How Attachment Style Impacts Adult Relationships

Alrighty, everybody. Welcome to today's presentation on attachment and its impact on adult relationships. And you know, we could have, or I could have done a straight up attachment review of Bowlby's theory and kind of left it at that. But since most of us work with adults or adolescents, I figured I'd kind of try to carry it over into something that may make it useful. Now, not everybody agrees with attachment theory, but for those people who do, this will provide some information. And if you're kind of on the fence, this may provide some things to think about. We're going to briefly define attachment theory. Learn about the impact of attachment on our behaviors and relationships currently as well as later in life. Identify triggers for attachment behaviors. What makes somebody seek that attachment? Seek that nurturance, the closeness. Explore the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and attachment issues. Learn about adult attachment theory. Examine how attachment impacts emotional regulation and vice versa. And identify ways to help people become more securely attached. So yes, people can change their attachment style if they have an ineffective attachment style currently, Whether it started in infancy or there was a hiccup along the way and they started to become insecurely attached or ambivalently attached, there are things they can do to address that. So what is attachment theory? Attachment behaviors such as crying and searching are adaptive responses to separation from a primary attachment figure who is somebody who provides support, protection and care. Now, as adults, we don't usually cry, but we may search, we may long, you know, we may try to reach out to those people. Erikson postulated the periods of trust versus mistrust, that infancy period and autonomy versus shame and doubt up through toddlerhood occur during the same time period when children are developing their attachment with their primary caregiver. Maintaining proximity to an attachment figure via attachment behaviors increases the chance for survival. Well, it makes sense. You know, an infant who can't even crawl yet relies on a primary caregiver to keep them warm, keep them not too hot, to keep them fed, all those things. If that person goes away, that infant will die. So these attachment behaviors say, hey, don't forget me, don't leave me behind. And that's a good thing as the child gets a little bit older. I mean, even into toddlerhood, they can't cook for themselves. They can't, you know, wipe their own behinds. They can't draw their own bath yet. So there's still a lot of stuff, even after children become toddlers that they are reliant on their primary caregivers to do. They're feeding themselves by now. But we have to provide them the food. Most two year olds aren't going to go into the refrigerator and get something to eat. From this initial relationship, we learn how scary or safe the world is if we generally get our needs met. And this is why consistency in parenting is so important. If we generally get our needs met, we typically see the world, at least our microcosm of the world, as safe. And for children, they're not typically looking beyond their microcosm. They're not looking into the community, into the state. To children, what's in front of them is their world. So they're learning how safe it is, how nurturing it can be, and what it's like to be loved. What? When we're infants, one of the ways that, and small children, one of the ways that our primary caregivers express love to us or we feel loved and nurtured is because they meet our needs. We're uncomfortable for some reason. We're hungry, we're cold, we're scared, we're tired, whatever it is. And that primary caregiver makes that discomfort go away. And, you know, in our little brains, that's rewarded. And we go, oh, this is, this is a good thing. I want to keep this person around for a little while. So the attachment system essentially asks the following fundamental question. Is the attachment figure nearby, accessible and attentive? Now, those are three independent things. The person can be nearby, but completely consumed with their phone or with their drugs or drunk off their butt, or depressed and emotionally unavailable or anxious and emotionally unavailable. So, you know, the attachment figure has to be physically and emotionally present and attentive and accessible. If the answer is yes, the person feels loved, secure, confident, and behaviorally is likely to explore his or her environment and interact with others. If the child feels like, okay, this is a safe place, mom or dad has their eye on me, I got this. And even in preschool, if they feel like it's a safe place, if they feel like their preschool teacher has their back, they're going to be more likely to go out and venture into relationships and explore and try new things. If they feel like it's not a safe environment, if they're afraid of getting hurt or in trouble or something else unpleasant, they're not going to explore. They'll stay more withdrawn. So they need this secure launch pad to go from. If the answer is no, that the attachment figure is not available emotionally and physically, then the person experiences anxiety and is likely to exhibit attachment behaviors ranging from simple visual searching to active following and vocal signaling to the other Person. And again, let's stay with children right now. And you can see how this happens when the child is young. You know, I remember when my. When my kids were young, I used to just really wish for the day that I could go to the bathroom by myself. Because I'd go to the bathroom and I'd be in there with the door shut, not 30 seconds, and this little hand would come under the door. Mommy, you in there? Yes, I'm in here. What you doing? What do you think I'm doing? I'm in the bathroom. But the child was making sure that I was there and, you know, wanting to have that vocal verification. And since he couldn't see me, we were connecting through. Through sound. He was talking to me, and I was providing reassurance that I'd be out when I was finished with my business. And so he would feel more secure when he. As he got a little bit older and he started to trust once he was. Once started to develop object permanence and trust and stuff. You know, he would still do that for, you know, seemed like forever, but he would eventually toddle off. You know, he's like, okay, mom will