Epistemic trust
Attachment theory’s new wave gets socio-political
Charles Manson appears in court in 1969 after forming a cult known as the Family. Followers were ordered to commit a series of brutal murders
A youth leader struggles to get any sense of rapport with a teenaged girl. Meanwhile, they overhear this girl speaking admiringly about her new male friend who is a known drug dealer. Based on a single meeting, she describes the boy in glowing terms as wise above his years.
A voter casts his ballot for a leader believing whole heartedly that they are a good person, despite a list of convictions for dishonesty and antisocial behaviours across various domains of their life.
A woman who had an abusive childhood is finally in therapy with a therapist who has 20 years’ experience. In their fifth session, there is silence and stuckness. The client’s experience is entirely that the therapist is setting them up to fail. The therapist, struggling to find a way forward, is starting to believe it is true.
What do these three scenarios have in common? They all might be connected with epistemic trust – a growing concept in the spheres of attachment and personality disorders. Attachment theory has helped us understand the importance of the early caregiver relationship. But a new line of research that recently celebrated its first decade has uncovered a completely different function of this crucible of human development. This article is based on my notes from a conference presenting this research.
Over the last 50 years, symptoms of personality disorder in adults created an urgency with which we have needed to understand how emotional and relational dysregulation develops. Ultimately, this led to a resurgence of attachment research with a lot of detail added to the original theory outlined by Bowlby and Ainsworth. We now understand how attachment trauma in childhood can compromise adult self-regulation and relationships.
But if we look at western society today, there is a new kind of urgency. We need to understand how in adults, discernment about sources of social knowledge goes wrong. Conspiracy theories wreak havoc. Negotiated scientific knowledge is devalued by non-negotiated unaccountable voices. Countries are split in two about whether a leader is a source of common-sense wisdom, or a fraud. In the past, those labelled as cult leaders were gurus of niche spiritual groups. For some parts of the world, this is less of a novelty. But in the west, we now think in these terms about national leaders. And those who follow them are described as bewitched masses.
Attachment theory showed us that the infant human needs a secure attachment not only to get its emotions regulated. It needs a secure attachment in order to develop the capacity to regulate its own emotions – either by itself or in adult attachments. In our early attachments we learn how to regulate ourselves, learn to trust our emotions to the right degree and learn to trust others to respond. Till now, attachment theory has focussed on the secure attachment having this one basic function.
But this new concept in town – epistemic trust – is not about regulating emotions or relationships. In parallel with this, there is a different kind of development that psychology has taken much longer to notice. As human beings we learn how to manage our emotions, and with whom. But we also develop a capacity to choose those from whom to receive social and cultural knowledge. And this is what epistemic trust is about.
I find epistemic trust a slightly slippery concept to get hold of. It can be defined as the ability to identify those from whom helpful social and cultural knowledge can be learned. It is not so much the acquisition of cultural and social knowledge. It is the ability to select who to follow and who to learn from. And who to be sceptical about.
Ways of defining epistemic trust:
Trust in the authenticity and relevance of information shared
The intergenerational transmission of accumulated cultural and social knowledge
During childhood, a belief in the caregiver specifically as a benevolent and competent provider of knowledge.
Epistemic trust induces a receptive state of mind with regards to social information specifically.
The ability to discriminate between competing offers of information
An ability to discern who to be inspired by, who to follow and who to imitate.
Resilience in the face of deceiving influences. This implies a rejecting of those who offer misinformation and disinformation.
Ways of defining epistemic mistrust or vigilance:
Mistrust is scepticism about the process of acquiring social knowledge. This is a protective stance against being open to all influence and may be the infant’s default that needs to be overcome through secure attachment.
Chronic mistrust leads to strategies that perpetuate mistrust, through isolation and lack of meaning.1
In a secure childhood attachment, the caregiver is marked out, by their empathy and interest and a load of non-verbal cues that are now much better understood. They are marked not just as someone to be comforted by, but also as someone to listen to. As one author puts it, the secure attachment opens up an “epistemic superhighway”, turning off the protective shield of epistemic vigilance2. This allows the downloading of cultural and social data. If this relationship is adverse or abusive, there is no experience of this ideal condition. Not only is the data not received, but the markings of a helpful source become confused.
It’s easy to see perhaps how an adverse childhood can lead to epistemic mistrust. In research so far this adult mistrust has been proportional to early relational trauma.1 The child grows up with a dilemma about who to attach to as sources of authentic knowledge. Its intuitive to imagine the adult who is paranoid about who to believe. The person who has given up having faith in leaders, and authority. But epistemic trust and epistemic mistrust are only two of three broad outcomes. There is another extreme: epistemic credulity. This could also be called hyper epistemic trust, or perhaps faith without discernment.
It is not difficult to see the relevance of epistemic trust to the field of social media, politics, and their combinations. We can hope that the idea of epistemic credulity might help us understand the cult follower, the attraction of the conspiracy theory and the success of the authoritarian dictator. Whilst some look on and see seduction and the lack of credibility, others invest heavily. And then on another day, perhaps these roles are reversed. How might the epistemic trust explanation work? Firstly, the seductive leader has learned (consciously or unconsciously) how to mark themselves implicitly as an attachment figure. Perhaps they contrast themselves, without the need for evidence, with another kind of figure who has been a let-down, or who has deceived. Perhaps they imply a level care and provision to us, that leaves (finally, we hope) no room for uncertainty. The follower of the seductive leader is vulnerable to both epistemic vigilance and credulity, depending on the kinds of cues and characteristics they pick up on. Narcissism, associated with self-idealisation and power, might seek and nurture credulity in others.
These are questions for the next ten years. And within this time, the terminology of epistemic mistrust and credulity may be used well and remain specific, or it may be used to serve a diversity of purposes. As knowledge, this concept itself may become devalued.
So epistemic trust itself is about the conditions for receptivity and the internalising of helpful social knowledge. When a newly named concept comes along, there are often older concepts that overlap. When the activities that transmit attachment security and emotional regulation were named mentalizing, the overlap with empathy was acknowledged. So what does epistemic trust overlap with? Is this about the receiving of wisdom, (“this is how we deal with and think about this difficult neighbour”) as opposed to factual information (“that strawberry is still green – it’s not ready to eat”)?
This is meant to be a quick overview of a new concept. If you want to read more about attachment theory Molly Sayers wrote a great article last week. If you want to link this more to the idea of discernment, Nathalie Martinek PhD has written about this here.
A hundred years ago the huge and expensive printing press (and its owner) stood as a gate keeper of what constituted knowledge. A hundred years ago the division between reason and delusion in society was thought to be the door of the asylum. We seem now to be in an age in which intellectually successful adults can display what sounds like paranoia, and at other times a kind of idealisation. In an age of narcissism, hopefully this particular emerging knowledge will not be too late to help.
Epistemic trust is also about optimal human development
Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own unless otherwise stated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution I have been employed by. The content here is for information and should not be interpreted as advice.
Notes
1. Epistemic Trust in Psychotherapy Conference (March 2025). University College London
2. Fonagy, P. & Allison, E. (2014). The role of epistemic trust in the therapeutic relationships. Psychotherapy, 51(3). 372.
Great stuff. I echo Leah's comments. I find these considerations essential in trying to understand youth offending because not all young offenders have a traumatic family background, although it's common. Some have chosen to make meaning, trust and connections in places that do not serve their wellbeing. We need deeper understandings around this to be more helpful in interventions.
This is so timely and so needed. Thank you for taking the time to convey this concept so thoughtfully and thoroughly. It should be read, re-read and referred to often. It is very helpful indeed, and a great launching point for deeper consideration.