Our Internal Working Model influences what we expect of and from ourselves, others and the world in general, and greatly influences how we respond to others in relationships.
The infant who experiences secure attachment from conception to birth, from birth through infancy and early childhood, and who continues to experience it through late childhood/adolescence etc. is likely to develop a positive IWM which will engender trust in others and self.
This will prevail when the child is older even if the attachment figure is not there and the child is experiencing some distress.
On the other hand, an ongoing, enduring insecure disorganised attachment experience is likely to develop a model that is distrustful of self and others, fearful of intimacy and affection, feeling unloved and undeserving of love, and may grow up to be dependent, and low in self-esteem as an adult.
Crucially, the expectation that the attachment figure will not be available when needed is carried into adulthood, and (in the disorganised case) this will often be aggravated by accompanying dissociation, which is also carried into adulthood.
This is because a child learns very quickly in childhood what is permitted and forbidden in the culture of the family.
A curious dance of care-giving and care-seeking takes place between the adult and child where the adult (who alternates from care giver to care seeker quite a bit) is comforted by the tender type feelings which contact with the child arouses.
Allied to this, we need to remember that children tend to protect their parents.
Children sometimes do this consciously, but it is mostly done unconsciously. If I, as a child become aware that I have power to comfort, or protect an adult, I can begin to take on the role of rescuer in life in general. But this role is countered by my innate need to be cared for, so a desire to punish the person who should be doing the caring can grow in parallel with a desire to rescue.
All these feelings are far too contradictory for me to cohere or integrate (or even accept) in my infant/child conscious awareness, so my emotions (and, of course, my cognitive memories) remain in my unconscious.
When, as an adolescent or adult, I encounter stress, my disorganised attachment system is triggered. Because of my insecure IWM, my emotional reactions to distressing experiences may be made even more painful by my expectation that my need for comfort 1): will not be met at all, or 2): will induce a negative reaction in the person from whom I seek comfort.
Recurring similar experiences can lead to a life out of touch with my real self, as my false self (i.e. the dissociated self) that I have become accustomed to since childhood and that I have needed, and still need for my protection, becomes the norm.
Sometimes phobias and unreasonable fears have a trauma, and/or an avoidant, ambivalent, disorganised attachment root. The false self or dissociated self chooses an element of life that can be avoided, but with some difficulty or discomfort, and then transfers fears onto that element because it is easier to do that than to live with the totality of the fear.
For example if I develop an unreasonable fear of heights I can choose to live in a bungalow, and avoid holidays that involve the Eiffel Tower.
Sometimes phobias or unreasonable fears can be harmless and do not cause any discomfort or pain —- but often they do!