be out in a little while. I'm going to go do something. When he was really young, he would stay right outside the door, which sometimes made it a little bit more difficult, but, you know, he would stay right there so he could hear and. And he knew that I was right there. These behaviors, these searching behaviors continue until either the person is able to re establish a desirable level of physical or psychological proximity to the attachment figure, which is a long way of saying they're going to keep doing it until they find their person and who's emotionally and physically available, or until the child wears down, you know, we see this, or I've seen this. I'm sure you have too. In children who are searching for their attachment figure, whether they're in preschool, maybe they go to preschool and they start crying for their caregiver, and their caregiver is gone, their caregiver is at work or whatever, and the caregiver doesn't come. So the child cries and cries and it inconsolable until eventually they cry themselves to sleep or they wear down. And you know, that's one of those examples of the person wearing down. And we see some other examples. We're going to talk about adult attachment theory later. But these behaviors are designed to try to provide the individual with a level of comfort and support. And we all need comfort and support, whether you're adult or an infant. We all need social support. It's one of our greatest buffers against stress. How loved or unloved we feel as children deeply affects the formation of our self esteem and our self acceptance. Okay, so let's think about why does that happen? Well, if we are infants and young children and our primary caregivers care enough in our minds because remember, children are very egocentric. What happens is about me. So if the primary caregiver doesn't care enough to feed us, to clothe us, to respond to us, well, it must mean we're not that important. It must mean we're not that lovable or something's wrong with us. If the primary caregiver is rejecting, that's even worse. So, you know, these interactions with this primary caregiver starts telling us, you know, about ourselves. Remember, children are egocentric and they're very dichotomous. They can't think in shades of gray. It's all or nothing. I'm either good or I'm bad. And it's about me. It's not about, you know, she's angry because I broke the lamp. It's, she's, she hates me. So we need to remember this because this is how the child is interpreting, forming this schema. Cognitively, they can't do anything else at this point. Well, later in life, you know, they can start challenging those schemas and recognizing that, you know, primary caregiver may not have been emotionally or physically available for some other reason besides you. It wasn't that you weren't good enough. It was something was going on with them. But children can't get that. Even if you tell them that, they can't wrap their head around it, especially young children and, you know, review your piaget in stages to start thinking about formal operational and concrete or concrete operational thought. But anyhow, so, you know, in this early period, our attachments shape how we seek love, if we seek it all. And whether we feel part of life or like an outsider, if every time we assert our needs it falls flat, then we kind of feel like an outsider. We feel like we're speaking a different language, nobody hears us. Think about if you've ever watched Ghost Whisperer and you know, the spirits, she's the only one who can see and communicate with them, and they desperately want to communicate and get some sort of feedback from their loved ones that are still alive, but they can't communicate through that plane, so they feel isolated. And if we engage those attachment behaviors, if we seek out someone, if we call to them and they respond Then we go, oh, okay, you know, if I call out to you and you respond, we've got a good connection. Now, there's a third category in there where the child has to throw a temper tantrum or really act out in order to get attention. So that's going to shape, theoretically, how they seek love and attention in the future. If asking for it and saying, hey, how you doing? I could use a hug, didn't get the job done. If the only way that child could engage the caregiver was by acting out or being dramatic, then that's probably. That's the behavior that's been reinforced. The other time I want you to consider is adolescence. When we individuate, when we go through that period of identity versus inferiority, I think, and we're figuring out who we are, what niche we fit in. This is, you know, high school, and high school can be tough. In what ways is adolescence in some way similar to infancy? Okay, so adolescents are developing a new sense of who they are. As infants, we're developing a sense of agency over our own body. We're figuring out, hey, we're human. This is my hand. Cool. In adolescence, we're figuring out who we are internally, if you will. So it's a rebirthing of sorts. We're individuating from our family, and we're developing our identities. So we're going to. As an infant, we're thinking, you know, if mom and dad responds to me, then that means I'm lovable. As adolescents, as we try on these different hats and these different Personas and identities, we're looking at where we get attention and how we get attention and. And whether that's going to be accepted, whether that makes us acceptable as adults. In adolescence, we want to know that we're seen and that we matter. Exactly. Karen. We want to know that people care for us because it's scary to individuate and to separate and all of a sudden become an adult. Oh, my gosh. Or even think about becoming an adult. That can be really scary. So we want to know that we've got supports. We want to know that we've got some security, a stable home base that we can go back to. And adolescence, remember, goes all the way up until, like, 24. So you've got that developmental period. You've also got to remember that the brain's impulse control centers don't fully develop until about 24 or 25. So, which is one of the reasons they put adolescents through 24 or 25. So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's going on. So the brain is still developing and the people, people's emotions and reactions can be a little bit more impulsive during this period. Which is why, you know, having a secure attachment is so helpful for emotional regulation. Somebody