Dual-Mask Model of Attachment

“All in one ..” by LS – is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The Dual-Mask Model of Attachment Decompensation

Our Theory of DNA-Self, includes the concept that, due to a small child’s ability to forget upsetting or uncomfortable moments, adults may well find that they actually have two masks. One will be hidden, and highly automated. It may well be considered as the true, unchangeable core-self. The other will be the known mask, the mask often considered as needed, in order to protect the inner, hidden mask of the young child.

Through this lens, it is possible to more clearly see how our childcare and educations systems, with enough microaggression, will first give a child the mask of a complex set of maladaptive attachment styles. And then need to consciously mask this, resulting in the development of personality disorders.

This two-layer masking process is the missing link between attachment theory and personality disorder development that mainstream literature dances around but doesn’t explicitly name.

Hidden Mask

Created during the Ages of 0 and 8. Mainly comprises of oppositional DNA-Self rejections.
This is the “false self” that attachment theorists describe, a self-concept that develops when caregivers reject the child’s authentic DNA-Self expression. The child learns: “To keep attachment figures close, I must be what they need, not who I am.” This creates the basic insecure attachment patterns: pacesconnection​

• Avoidant: Neglect from parents causes the child to prune it’s needs for closeness, support, or protection from others, become hyper-independent, yet still feel they need a relationship and family.
• Anxious: Neglect may cause anxiety in relationships, however, often it is the parent demanding more attention than they give the child. This may cause the child to prune its boundaries, become hyper-accommodating, and people pleasing, for fear of loss of any connection that they feel.
• Bipolar Attachment: A combination of both Avoidant and Anxious Attachment, this is often more common, and it may be mislabelled as Disorganized. With this attachment style, the individual will oscillate from needing a relationship, and people pleasing to get it. To needing to escape the relationship, for feeling trapped, and imprisoned by the others need for affection. The individual tries to find some middle distance that their partner cannot accept. This creates push-pull, on-off relationships. If it is with a people pleasing anxious attacher, then that relationship may be off and on for months. Dealing trauma of loss, time after time to the anxious attacher, who will tend to people-please, underplay any negative impact, so long as the other comes back.
• Disorganized: We feel this may be where there are multiple, equal equal or similar priority, attachment styles playing against the same person. and that this can create a four-way randomised interaction model, which somehow needs to be justified, when the response is found to be unacceptable. Rather than the push-pull oscillation of bipolar attachment, as the individual moves from extreme need, to extreme avoidance. Both are in action at the same time, with other environmental factors deciding which is the priority. This means, depending on the individual, that they may select the equivalent of response A, or response B, or, somehow, both, and also, neither.

This mask feels “natural”, in the young adult, because it’s been reinforced since infancy. In the end. they don’t experience it as a mask, “it’s simply “how I am” We think of this as a mask that is mostly a mask of protection, it is the changes in behaviour that allowed the child under threat to feel as safe as possible. However, for the most part, that does not include the next defensive strategy to evolve; the need to manipulate others in search of gratification. brainzmagazine​

Known Mask

The Incongruity Management Mask
This is where maladaptive attachment styles start to become personality disorders. As the child grows, they develop meta-awareness of their own inauthenticity. They notice the gap between their pruned self and their shadow DNA-Self (the pruned traits that keep trying to re-emerge). They may come to believe that this “true-self” that they are experiencing, is broken.

To maintain relationships, they must now actively suppress awareness of this gap between their “true-self, and their secret, unknown, forgotten, truest self“.  Often, the child will choose to copy others in some way. Its been encouraged throughout their life, and if the child discards their entire concept of self, then they may feel that they have no other choice but to, in effect, pretend to be some other, successful person.

This second mask, is, in effect, a collection of lies, that become presented to other people, as truth. However, false authenticity is actually very hard to maintain. Lies, may include qualifications. Those lies will compound both the feelings of being an imposter, but also the need to more firmly prop up those lies, by creating complex lists of who has been told, as well as justifications should any “truths” leak out to the wrong people.

