Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life. My name is Iman Tohami and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories. And you know what? You're absolutely right. I'm so sloppy lately. So what I do right now, please don't laugh, but you already have to imagine this because I'm basically sitting now in front of my microphone and to absorb the noise. You know, you need to know that my office isn't finished yet. So I'm trying the best I can to absorb noise when I record podcasts. It's not always the easiest thing, and I cannot always record in the bedroom or in my closet or whatever. So today I basically took a blanket and put it on my hat and on the mic, hoping that it somehow will absorb the noise. All right. It's Friday, it's another week and another episode. I hope I made you laugh with this mental image. And today, finally, finally, finally, we are going to talk about attachment styles. You know, so many people, and this is really not a joke. So many people have asked me about attachment styles and the importance of them, because for some reason, um, the theory of attachment styles is all over the internet and has been for years now. But what it means and how important attachment styles really are, I don't think it's explained that much. And I don't think that even other therapists know um how important attachment styles really are. And even I, you know, when I beg when when I began with my career, I really didn't know how important it actually is to have a closer look on the attachments that every person has, especially when they are in a long-term relationship. And by now, you understand and know that a lot of things that happen in our lives today, in the present moment, have some root in our childhood. And it's exactly the same with attachment styles. This series is actually going to be a longer one. I'm trying to narrow it down to the four most important attachment styles. There are, you know, theories about other minor ones, but I will not get into those so much. But I will get into the four major attachment styles that are out there and that you should know about. Also, I will dedicate one episode to every attachment style out there so I can give you an overview of how those people behave, when you meet them, how they would be in a relationship with you. But it's also important for you to understand what type of attachment style you are. Once you know that, you can actually work on the issues that you have, and that would that will basically come back every single time when you are in a relationship. All right. Um, I will give you an overview overview today on the attachment styles that there are. But before I start, I want to give you, you know, an idea what are the stages of attachment. So all of us were born, right? And this is when attachment basically starts. We call the phase from birth to six weeks the pre-attachment phase. That means a baby that is newborn doesn't really show any, you know, particular attachment to one specific caregiver. So as long as the baby's the baby's uh needs are met, it's fed, it's it's cleaned, it's it's touched, and you know, basically being hold held close as babies need, that's fine. They will not identify against popular belief, they will not necessarily identify that this is my mom. For example, overall, if a newborn is, let's say, taken away from the mother in the first few hours after birth, this baby will not necessarily or will not remember who the mother is, right? Okay, after the six weeks to seven months, the baby starts to indiscriminate. What does it mean? An infant begins to show preference for one caregiver or two caregivers, depending on how the family construct is. So we call this the discrimination phase. After the seven months, an infant shows strong attachment to one specific caregiver. I'm sure you have seen children, you know, that show a lot of separation anxiety towards the mothers, for example. So moms, new moms, especially know that they cannot even leave the room, you know, without the baby crying. So this is the discrimination phase where the baby is attached to one specific caregiver, and very much so. After 10 months or so, you know, bonds start to grow with other people. That means there are many people they start to recognize and feel okay with. So that means it's also the time where, you know, there's still a lot of anxiety when people who are around them are not known to them, but they are capable of having many attachments to many people. How did attachment theory develop? This is something that I want to just throw in because I believe that this is something that's also very interesting. So here's a British psychologist. His name is please, I will butcher this name, bear with me. It's John Bob Bowlby, Bowlby, something like that. Anyway, we call him Joe, John, because I really I'm I butcher names. That's just me. Um, fun fact, side note, I also cannot keep any names. Uh, when a friend of mine got a dog, I think for a year and a half, kept saying the dog's name is time, even though the dog's name was Diamond. Eventually I got it, as you can see. But anyway, back to attachment styles. Um, so that psychologist, John Bowlby, again, butchered the name, um, was the first theorist to describe attachment, you know, as a lasting psychological connectedness between human beings. He was interested in understanding separation, anxiety, and distress, especially in children. And he wanted to understand what the relationship is with the primary caregivers. Some of the earlier behavior theories suggested that attachment was simply a learned behavior. Okay, so bear with me. They thought that attachment is something that was learned. I'm sure you have heard somewhere, especially when you grow up in the Middle Eastern culture, don't spoil the baby, they will get attached to you, and they have to get used to the fact that you are not around all the time, and statements like that. This is also something that people used to think on a wider scale, that behavior like this was learned and it can be unlearned. But these theories unfortunately propose that attachment was