they can call on and they can lean on and they can go, you know, I need a little help here. So does attachment stop after infancy? Is the only attachment relationship that we're concerned about the one that Johnny had with his primary caregiver? Some say yes, some say no. So, you know, let's take a look at it. Consider the child that regularly didn't get their needs met, so they persisted with attachment seeking behaviors. If they're not getting their needs met from their primary caregiver, then they may act out at school in order to get attention, get somebody to pay attention to them and give them the structure that they need. Because children need structure. Now. They don't necessarily need a lot of structure, but children need to know that there's boundaries. Children need to know that somebody cares what they do. And there's a song in Annie that talks about that. She's talking about nobody cares where, whether we live or we die, basically. And it's important that children understand that somebody cares when they act out. You know, if their primary caregiver is not paying attention and meeting their needs, they're going to act out in some way. Those behaviors are eventually rewarded with attention. Because remember, negative attention is better than no attention. If you're not paying any attention to me and the only way I can get you to notice is by doing something that makes you mad, well then I'll do something that makes you mad because at least I know that ultimately you'll be there. I just have to push the right buttons. If the behavior is not rewarded, no matter what the child does, the child will stop seeking comfort from others, will often become just very withdrawn and hopeless. So how does this impact their self esteem if the child is not getting their needs met? Think, you know, put yourself in the mind of a 22 year old. You know, I don't want to try to put you in the mind of an infant, but you can try to do that if they're hungry and they're not getting their needs met. Now there's being hungry for a little while and your parent going, you know, we're going to eat in an hour, just chill out. But there's being hungry for hours and hours or days and days. There's, you know, if they're scared and their attachment figure is not providing any sort of comfort. How does that impact their self esteem, how they feel about themselves and their worthiness as humans? How does that affect their trust in other people? Because again, think back to. They're thinking globally at this point. It's all or nothing. So primary caregivers are generally the people who brought them into this world or the people who are responsible for them. At the very least, if you can't even get those people to meet your needs, if you can't trust them to protect you and keep you safe and fed and all that stuff, why should you trust anybody else? These people have a vested interest and they're not doing it. So it's very confusing to a child. And children, you know, obviously we don't tell them from the beginning, you know, I brought you into this world, I'm the one that's ultimately responsible for you, yada yada. An infant wouldn't understand that. But there's a connection between the child and the person with whom they spend the most time that develops and is important. And in that child's mind, it's like, well, if this person cares about me, then, you know, things are good. If this person doesn't, yeah, we might have a problem here. So how does that impact future relationships? Now we're assuming this goes unchecked, you know, and in future relationships, they haven't gone to counseling and learned that primary caregiver had major depressive disorder and was just emotionally unavailable or went to jail and couldn't be there. It didn't have to do with them. So they go on. They're in their first relationships and they realize or they still think that, you know, even my primary caregiver didn't think I was worthy of love. So, you know, these people are probably going to abandon me too. So I either need to keep up a wall to stay safe, or I need to cling on like nobody's business so they can't escape. All right, another scenario we can look at. Consider the adult who got their needs met as a child. You know, childhood was decent. You know, maybe not super rosy, not Warden June Cleaver, but it was decent. But in adult relationships, the person regularly doesn't get their needs met. Can this change their attachment style. To the answer to that question? You know, I could argue both sides of it. You know, if they've still got their parents who are there, or primary caregivers who are there and ultimately super responsive, and they can, you know, always return home, it may not have as bad of an impact. But you know, it also is important for us developmentally to be accepted by our peers. Not all of them, but we need some level of acceptance by our peers generally. That's just kind of the way we're wired. So if the adult is in relationships and regularly not getting their needs met, they're often going to start having self esteem issues, they're going to stop trusting other people and it may impact future relationships. So even if they're doing ostensibly the right things, if they're getting into unhealthy relationships, then it could impact their attachment style and they could stop trusting others as much and trusting themselves. So in 1987, Hazan and Shaver noted that the relationship between infants and caregivers and, and the relationship between adult romantic partners share the following features. Both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive. Now, it doesn't mean with a child they want their person to be right there in close proximity, same room, same house, same something. In adult relationships we don't have to have people quite that nearby. We want to know that we can contact our person, our significant other, and that person is going to be responsive. So nearby can mean, you know, a phone call away where they can come home. Both engage in close, intimate, bodily contact hugs. You know, it doesn't have to be sex, it can be, you know, hugs and sitting together and holding hands and those sorts of things. Both feel insecure when the other is inaccessible. Now, you know, again, there are degrees here because we don't want to have encourage people to get nervous if they can't, you know, they call their significant other and that person doesn't pick up the phone. You know, inaccessibility has degrees