As time progresses, the individuals copy-cat rules set becomes increasingly complex, and all the While, the Ego-self will have them collecting external tokens of worth, in order to maintain that self worth, and feeling of confidence. Neighbours need to know you are clever, rich, successful and resourceful. Colleagues need to know you are fully trained, and expert in all that you do. All the while, you know that you are pretending, and are broken, and if you get found out, by the wrong person. Perhaps by that token wife, that finally discovered that your tokens of love, could never replace the real thing. That one thing you can only pretend to understand, love. This complex situation requires:

• Constant vigilance to prevent shadow expression
• Elaborate self-deception to maintain the lie of authenticity
• Dissociation from bodily signals that contradict the false self
• Splitting: seeing self as “all good” (the mask) vs. “all bad” (the shadow) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih​

The Personality Disorder Crystallization

Mainstream literature indicates that disorganized attachment is the strongest predictor of personality disorders. But it misses why disorganized attachment becomes BPD, NPD, or AvPD rather than remaining as simple attachment anxiety. link.springer​

The answer is this 2 Layer masking:

In Borderline Personality Disorder: The second mask seems unstable because the shadow DNA-Self (containing genetic potentials for autonomy, boundaries, and self-directedness) keeps changing the priority of the selected mask/coping responses. There can be many reasons for this, including the amount of time the individual feels they have, to give the response, this perceived thinking time tends to become reduced when an individual is feeling stressed, and that may well play a large part in the selection of the desired response. We should also be able to map these to the four fight/flight/freeze (do nothing), freeze (comply), panic responses.

Although we can see in this model, a form of bipolar attachment is possible as the prime cause of BPD. That BPD is also a possible diagnosis from our understanding of Disorganised Attachment, too. thewaveclinic​

In Narcissistic Personality Disorder: The second mask becomes hyper-rigid. The person creates a grandiose false self and actively projects all shadow aspects (vulnerability, neediness, imperfection) onto others. This is Layer 2 masking at its most extreme, and the person is no longer just pruning their DNA-Self; they’re attacking it in others to prevent its emergence in themselves. jodiestevens​

In Avoidant Personality Disorder: The second mask could become one that enforces total withdrawal, which may be via self-policing. However, masks can be used to create the pretence of a gregarious, successful person, hiding the wearers fear of other people. That is one aspect of a person that has completely rejected themselves, they can pretend to be anyone else, even something they are not, the mask can help them, for a short while at least, overcome it. Hen e we have all those highly avoidant, yet married, men.

The Critical Role of Micro-Aggression

Attachment trauma doesn’t require overt abuse. Research shows that emotional neglect and micro-invalidations are sufficient to create disorganized attachment. Each micro-aggression: guilfordjournals​

• Prunes a DNA-Self trait (Layer 1)
• Adds a monitoring requirement (Layer 2): “I must watch myself to prevent that unacceptable trait from emerging”

Over years, this creates a self-surveillance system that is the personality disorder. The person is constantly scanning for their mask slipping in some way, revealing their secretly hate, “true-self”, which they have forgotten is false. They need to make sure that their hidden masked self does not emerge,  while simultaneously scanning others for acceptance cues. This is why personality disorders involve chronic hypervigilance and exhaustion, the known, visible mask, is usually logically unstable, and unsustainable. karger​

The Shadow’s Revenge

The pruned DNA-Self doesn’t disappear, it sabotages. When a genetic capacity for artistic expression is pruned, the motor patterns don’t vanish; they emerge as anxieties which prevent them from being an artistic success, and instead, might persuade them to become a depressed accountant. When genetic assertiveness is pruned, it may erupt as panic attacks in inappropriate contexts, where they feel they may be called upon to assert a boundary, for example.. These aren’t “symptoms”, they’re unintegrated neural circuitry trying to express itself through a mask that that forces it to oppose its own legacy, and gift. thesap​

This is why personality disorders are treatment-resistant: therapy tries to strengthen the hidden mask (the false self’s coping skills) while ignoring that the known mask is also a problem. True healing requires the dismantling of the known mask entirely and then re-integrating the pruned DNA-Self of the hidden mask, not just making the mask more functional.

This model explains what attachment theory only implies: personality disorders are attachment styles that have become impossible to maintain without self-betrayal.

References