What Is Basic Trust and How Does It Develop?

Basic trust is a mode of relating to the world and to other people that forms in childhood—or sometimes fails to form. What factors influence this process? What stages do we go through as we grow up? And why do people who struggled to trust themselves or their parents as children often find it difficult to communicate and build relationships as adults? Psychologist Dmitry Prokofiev helps us understand these questions.

Understanding Basic Trust

Many people feel shy or uncertain when meeting new people or joining a new group. Thoughts like “Will they accept me?” or “Will I like them?” are common. Usually, we manage to connect, but sometimes we fail to form the warm, trusting relationships we need. This is where the concept of “basic trust” comes in.

According to modern ethics dictionaries, trust is an attitude toward another person’s actions and toward the person themselves (a partner, colleague, or leader), based on confidence in their integrity, loyalty, honesty, and good faith. The opposite of trust is distrust or suspicion, where we doubt someone’s loyalty, sincerity, or willingness to uphold shared interests or agreements. Throughout human history, the need to work together has required mutual obligations—and, therefore, trust.

How Trust Develops in Childhood

Trust is built during all stages of a child’s development. If we look at Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, we can identify several key phases:

• Can I trust the world? (0-1 year)
  The child enters a world that isn’t always warm and safe. The first stage of trust formation begins: Does the mother (or father) accept the child? Does she provide the care the baby needs? The child has no way to communicate except by relying completely on the caregiver. If the caregiver is inattentive or unaccepting, the child starts to see the world as unsafe.
• Can I control my own behavior? (2-3 years)
  The child learns to walk, talk, and form opinions. They realize they’re not the center of the universe and that their caregiver has other responsibilities. The child constantly checks that the caregiver is nearby. Parents, often busy, may try to keep the child safe with devices like walkers or playpens, creating an illusion of safety without real involvement. This can disrupt the child’s sense of connection and make the world feel even less safe.
• Can I be independent? (4-5 years)
  At this stage, the child can walk and talk and is ready to interact with the world. Ideally, parents allow this contact. But often, parents reject the child’s attempts to help or do things independently, preferring to do things themselves. The child may then lose trust in their own abilities and feel that the world is hostile.
• Can I become competent enough to survive and adapt? (6-11 years)
  The child starts school, possibly already carrying some distrust of the world. School can reinforce this if teachers or peers are critical or if the child struggles to fit in. Without parental support, the child must adapt alone. Grades become a way to judge and be judged, and children may compensate for distrust by excelling academically or socially, sometimes at the expense of the other.
• Who am I? What are my beliefs and values? (12-20 years)
  Adolescence brings hormonal changes and the final formation of trust. If trust hasn’t developed, introverted teens may withdraw into the internet, where anonymity offers emotional safety. Extroverted teens may seek acceptance from peers, often disregarding parental authority. Unresolved trust issues can intensify conflicts with parents, and the adolescent may feel they can only rely on themselves, eroding their trust in the world.

Other Theories: Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

Other developmental theories show similar patterns. For example, Freud’s first two psychosexual stages:

• Oral Stage
  During feeding, the child is soothed by touch, rocking, and comforting words. These rituals reduce tension and become associated with pleasure. Here, attitudes toward the world—trust vs. distrust, dependence vs. independence—begin to form, as do the first skills of love.
• Anal Stage
  Parents use different approaches to toilet training. Flexible, encouraging parents foster positive self-esteem and stable relationships with the world. Strict or impatient parents can provoke protest, leading to negative traits like stinginess, excessive neatness, anxiety, or destructiveness, and strained relationships with the world.

These two of Freud’s five stages highlight the importance of early development in laying the foundation for trust in the world.

How Basic Trust Manifests in Adults

In adulthood, the ability to trust is reflected in how we interact with others. According to Eric Berne’s transactional analysis, people operate from three ego states: Parent, Adult, and Child. If trust was undermined during childhood crises, a person may function mainly from the Parent or Child states, with the mature Adult state underdeveloped. This can make it hard to engage authentically with others, as the person fears rejection or lacks self-trust.

Such individuals may always try to protect others or seek protection themselves. When joining a new group, they struggle to adapt, operating either as a controlling Parent or a dependent Child. They try to categorize others as either Parents or Children, but most people communicate from all three states, shifting roles fluidly. The person with impaired trust can’t keep up, missing or misinterpreting about a third of social cues.

As a result, not everyone develops a universal way of relating from all three positions. These individuals must search for partners who communicate in the two modes they understand. Often, only the “negative” sides of the Parent (demanding, always right, teaching others how to live) and Child (whiny, weak-willed, insisting on their own way) are expressed. This stems from self-doubt (“I can’t be myself”) or distrust of the world (“I’m not like others, I’m worse”). Disappointments accumulate, and the person concludes that the world doesn’t accept them, blaming others for their difficulties in forming close relationships. Relationships become formal and unemotional, and hope for breaking through this wall fades.

Only by recognizing and working through their emotions, and by wanting to change, can a person begin to overcome these challenges.