because we've got jobs and other stuff going on now. But if that person is, you know, drops off the face of the earth for, you know, two, three days, you know, we can get nervous. This. My husband's in, in Florida right now doing on a project and he's usually up by 5am our time. And I got up this morning and I texted him. Nothing, waited around, you know, I knew he got the text, you know, because. And he would eventually respond. But then by 7 o' clock our time, he still hadn't responded. And I started getting a little worried because he never sleeps in that late. Did I freak out? No. Did my anxiety go up a little bit? Yeah, because I was starting to wonder, I hope he's okay. And thinking about who I could call to go check on him if I hadn't heard from him by noon. But you know, it's important to recognize that what level of inaccessibility and anxiety over inaccessibility is healthy versus, you know, unhealthy? Both share discoveries with one another. You find things out and you're like, oh, well, let me tell you about both play with one another's facial features and exhibit a mutual fascination and preoccupation with one another. And this kind of waxes and wanes, but it waxes and wanes with children too. I mean, little children aren't, aren't always fascinated with your face and touching you and that kind of stuff, but you know, they are. They will look into your eyes, they will touch your face and do things about more and do things that are more intimate, if you will. And both engage in baby talk. And again, there's degrees of baby talk. But think about closed door intimate relationships. There's often some baby talk that happens, pet names, those sorts of things that that may occur. So these are the things that they noted in adult relation, intimate relationships as well as infant and caregiver relationships. How do your attachments with your romantic partners affect your attachments with other people in your life? If your attachment with your intimate partner is insecure, how does that affect how you attach to other people in your life? Your friends or co workers? And likewise, if it's secure, how does that affect those other relationships? And Pat points out that, yeah, over the time accessibility has changed. Back in my day when we had those old fashioned telephones, you know, people would go days, you know, they would go an entire day without talking, maybe even two. And that wasn't unusual. Today it's almost, if you go more than two or three hours, it can feel scary to some people because they're so used to being able to text, Snapchat, Instagram, do something to reach out to their significant other. So we're actually kind of promoting in some ways insecure attachment because we're creating an unrealistic standard in my opinion of how available somebody could be to you. And yes, Kelly points out that a lot of times your adult attachments are going to mirror your childhood attachments, which if you have a healthy childhood attachment, then hopefully you have a healthy adult attachment. If you have unhealthy childhood attachments and you've never questioned those lessons learned from that attachment relationship to recognize that it probably wasn't about you, then, yeah, you're probably going to have unhealthy attachments in adulthood. Now, if you had healthy attachments in childhood, but then something goes wrong, you develop major depressive disorder, substance abuse issues, Something like that, and you start getting into unhealthy relationships. Then again, your attachment style can kind of go from being secure because, you know, initially it was good, to insecure or ambivalent. And especially with people in substance abuse recovery, a lot of times their relationship with their primary caregivers becomes very, very strained before they actually seek help and recovery. So they've experienced tough love and other things where they may not trust their caregivers as much right now because they feel like maybe their caregivers have abandoned them. If adult romantic relationships are attachment relationships, and we're staying with that Hazan and Shaver study, then we should observe the same kinds of individual differences in adult relationships that Ainsworth observed, infant caregiver relationships. So we should observe those seeking behaviors. We should observe, you know, the desire to have contact with one another. I mean, think about it. You know, insecure attachments. If somebody's significant other goes on a business trip for a week, and when they come home, how warmly they're greeted. You know, initially when they leave, it's like, oh, I can't believe you're leaving. I'm sad. Then they get on with their life, and then a week later, you know, the person returns and they're greeted with warmth. Same sort of thing with children who are securely attached. You drop them off at preschool and they're sad at first. They're like, mommy, don't go. And then, you know, they go on and have a great day. And when you return, they smile and greet you and may not even run over to you right away. They may wave to you from the swing and go, hey, I'll be done in a minute. And it's a good thing to see that, you know, it's hard for parents at first. At least it was hard for me. The first day my son went to preschool, he cried and I cried. And the second day my son went to preschool, he felt very secure there. So he just took his teacher's hand that day, waved to me. Second day, he said, bye, bye, mommy. See you at three. And I cried again, not in front of him, but because he was just like, okay, I know how this is going to work. You're going to be back at three. I'm good with it. So we want to pay attention to how people react. The way adult relationships work should be similar to the way infant caregiver relationships work. If this is true, if we're forming new attachments in adult life, it's not just that primary attachment. So the same kinds of factors that facilitate exploration in children, such as having a responsive caregiver often facilitate exploration among adults. Having a responsive partner so think about, you know, when, you know, maybe when you decided to change careers or go back to school or make some big change, buy a house, you know, you don't do it on your own. You generally seek consult from your, you know, responsive partner. What do you think about this? You don't necessarily always agree on everything. I didn't agree with my parents on everything when I was little either. But it makes