FROM ATTACHMENT TRAUMA TO TRAUMATIC ATTACHMENT: INVISIBLE INJURIES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD AND SUBTLE RELATIONAL CODES OF SELF-REGULATION

Abstract

Building on recent contributions by Farina and Schimmenti (2025a), this paper advances a more nuanced framework for their concept of attachment trauma focusing on the underlying mechanisms. The injury of attachment trauma, often concealed within ostensibly ordinary family systems, may leave no explicit memory trace yet manifest as enduring patterns of dysregulation. Instead, it becomes apparent through its clinical consequences such as Complex PTSD, borderline phenomena, dissociative disorders and their various complications. Central to the framework presented in this paper are the concept of relational encryption, in which interpersonal signals are coded to establish a balanced interpersonal dependency, and internal moderation, defined as the capacity for flexible regulation between affective and relational extremes, which is needed to overcome trauma-related paradoxes. Encryption vulnerability due to deficient or excessive relational coding, on the other hand, leads to "traumatic attachment" which is one of the consequences of attachment trauma. In accordance with these concepts, Implicit Psychotherapy, as a technique of communication, provides a clinical framework for safely engaging with these pre-reflective, unspoken wounds through pacing, symbolic containment, and embodied relational experience. Dialectical Dynamic Therapy (DDT), as a conceptual framework, facilitates the re-establishment of internal moderation. The paper points toward transformative therapeutic pathways grounded in embodied relational repair, epistemic trust, and dynamic therapeutic engagement. Ultimately, the paper advocates for a post-linear model of trauma, one that embraces complexity, dialectical thinking, and the reparative potential of therapeutic relationships, while insisting on the need to "unpack" the overloaded construct of attachment trauma.