merely a result of feeding a relationship too much or too low, you know, between a child and the caregiver. And this is fatal because you know, when children don't get the attention they need, especially in the first few months of their life, this will determine how their attachment style is going to be moving on into the future. So John observed that even feedings did not diminish anxiety, meaning children, when they were separated from their primary caregivers, they still experienced some sort of anxiety, especially during feedings, which is usually a calming state of mind for babies and little children. When it was not the primary caregiver, they experienced some sort of anxiety. I also want you to understand attachment. Attachment is an emotional bond with another person. Makes sense, right? But John also believed that the earliest bonds formed by children with their caregivers have tremendous impact that continues throughout life. He said that attachment also serves to keep the infant close to the mother, therefore improving the child's chances of survival. Okay, so far, so good. He saw that attachment as a product of evolution, which means children needed a proximity to their caregivers, otherwise, they would die. While the behavior theories of attachment suggested that attachment was learned, John thought, or he proposed, that children are born with a drive to form attachment with caregivers. It is what it is. So it means human beings are basically born with the need to connect to other human beings. Throughout history, children who maintained proximity to their caregivers, you know, formed a comfortable, protective relationship with their caregivers. Therefore, they were also likely to survive into adulthood, be you know well adjusted, and be actually what we say a secure human being. So, what did you learn right now? What determines successful attachment? Basically, babies form attachment with their caregivers determines how you are going to form future relationships moving on into the future. So, yeah, I want to give you a little bit of insight on major attachment styles that are out there. And maybe you have heard of them, read of them, they are all over the internet. Maybe you have seen this picture where you see avoidant and fearful, avoidant, and anxious and secure, you know, on a scale. But I want to describe it a little bit more so you can imagine it more on a practical scale. The first attachment style that we have is a secure attachment style. It refers to the ability to form secure and loving relationships with others. That means and it suggests that it's very likely that the relationship with your primary caretaker was very secure. A securely attached person can trust others and can be trusted, loves and accepts love, gets close to others, and enjoys actually to be around people, doesn't have any problem with intimacy, they don't feel panic if their partner is not, you know, calling them all the time or texting them all the time, but they are also able to depend on others without, you know, overthinking it and thinking, oh my God, I'm going to be betrayed. About 56% of adults have a secure attachment style type. I know you will think I have never heard of a person who is secure, but trust me, they're out there. And it takes a little bit of looking into the right direction, as I like to say. Secure people with secure attachment styles are not the people who are usually, you know, out and about at all times. And they are not always those people that you would, you know, look at and think, oh my god, he's so interesting. Just because they're so secure, they don't have a need to, you know, basically prove themselves at all times. Just adding that in. Then we have the anxious attachment. What is the anxious attachment style? It is a form of insecure attachment, means there is always a deep fear of abandonment. Anxiously attached people tend to be very insecure about their relationships, about their friendships. They start to worry about everything, they worry about their partners, about their friends. They will think, what did he think? What did he say? What did she do? Is she remembering me? Always overthinking, almost, you know, seemingly a little bit needy, a little bit clingy, you know, and always anxious when they cannot get a hold of the partner. And I'm sure you have someone like that in your life because it is unfortunately, more often than not, an anxious tie that is very common. Then we have avoidant attachment. It's also a very insecure attachment style, but it's also the fear of getting close to someone just because they are afraid of getting hurt and they, you know, tend to have trouble getting close to others or trusting others because they have made the experience that they cannot really get close to someone without being disappointed. They typically maintain some distance from their partners or are emotionally unavailable, especially in relationships that are supposed to be long-term. They prefer to be independent, they prefer to rely on themselves, and outwardly, you know, it looks like, oh my God, this is a very strong person. But when you get closer and try to understand how these people live, you will find out they're actually living very lonely lives. And unfortunately, this is something that they have built by design. They don't want people to be close to them just to avoid disappointment and to have really dismissive tendencies saying, I don't need this, I don't want this. Unfortunately, this is also an attachment style that I have seen more and more and more over the years. The fourth attachment style is fearful avoidant attachment. It's a combination of both the anxious type and avoidant type. People with fearful avoidant attachment styles both crave affection, but at the same time avoid it at all costs. What seems like a contradiction is really not, because they are reluctant to develop a close romantic relationship, yet at the same time, they have the need to be loved by others. So they will not place their need to be loved by others solely on one person, but they will try to get bits and pieces from a lot of