Embarking on the journey of fostering security in relationships can be transformative. It's about understanding the dynamics of trust, communication, and emotional intelligence. Let's delve into the art of cultivating stronger bonds and nurturing a sense of safety and stability in your relationships.
Your attachment style has its roots in your childhood
Attachment science is based on the work of the British child psychologist John Bowlby and his colleagues in the 1950s
- Humans have a deep-seated need for love and nurturance from their parents or other carers, and if this care is absent or unreliable, it can lead to long-term problems
- Ultimately, your attachment style shapes how much you trust others, whether you fear abandonment, and whether you keep your distance from others – or push them away – to avoid intimacy
- The science of attachment does not explain everything about our relationships, and it’s not without its critics
- On balance though, as practising psychotherapists, we believe that attachment theory remains a useful shorthand to help us navigate our relationships and change our behavior in ways that will make our lives more fulfilling
Working on your attachment style in therapy
A therapist can help you shift from an insecure to a more secure style of attachment by drawing on the following core principles:
- Promoting your hope and expectation that therapy can help
- Establishing a good working relationship with you
- Helping you become more aware of what causes your attachment difficulties
- Encouraging you to engage in ‘corrective experiences’: encouraging and supporting you to do things differently, to learn something new or unexpected – especially in those areas of life you find most uncomfortable to confront
- Practising ongoing reality testing: supporting you in creating that virtuous circle
Links & Books
Attached (2010) by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
- Good Will Hunting (1997) explores avoidant attachment in male relationships
- Frozen (2013) offers a neat example of how we can change our attachment styles with our kids
- The song “I Am a Rock” by Paul Simon captures the concept of avoidingant attachment
- Start making music
- Learn to play an instrument or learn to sing
What to do
Identify your current attachment style
- The first step in understanding why you behave the way you do in relationships
- Take an online test and select which of these four statements you feel best describes you
- Secure – easy for me to become emotionally close to others
- Anxious
- I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like, and I am uncomfortable being without close relationships.
- Avoidant
- I am comfortable without close emotional relationships because I prefer not to depend on others and I prefer to be independent
- Disorganized
- I find it terrifying and chaotic to trust others and find it difficult to find emotional intimacy with others.
Key points
How to be more secure in your relationships
- Your attachment style has its roots in your childhood
- Identify your current attachment style
- Understand the four attachment styles
- Examine the attachment styles of those you love
- Work towards changing your attachment style
