Trauma Bonds

Traumatic bonding and trauma bonds occurs as the result of ongoing cycles of abuse in which the intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates powerful emotional bonds that are resistant to change. Trauma bonding is essentially a loyalty between two or more people which is often formed due to a specific set of, often negative circumstance, which binds them together due to a shared experience.

While the idea of bonding tends to bring up ideas of something good and beneficial, trauma bonds are often unhealthy.

Signs that you may be experiencing a trauma bond in a relationship:

1. There is a continuous pattern of things in a relationship not working, yet you continue to believe promises to the contrary.
2. Both or one person wants to leave the relationship but every time they try, there is a feeling or sense of extreme anxiety and unimaginable fear.
3. You have a belief that somehow you can change the other person or make them different.
4. You keep having the same fight over and over with no solution. You are either overreacting or under reacting and extremely triggered by this person.

The situation necessary to create a trauma bond involves inconsistencies, false promises, high intensity, and are very complex.

Betrayal bonds or trauma bonds:

Betrayal bonds or trauma bonds are deeply rooted in a person’s childhood trauma.

Bowlby’s Evolutionary Theory of Attachment suggest that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others because this will help them survive. On of the main points of his theory was that a child has an innate need to attach to at least one caregiver.

This child should receive the continuous care of the single most important attachment figure for approximately the first two years of life.

The long-term consequences of parental deprivation might include the following:

• delinquency
• reduced intelligence
• increased aggression
• depression
• avoidant attachment

Bowlby and his partner believed and proved that long term even, and sometimes short-term separation from an attached figure leads to distress. After much research they looked at four different types of attachments with the baby’s mother.

Four styles of attachment:

These styles produced four styles of attachment which have been identified in adults. One was a secure attachment, another was the mother was there but preoccupied. Another style was avoidant, and lastly was a mother who was anxious and avoidant. These roughly correspond to infant classifications, secure, insecure ambivalent, insecure avoidant, and disorganized avoidant.

The babies who had strong attachments with their mother’s overtime had healthy bonds with partners.

The anxious ambivalent mothers had babies who turned into adults that had more dependent or needy relationships like Love Addiction.

The avoidant attachment mothers had babies who typically developed love avoidant issues in their adult relationships. When the love addict adult and the love avoidant adult get together they don’t have secure attachment from early on so together they form a trauma bond.

Very complex issues:

Betrayal bonds, and trauma bonds are very complex issues because they root deeply in childhood attachment.

There are specific therapies such as Post Induction Therapy, Eye Movement Rapid Desensitization, Bio Feedback, and Somatic Experiencing.

The most effective is Post Induction Therapy which can reprogram the unconscious brain in both individuals, helping them to start form healthy attachments. Even with therapists who master the skills associated with Post Induction Therapy, it is still a very complicated treatment that takes a great degree of ongoing experience and expertise.

This work is essential before moving on to any other relationship or the same cycle can continue.

Difficult to treat and difficult to identify:

Again, trauma bonding can be difficult to treat in traditional therapy because it is often difficult to identify, and the roots of the trauma can go very deep. I found the client becomes obsessive with the relationship. Often, a bond can form with another person that is outside of the relationship. This bond form tends to be more about survival and often contains a betrayal component that a person has difficulty controlling.

The focus is all about the other person. This can often lead to affairs and infidelity.

The most difficult part about trauma bonding is that to some people it feels like love. Because in childhood there was no nurturing, love, and affirmation to form healthy bonds, this often seeps into adulthood.

Shared trauma:

Formed between two people who have experienced a traumatic experience a trauma bond can be present within a relationship.

An example would be two siblings that have been brought up in an alcoholic family. One may feel obligated to take care of the other like a parent would take care of a child. They will feel too much responsibility not only for their sibling, but they project that onto other people.

Extreme examples of trauma bonding would be in fraternity hazing, military training, kidnapping, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, political torture, cults, prisoners of war, criminal hostage situations, terrorism, and concentration camps.

More commonly they exist in every day relationships. Even though the trauma bond may have formed from far less dramatic events, the effect it can have on a relationship can be just as severe.



Recognizing that you are in a trauma bond is the first step.