people. Fear for avoidant people, you know, or this attachment style is also known as the disorganized attachment. It's very rare and not very well researched, even though I will say in the recent years there is more data I have found about this. There is also an excellent, um, excellent book that I have read about attachment styles that I will link in the description that you can buy if you're interested in that. But what we do know about fearful avoidant attachment styles, it's associated with significant psychological and relational risks, including, you know, going out, having a lot of interaction with people, maybe sexual encounters that are random, there is an increased risk for violence in relationships, and they have a hard time regulating their own emotions. I gave you an overview of the attachment styles that we will discuss. Later on, I will go into detail for every single attachment style that I have mentioned, but how are attachment styles formed? So, as I mentioned before, attachment styles are developed when you are an infant based on your relationship with your earliest caregivers. Research believes attachment styles is from within the first year of being alive, between 7 to 11 months of age. Therapists and psychologists know for a fact human beings are born helpless. So they are hardwired at birth that they need someone to take care of them. The quality of the first bond that you have during the first years of life, if it is loving and stable and consistent, you guessed it, you will probably have a secure attachment style throughout life. But if it's, you know, not consistent, if you have someone who is around sometimes and not all the times, you will develop the fear of love, the fear of disappointment. So attachment styles are determined by how the primary caretaker responds to a child's cue when they are in emotional distress, when they need food, or you know, just being touched or being cleaned. I will give you an overview on how attachment styles can actually be formed, especially by how caretakers respond to the baby. They are available to the baby, they don't leave the baby alone. When the baby cries, there's always a response. And this is how secure attachment stars are formed. When you look at the anxious attachment style, caregivers are inconsistent, unpredictable, but they also show affection. Sometimes they're overly involved, sometimes they're withdrawn. It's really unpredictable to say how reliable the caregiver is from the point of view of the baby, because sometimes they're emotionally around and sometimes they're super distant. This can make children very anxious because children need a very stable lifeline that they can turn to. It's like this survival jacket that they need. And if they feel it's not fitting right or it's disappearing sometimes, you can imagine how unsettling that is for a baby because they also don't understand, you know. Um, of course, there are circumstances and everything, but for example, when the primary caretaker tends to be very depressed and disappears for phases, longer phases in in the baby's life, they will also have a hard time building a very secure attachment to that person. Avoidant attachment style caregivers are not responsive, they are dismissive and also very distant. They're consistently, you know, emotionally disconnected from the child. This is how you create an avoidant attachment style. When babies create a fearful avoidant attachment, it's the type of environment that influences a disorganized attachment. Involves, for example, a caregiver who is frightening or traumatizing, leading the child to experience a deep sense of fear or lack of trust in others, despite wanting them to be close. It's almost like they know that they are neglected, but there is no one else they look up to. So they are afraid of their caretakers, but at the same time, they have no one else. So this is how they form this attachment that basically, yes, the person that I love can be dangerous. They may be neglectful or even abusive, but I still love them. This is what the child thinks. So that way they also form a very poor understanding of boundaries and are often confused about what is healthy in a relationship. I also want to put out there that it's not only caregivers that are shaping attachment styles. People's attachment styles may also be influenced by partners that you had throughout your life. A person can have a secure attachment style, you know, during childhood with their parents, but maybe let's say the partner cheated on you in adult, you might think, okay, this is how relationships look like with a partner, and therefore it can lead to an insecure attachment. So I think I would like to end this episode by asking you, what do you think is your attachment style? Read up upon it, maybe you know, reach research, do some research if you like. I will come back next week by describing one of the attachment styles, and I think I will start by, you know, not necessarily the secure attachment style, let's leave it in the end because honestly, there is not too much to uh say about this, but I will next week start with the anxious attached attachment styles, give you more examples, and go more in depth so we can maybe have a better understanding about this specific attachment style. I want you to understand that attachment styles, yes, dictate our lives, but we can still work on them, make them better, and we can also work on breaking the pattern that we have learned a very long time ago. So, what I want you to understand is identifying your attachment style is only the first step. And later on, you can work on it and make it better for yourself and your partner, everyone around you. All right, guys, I really need to remove this blanket. I really need to work on a better setup for my podcast.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, I hope to have you with me again next week. All right then. Have a great weekend. Talk to you soon. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in, and hopefully, you will tune in again next week. It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.