us feel better if we've got some trusted person that weighs in on issues and serves as kind of a secure base to support us through our journey. Whether an adult is secure or insecure in his or her adult relationships may be a partial reflection of his or her experiences with her primary caregivers during infancy or even later in life. So that primary attachment is formed in infancy, but then if things go wonky in middle school, the child could, you know, again change their attachment because they may not understand what's going on. Certain kinds of events trigger a desire of closeness and comfort from others. And I want you to think while I'm talking about this, how we see this in our adult clients. So conditions of the person. When a child is tired, hungry, sick, in pain, cold, etc. They are going to seek that attachment figure, you know, they'll be at a play date and if they fall down and skin their knee, they run to mom or you know, whoever's there. Primary caregiver. If they are sick, generally they want to crawl up in their caregivers lap. At least mine did, you know. So when they are tired, you know, that's when they start pulling on that ear and wanting to be held all the time, seeking that comfort from the caregiver. In substance abuse recovery we have the acronym hungry, angry, lonely and tired. So conditions of the person that can trigger anxiety and potential relapse can be, you know, if they are hungry and hungry can mean a lot of different things. But sometimes people make poorer decisions when their blood sugar is low. My husband has hypoglycemia and I can tell you he can be kind of cranky if he's not getting, if he doesn't eat, if his blood sugar is low, he tends to not think things through and can be a lot more impulsive. If people are lonely, they can seek attention kind of from anywhere. If they are lonely, the first thing they're going to do is seek their primary attachment. And if they can't reach that, if that's not there, then they May either escalate their attachment seeking behaviors or go somewhere else. Conditions involving the caregiver or significant other, if the person is absent, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. But we tend to miss people when they're absent, if they're departing. And this is more for, for kids. But again, it's true. If you know your significant other is going to be deployed for 18 months, you know, it can trigger that attachment. You can want to spend more time with that person before they leave. You can want to hold on to them so they can't go, even though you know they have to go. Discouraging of proximity. If your caregiver's, you know, kind of pushing you away, then that can trigger attachment behaviors. If they're like, you cannot be texting me all day at work. That can increase anxiety in people. Or if they're giving attention to somebody else. And this can be true even if the adult person in an adult relationship is giving attention to a child, the other adult can get jealous and start exhibiting attachment behaviors. So we want people to be aware of these. They're not necessarily abnormal reactions, but we want them to be aware of what they're doing and take a look at the best way to fulfill their needs and conditions of the environment. If there's an alarming event, maybe there was a break in two doors down, you might sleep a little extra close to your partner that night. Or, you know, kids might sleep in mom and dad's room that night or that week. Or if you experience criticism or rejection by others, then you may go back to that secure base and go, yeah, I'm needing some help with these wounds right now. I'm not feeling so good. Adverse childhood experiences, abuse of any sort and neglect of any sort. Of communicate to the child that something is wrong with you and communicate to the adult that something is wrong with you. Think about survivors of domestic violence that we work with. You know, their self esteem has gone way down. Their trust in other people has gone way down. So we want to look at the impact of abuse and how it affects people's willingness to and ability to connect. You know, if you replace the word attach with connect, their willingness and ability to connect with other people in a meaningful way. If there's a family member who's diagnosed with depression or any other mental illness, addicted to substances or in prison, that means the person is either emotionally or physically unavailable. So the child again will often blame themselves. Why is mommy depressed? What did I do? How can I make it better? Why isn't Mommy wanting to play with me. Or if they're addicted, you know, the parent may just be so strung out that they are not able to focus on the child. I've worked with far too many families where the child would watch the parent use until they passed out. Then the child who is elementary school age would tuck the parent in on the sofa or whatever and then put themselves to bed. So in those situations, the parent was not a secure home base. The parent was essentially another child in that relationship. And if a parent is in prison, a lot of young children don't really understand prison or why the parent made whatever choices they made that landed them in prison. And they may be angry at the parent or caregiver thinking, I can't trust that you're going to come home because you're locked up. You know, you chose to do something wrong to make a bad choice. And kids don't understand why that happened. If they witness a parent being abused, then it impacts their trust of other people or if they lose a parent to separation, divorce, or for other reasons. Now these are considered, these were measured in the ACEs study. And I do want to point out repeatedly and emphatically that not everybody who experiences any of these is doomed to insecure attachments. You know, people can survive abuse and neglect and come out the other end stronger. People can grow up in a household where there is a primary caregiver with a mental illness and have secure attachments. People can have secure attachments even if their parents get separated or divorced. Sometimes it's better for the children for the primary caregivers to separate as opposed to being violent and antagonistic in the household. So, you know, these things can contribute to later life difficulties and they can contribute to people's ability and willingness to trust and connect with others and impact their self esteem. But how much it does is partially