “double bind” (needing comfort from someone who also caused fear).

You can do a short quiz to see which attachment style you have towards your parents/caregivers, (last) partner, own children if you have any, and general society.

Working through and optimizing the patterns from growing up can be of enormous benefit in our relationship to ourselves, to our loved ones and the broader world in general.

The Top 6 Qualities that Securely Attached People Are Attracted To!

How to Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind for Love

The Personal Development school teaches us to connect to our own feelings, to understand and connect to our needs, how we can learn to fulfil our own own needs first but then also how to ask other people to help fulfil them in a healthy way.

In addition it is about learning to set  healthy boundaries and how to enforce these in a sound manner. What is enmeshment and how do co-dependency patterns form and how can we heal these?

By understanding and healing ourselves, our quality of life will increase and we can show up in a kinder and more healthy way to the people around us. And we also reduce the risk of passing our trauma on to potential following generations.

By understanding ourselves and being better in relating to ourselves and others we will create more harmonious lives with both more inner peace and more outer joy.

Resources:
-) The Personal Development YouTube Channel
-) Online Personal Development School

Related articles: 
-) The Transformation of Trauma with Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté
-) Tension and Trauma Release Technique (TRE) – Body Shaking to Release Stress
-) Navigating the Emotional Body, Fully Allow all Emotions and Release Them.
-) Breathwork – Breath yourself to Inner Peace

-) Becoming Whole: Healing the Wounded & Protective Parts of Ourselves
-) Inner Child work with The Completion Process
-) Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness & Mindfulness – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

-) Emotional Freedom Technique – Energy Tapping
-) The 5 step cycle of creation – How our thoughts shape our (experience of) reality
-) Investigating, turning around and transforming (bad feeling) thoughts