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Conversely, one can see that intrauterine or birth trauma coupled with an insecure attachment history can be a devastating combination. With an insecure attachment, the brain and body do not feel "safe" and the modulation by the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex is skewed. To make matters worse, many times, the devastating and longterm deficits of an insecure attachment are not easy to get in touch with therapeutically. Insecure attachment is typically a "developmental" wounding or trauma verses the single incident trauma of birth.

Thus, this increased difficulty to access therapeutically, is partially due to the fact that the brain encodes emergency trauma differently than it does developmental damage over time. When the organism feels its survival is at immediate stake or  "life and death" (such as at birth) the imprinting is more pronounced verses the memory encoding of on-going daily neglect or emotional disconnection that is the unfortunate legacy of a poor or insecure attachment. However, just as in a traumatic birth, the body has memories or specific signatures of this parental neglect, lack of touch, over stimulation, or incapacity to emotionally connect.

One of the key points to remember is that attachment history is similar to other preverbal events in that it is also encoded implicitly .The hippocampus is not yet developed and language is not fully operational until after the attachment processes critical period has passed. Therefore, similar to the birth process and intrauterine experiences, tracking of insecure attachment "signatures" is initially done through the body. Only then, can the right and left hemispheres integrate the experience allowing the labeling and naming of the specifics to take place. From there the adult brain can place time and context to the phenomenon thus allowing healing on a deep permanent level to occur.

The good news is that with work change can occur. Once again, Primal Therapy believes in going to the source or origins and also has the necessary therapeutic techniques to aid in a person's healing.  Relationships in the present are essential to recovery from a poor attachment In fact, when properly done, the therapeutic relationship in counseling in many ways mirrors healthy attachment and aids clients in their healing. Other emotionally connected adult relationships provide a foundation for healing and when coupled with good therapy, people make remarkable progress and recovery.