dependent on the person, partially dependent on other people that are in that person's lifestyle, and partially dependent on, you know, if we can provide enough resources out there to bolster their experiences, if we can provide secure, safe places in schools and in libraries and other places where they feel accepted, we can buffer some of this. So your attachment styles, I've mentioned these a couple of times. We're just going to define them real quickly. Avoid infants, avoid the parent. Now, infants, sometimes before they can crawl, can't get away, can't go like, oh, so they may direct their vision away from the parent. They can't look at the parent in the face, they don't want to connect, they may cower or Tense up when the parent tries to hold them. Avoidant adults are somewhat uncomfortable being close to other people. They find it difficult to trust other people completely and to allow themselves to depend on others or let anyone get too close. So what kinds of things might have happened in this person's childhood and upbringing that brought them to this point? One of the things that can happen, or one of the main things that causes avoidant relationships is when adults that were responsible for your care didn't meet your needs. You know, you just learned that you thought you were supposed to trust them and you trusted them and nothing. So they either caused pain or failed to protect. So then you may avoid them because you're afraid that they're going to abandon you or, or not take care of you. Resistant and ambivalent infants either passively or actively show hostility toward the primary caregiver. And this can be crying. It can be oppositional behavior. Anxious, ambivalent adults often worry that their partner doesn't really love them or won't want to stay with them and want to merge completely with that other person. And this desire sometimes scares people away. So we see this need to connect, this need to control. Secure infants often cry briefly when the parent leaves, but it's consolable, greeting the parent warmly upon return. Secure adults find it easy to get close to others and are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them. They don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to them. So I want you to think about this as sort of your treatment plan goal. This is where we want people to be. We need to help them develop consistency, emotional and physical consistency in their relationships. And what I found in a lot of relationships with people who aren't securely attached is they don't get their emotional needs met because A, they don't know what they are, and B, they don't communicate them. They may have learned from prior relationships not to communicate or they just never learned how to communicate their needs. So since their significant other can't read their mind, they don't get their needs met. Then they feel abandoned and frustrated. So we want to help people become mindful and learn to communicate their needs, their emotional and physical needs. We all need unconditional positive regard for secure attachments. We, we need to know that we're loved for who we are, even though we make mistakes, because we all make mistakes. We all fail at things, and we need to know that, you know what? That's okay. Learn from it. Pick yourself up. I'm here to support you. In moving forward. And we need comfort, support, and encouragement. We need to know that it's okay to have feelings, you know, when we're scared, when we're angry, even if it seems irrational to that other person for them to say, all right, you know, I recognize that you're feeling scared or angry, and that's okay. You know, instead of fighting with the feeling, accepting it, that radical acceptance, and then saying, all right, what do we need to do to improve the next moment? But acknowledging your feelings and helping you become more authentic. So emotional regulation, attachment. Remember I said our relationships are our greatest buffers against stress? Well, so attachment, if we're securely attached, then we're probably going to have better emotional regulation. Because any of those things that trigger attachment behaviors are typically things that are triggering anxiety. You know, the fight or flight response in the person. So if there's a triggering condition, something triggers that fight or flight response, provokes anxiety. So the person, infant, adult, whatever, seeks closeness to that primary caregiver or partner. If the partner responds negatively or the primary caregiver says, go away or just doesn't respond, then it increases insecurity and anxiety in the person who's probably going to go back and seek even more closeness to that partner. You know, please pay attention. And we've seen this, we see this a lot in children when the parent doesn't respond to their needs and then they get more anxious. So then they go back and they start crying even louder or throwing even more of a tantrum to just try to get that parent or caregiver to give them the attention and take them out of that scary situation. In avoidance styles, there's that triggering condition, then the anxiety seeking closeness to that attachment figure. The attachment figure responds negatively, which increases insecurity and anxiety. Now, the difference here, eventually this person just gives up on getting a positive response because nothing seems to be working and they just feel like they're a fish out of water. So they begin with finding some way to suppress their anxiety and distance themselves from the situation. Well, as from other people. It's like, okay, if you're not going to be there for me, I don't need you around. So then they resume everyday activities because they suppressed it somehow. Didn't say they coped with it, they suppressed it. And then, you know, the cycle begins again. Final one we're going to look at is the secure one. And this is what we hope to happen. There's a triggering condition. The person is sick. The person is scared. The person is something. Anxiety sets in. They seek closeness to their primary caregiver. Their primary caregiver responds positively. Hallelujah. The person gets some sort of comfort, they get a hug, they get an understanding word. It doesn't have to be anything huge, but they have that recognition. And all of a sudden it's two against the problem instead of one. This reduces or eliminates the anxiety. The person's like, okay, you know, with you in my corner, I think I can handle