How to Enhance Your Relationships through Attachment & Connection

At least from time-to-time, we may find ourselves fighting with our loved ones (and it’s probably okay). All relationships fight. Healthy relationships fight. In fact, conflict is not the issue for concern. Rather, emotional disconnection is the core issue. Dr. Sue Johnson, the creator of emotionally-focused couples therapy (EFT), says the way to enhance (or save) a relationship is to re-establish secure emotional attachment. In Dr. Sue Johnson’s book “Hold Me Tight,” she writes “The message of EFT is simple: Forget about learning how to argue better, analyzing your early childhood, making grand romantic gestures, or experimenting with new sexual positions. Instead, recognize and admit that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner in much the same way that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing and protection.” “EFT focuses on creating and strengthening this emotional bond between partners by identifying and transforming the key moments that foster an adult loving relationship: being open, attuned, and responsive to each other.” 

An ingenious pair, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, conducted pioneering research on attachment in the 1970’s. When looking at how babies reacted when separated from their mothers, they found that how we maneuver our adult relationships has been shaped by our connections and attachments to our earliest caregivers. When we’re small, we look to our caregivers to show us how the world works, and depend on their well-being to keep us safe. Depending on how our caregivers and loved ones show up, we adjust ourselves accordingly in order to get our needs met. Bowlby understood that the quality of connections and early emotional deprivation with loved ones is key to our development of personality and habitual way of connecting with others. 

Emotionally-focused couples therapy (EFT) relies heavily on the theory of attachment. Consistent with what Bowlby and Ainsworth found, attachment theory says how we attach when we’re young affects our social and emotional development, and predicts how we’ll connect and attach in our adult relationships. If you’ve yet to hear about attachment styles, I’m here to fill you in. It’s helpful to think about attachment styles as strategies. “Styles” can imply rigidity, while strategies have room for growth. There are two main attachment strategies: secure and insecure. Insecure attachment includes: anxious/preoccupied, avoidant/dismissive, and fearful/avoidant. When we are securely attached, we have confidence in ourselves and in navigating our world. When we are insecurely attached, we may view the world as threatening and/or unsafe. An anxious attachment strategy may look like frequently analyzing one’s relationships, and someone with this strategy may often seek out reassurance from their partner. An avoidant attachment strategy may look like someone who’s grown accustomed to refraining from depending on others. Rejection triggers the same part of our brain as physical pain. So, it makes sense why we adaptively become good at protecting ourselves from that pain. A fearful/avoidant attachment strategy may say “come close, come here, come close,” and then when they receive proximity, push away. If we don’t believe people will be there for us, we tend to be pessimistic and take fewer risks. Or, when we cannot connect with someone we love, we protest, and perhaps push the person to respond. If this doesn’t work, we become susceptible to anxiety and depression. It’s threatening to feel disconnected from our loved one(s). 

With a better understanding of attachment, most human behavior is reasonable. More so, we can show up better for our people. We can ask why do some people want to be alone when they’re upset while others reach out for someone? People connect and attach the best way they know how. Someone more dismissive may have learned it’s safer to move through the world without expressing emotions, and the more they’re pursued by their partner, the more they withdraw. This is probably not because they don’t care, but because they care a lot and feel ill equipped to show it. 

What’s helped shape you as a person? How do you view others? (Are they safe or unsafe?) How do you view yourself? Are you lovable or unlovable? All of these things affect the way we navigate ourselves within relationships. Growing up, was it okay for you to express emotions? Are some emotions okay while others aren’t? During momentous occasions, who would you go to and how would you let these people know you needed them? The next time you’re arguing (with your parents, friend, lover), can you take pause? What are you feeling? Have you felt this way before? Can you speak to your partner without contempt and, instead, in a way that makes them feel seen and heard? Can you tell your partner how you’re feeling and what you long for? 

One study with Dr. Sue Johnson and neuroscientist Jim Coan found we perceive pain differently when we’re holding hands with a person we’re emotionally connected to. When we’re alone or disconnected, we perceive pain and danger in a bigger and noisier sense than if we’re connected. When we feel someone has our back, our brain notices them as a resource and we view the world as less scary. An old idea in psychology was that only a few of us faced true trauma in our lives. We’re now understanding traumatic stress to be almost as common as depression. Realistically, we all have trauma. I understand trauma to be anything that significantly alters our worldview, perhaps leaving us stuck, helpless or overwhelmed. Having someone to rely on for connection and support makes healing from trauma easier. In a study with 9/11 survivors who were in or near the World Trade Center, it was found that 18 months after the attacks, those who avoided depending on others were more likely to struggle with flashbacks, hyper-irritability and depression compared to those who felt securely attached to loved ones.

EFT helps us identify the cycle our relationships may be stuck in, and reckon with how tuning in and supporting our other is the key defining element of love. The reward of taking risks with our loved ones and striving for secure attachment is worth the effort. It’s a journey, but aren’t journeys better with company?