this. They handle the situation. And then the next time a triggering condition comes along, the cycle repeats itself. So can people have different attachment styles to different people who are significant in their life? Can you have a secure attachment to your child but ambivalent towards your spouse, anxious towards your friend, and, I don't know, secure towards your parent? Okay, everybody seems to agree, yes, with that because it depends on how they respond. And if you've had friends, for example, if you. Well, if you've had family members who respond and give you that attention or when and that support when you need it, then you learn that you can trust relatives, you can trust your family. If you've got friends who you've tried to rely on and they just haven't been there for you, start starting to think, well, maybe the only people I can rely on is family, because friends I can't trust. And, you know, so on and so forth. So changing your attachment style. Build self esteem. To encourage the person to begin seeing themselves as lovable. You know, they've gotten a lot of messages from the reactions of others. And one of the things I do with my clients is to have them identify, you know, what others have done and what message, what words they put to that. If somebody was late to dinner, you know, they had planned a dinner out and that person was late, or if somebody didn't return a text message or forgot your birthday or whatever, that's an event. We interpret that event and we put words in it. So what words did you assign to that? What did that mean to you when that person did that? I start helping them see how they're interpreting it. And then we explore, you know, well, was it really about you? Or, you know, is it more about that other person? Encourage the person to practice, practice acceptance of themselves and others and to become less fault finding, which is a tall order for codependents and distancers because people who are codependent are expecting the other person to need them. They need to be needed. So they're going to have to find fault in that other person. Distancers need to know that there's something wrong with that other person or they might risk getting close. So they're going to find fault in them. So we want to try to start doing less fault finding, more just focusing on the present. Encourage people to take calculated risks to get outside of their comfort zone, including intimacy building, so they can learn how strong they are. Back in the 70s, Gloria Gaynor had a song called I Will Survive. And I listened to that when I was creating this presentation and got it stuck in my head for like three days. But I digress. We want people to take risks, take risks forming friendships. You know, it doesn't have to be, you know, super intimate right away, but sometimes people have walled them off, walled themselves off from others so much that they're sort of frozen solid. So I want them to start thawing out a little bit. Let's take some risks with, you know, friendships and then maybe significant others, etc. And that may include sharing with others how you feel, which is really risky and makes people feel really vulnerable sometimes. Get healthy to nurture emotional stability and strength. In dbt we talk about vulnerability prevention. If the body has enough rest and the building blocks to make the neurotransmitters it needs for relaxation and stuff, and you're getting enough sunlight so your circadian rhythms are set, you're not going to be as vulnerable to emotional upheaval when you're sick, when you're tired, when you're hungry, when you're feeling just fatigued, it's going to be harder to deal with life on life's terms. You're going to feel more anxiety. And typically that's when we start chicken littleing. If you will develop emotional regulation and distress tolerance skills. So you learn how to de escalate when you start to get upset. And the person also learns how to tolerate distress, like not being able to access their attachment figure. You know, if their attachment figures in a meeting, you know, it may be two, three hours, maybe a whole day before that person could get back to them. So help them develop those distress tolerance skills so they don't start freaking out at the first sign that somebody doesn't respond like that. Increase insight and understanding by identifying when and why you're using unhelpful relationship strategies. So have the person really look over past relationships that have had hiccups. You know, they can be current relationships that are having hiccups and identify what strategies they're using and any unhelpful attachment behaviors they may be doing, like cyber stalking somebody or texting them 47 times a day or whatever the case may Be and talk about, you know, why are you doing that and what else could you do instead in order to meet that need? So if they're doing it because they feel insecure, they're afraid that partner is going to abandon them. Well, okay, let's. And we're going to talk about challenging questions in a second. Let's look at how helpful that line of thinking is and, and what are some other ways you could handle that distress? Encourage them to increase mindfulness. Become aware of what their needs are and why. You know, if they are reacting to something in the present or if they're reacting to something in the past. You know, if this particular person has always been, you know, Johnny on the spot, very dependable, yada yada, but they still just are convinced the person's going to abandon them. You know, we want to ask them, are you reacting to present information or projecting stuff from the past onto this relationship? To take sort of a psychodynamic approach. Encourage the person to learn to be assertive and authentic. They need to be able to state what they want and what they need assertively, not aggressively, not passively, just assertively, and be authentic. So if they have a preference, they can state their preference without fearing rejection. Which is why we started out with building self esteem, because it's hard to be assertive and authentic if you're worried about rejection all the time. So we need to kind of do these things together. Encourage the person to stop reacting and learn to resolve conflict and compromise from a we perspective. So when there is a conflict, instead of expecting that this person's going to undermine you or abandon you, yada yada, let's look at dialectics. You know, how could this conflict, how could you both be right? You know, just because you disagree on something doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of the world. You both could be right from your own perspectives. Learn how to create a win win. You know, help people learn when they're in relationships, it's not always going to go their way. So how can you compromise and create a win win? Going on vacation, for example, you know, maybe your partner wants to go to the beach and you want to go to the mountains. You know, it's a vacation. You're both having a vacation. So let's talk about what you're seeking out of your vacation and how can you create a win win, you know, maybe getting a cabin on a lake instead of the beach so he can go out and do water sports and you can, you know, still have the mountains or whatever. But figuring out how to compromise and make it beneficial for both people and Challenging Questions Attachment problems often arise out of past traumas. These traumas may have contributed to thinking errors where we experience people to abandon us or we expect that people are not trustworthy. So when people start getting nervous and feeling like they need to exert those attachment seeking behaviors, which you know, can border on stalking, sometimes we want to have them examine, you know, what is my belief? Why am I feeling the need to so aggressively pursue this person? What are the facts for and against my belief in this context? That means for this person and this situation, like I said before, sometimes this context may be perfectly safe, but we're taking stuff that we learned from other relationships and putting it in this relationship, expecting that person to behave the way our first boyfriend did or our parents did, or whatever the case may be. So what are the facts in the now, am I using emotional or factual reasoning? So just because, you know, John didn't return your text and you felt anxious, you know, doesn't mean that he's ignoring you and rejecting you. Emotional reasoning means that you felt anxious because John didn't return your text. Therefore you figure there must be something to be anxious about. Factual reasoning says you felt anxious when John didn't return your text. And then you looked at the facts and tried to figure out whether there was an objective reason to be nervous. Had the person ask themselves what other factors may have contributed to this? Or what are some other explanations if John didn't return your text? Maybe he was in a meeting, maybe the battery on his phone died. Maybe, you know, what are three other explanations? And are you using extreme words? You know, if John doesn't return one text, you know, normally he returns them like Johnny on the spot, and this time he didn't return one text and you say, you know, he never returns my texts or whatever, that's kind of extreme. That's blowing one particular situation out. So, you know, some other examples we might look at. If John has recently started working late a lot, you know, his significant other might start getting nervous and exhibiting those attachment behaviors, you know, I don't know why you've started working late a lot. So what's your belief? And if the person says, you know, I'm worried that he's having an affair, okay, what are the facts for and against this belief with this person? Maybe other people have cheated on you, you know, I don't know. But with this person, with John, you know, what are the facts for and against it? Do you have any proof that he's been cheating on you. You have any evidence of what's going on? Are you using factual reasoning? What other factors might contribute or other explanations might there be? Sometimes people start working late a lot because they're getting ready for a promotion or there's a big project they've got to finish, or maybe they need to earn some overtime money because you're getting ready to buy a new house or something. So those are all things we kind of go through on the Challenging questions worksheet to help people work through and examine their anxiety. So attachment theory was first proposed by Bowlby as an adaptive survival function for helpless infants. Bowlby proposed that the infant caregiver relationship was the relationship that all future relationships would be built from. People's self esteem develops from and is impacted by how loved and secure they feel. So this initial relationship, this initial attachment, yes, it does have an impact, but it doesn't have to form the foundation for all future relationships. People can change their attachment style. People can learn from their past and once they get to that place where they can use more, more abstract, formal, operational thought, they can understand that it wasn't necessarily about them. Adults show similar attachment behaviors to their significant others, more or less appropriate for their age. So you know, obviously like this little part on talking baby talk to one another, you know, that's probably going to be just in private and it's not going to be goo goo gaga. It may be pet names and other silly things. Children on the other hand obviously are using that language because that is their language at that point. Attachment styles can be changed by developing self esteem, emotional regulation skills, self awareness of what you need in order to ask for it, what's triggering your anxiety in order to address it and work through it. Interpersonal skills such as healthy boundaries, you know, instead of being enmeshed or detached, you know, what does a healthy relationship look like? Boundary wise communication skills to help inform the other person what you need so you don't have to, you know, go to all kinds of lengths trying to act it out. This is not Pictionary or you know, whatever that game is. You know, we're not trying to get people to guess what we're thinking. We need to just tell them outright. And we want to help people develop self confidence, self confidence that they're lovable, that you know things are going to go okay and that even if a hiccup happens in the road, they can handle it and that they are responsible and they are capable of protecting themselves. Now is that what they want? Do they want to break up from their relationships. No, nobody wants to break up. But if it happens, it will not kill them. And this self confidence that you know what? I can do it, I will survive even if I don't have this person in my life is really important for clients to think about.