Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller

love is not always enough

• the avoidant will still indulge in their deactivation behaviors even or especially when they feel closeness and love (does that prevent attachment formation on their end or no?)

cindy hazan and philip shaver first indicated that adults show patterns of attachment with romantic partners similar to children with their parents

• in certain ways we are “predetermined” to act in certain manners in romantic situations according to our attachment style
• is adult attachment exaptation? or is attachment more general purpose?
  • it seems like attachment is very important in the “fourth trimester” which is early life which would be more heavily selected for because they would survive in general unsure if the romantic part would mean anything when the attachment form was under selective pressures
  • co-regulation of physiology doesn’t seem particularly helpful in adult attachment? or we’ve mythologized it to make it seem better but it seems to make more sense to me in the context of children where they cannot self soothe
• attachment affords supposed evolutionary advantage because it is prosocial especially at beginning of life
  • does attachment make the child more attractive to the parent and more likely for them to give resources?

they cite attachment figures as parents, children, and romantic partners

• is attachment not for all kinds of close relationships? not all attachments are attachment relationships i don’t think
• is attachment related to mating? i wonder where the attachment system is found because Bowlby’s experiments were on monkeys but other animals also have imprinting behavior that kind of looks like attachment—it may be erroneous to attribute to Homo sapiens and romance and relationships what is far more primitive

“the attachment system consists of emotions and behaviors that ensure that we remain safe and protected by staying close to our loved ones” (12)

• “although we all have a basic need to form close bonds, the way we create them varies” (13) there is variability in all kinds of characteristics of humans

“adult attachment is an overarching theory of romantic affiliation” (16)

“ if our partner fails to reassure us, we are programmed to continue our attempts to achieve closeness into the partner does.” (20)

• by any means necessary?
• is there exponential backoff?
• does this continue even after attachment ruptures? or intensify?

“It appears that as Bowlby speculated, attachment, continues to play a major role throughout our entire lifespan. The difference is that adults are capable of a higher level of abstraction, so our need for the other person continues physical prison time be temporarily replaced by the knowledge that the person is available to a psychologically and emotionally.” (24)

the codependency myth (26)

• i think they demonstrate a misunderstanding of what exactly codependency is and the dangers of it
• they are right to point out that certain relationships do just have more dependency and enmeshment on each other and it seems wrong to believe that the ideal is two independent individuals meeting in the middle
  • it likely comes to the idea of the naturalness of being alone since we are just one person but attachment science seemingly shows that we have always relied on other people and that it isn’t wrong to do
• at the same time codependency can definitely be pathological and bad when the other person externalizes all of their self soothing (or not?)
  • this is natural and happens at the biological level through some sort of coupling of physiology
• i think the main idea should be some sort of balance—a person should be able to self soothe especially in the absence of their partner but shouldn’t be afraid of the potentially stronger effect of co-regulation with a partner

the dependency paradox is just that having a person who is a safe haven (secure base) allows you to be more empowered in your independent life to take risks, explore, etc.

• this is shown to be true in children with the strange situation experiment
• adults also want/need a secure base because the demands of everyday life are a lot

anxious attachment = sensitive attachment system

• slight hints of things of wrongness will activate your attachment system and you won’t be able to calm down until you get confirmation of safety
• tend to be more hyper vigilant but biased so can jump to conclusions and misinterpret information

“activating strategies are any thoughts or feelings that help you to get close, physically emotionally come up to your partner. Once they respond to you in a way that security, you can revert back to your calm, normal self.” (80)

• these are bad? you don’t want your attachment system activated? these are more like attachment threats or something that forcefully activate you and require soothing
• a secure base means your attachment system must be calm and secure

“protest behavior is any action that tries to reestablish contact with your partner and get their attention” (88)

• protest behavior and activating strategies can cause you to act in ways that are harmful to the relationship
• these behaviors and strategies can also continue long after your partner is gone

the push and pull of anxious and avoidants in a relationship confirms negative self beliefs about themselves so these styles complement each other in a way

• avoidants get to assert independence and see that people are trying to drag them into intimacy
• anxious find themselves being let down and proved that they are too much
• i don’t really find these explanations that convincing
  • for anxious people it provides a challenge and also to their attachment system it activates it which they can mistake for attraction or love low lows and high highs can be addicting
  • for avoidants no one would really put up with their BS and they like attention initially at the very least just not intimacy and they like that anxious people won’t leave them

you are more likely to find avoidants in the dating pool

• avoidants don’t stay in relationships long so they’re single
• secure and anxious people stay in relationships
• avoidants don’t date each other

anxious and avoidant descriptions almost sound like exclusively romantic but a secure attachment sounds like it could be any relationship

“deactivating is a necessary process that must occur in order to get one out of your (attachment) system” (212)

• this can work in the relationship, but can be more difficult when the attachment system is reactivated upon separation
• get your attachment needs in other ways instead of all from one person like massage, plenty of exercise and comforting, healthy food (physical touch and reducing stress and increasing positive feelings reducing heart rate)
• attachment needs and closing the loop (stress cycle-Nagasaki)
• “your attachment system gets activated more when you feel bad about yourself” (214)
• The attachment system floods you with positive memories when thinking about severance so you just have to be able to combat that maybe someone else outside of yourself

attachment style seems to be formed mainly from ruptures not exactly what you didn’t get from your parents or partners etc

• someone who gets cheated on can become more anxious
• is it like a crack that is formed and you are unsure what shape it will take until it happens? or is temperament something that shapes attachment ruptures?
• it also may be simply related to desire for closeness/fusion and different people have different ideas of what that might look like
  • phrasing these needs as anxious or avoidant seems to be a bit counter productive because they also talk about the idea of finding ways to communicate attachment needs and accepting them as a thing instead of demonizing
• anxious people are more likely to be overwhelmed by negative emotions and think in extremes
• avoidant people consciously or unconsciously suppress their attachment system so are they just not ready for a relationship? trying to prevent themselves from getting hurt trying to control things to reduce anxiety
  • they don’t have to be in a relationship but maybe they feel the social expectation to?
• all about managing risk or anxiety, regaining control (like OCD is about reducing uncertainty)
  • or protecting yourself from hurt
• co-regulation isn’t in the realm of possibilities for avoidants because they didn’t really experience it and thus don’t know what they could be missing out and sometimes would have to confront with what they didn’t get from others or what they’ve been missing out on
• anxious people know what they’re missing out on and want it so bad but end up with avoidants who give them crumbs
  • attachment interruption versus rupture or non attachment in anxious versus avoidant

in other words, attachment styles are just coping mechanisms

• secure attachment behaviors are just having good self esteem and inter dependence effective communication all just hallmarks of a healthy interpersonal relationship
• does the attachment system still activate in secures?

the attachment system was evolutionarily selected, styles probably not so much

• evolutionary psychology/sociobiology is not so easily granted by all
• they are our understanding and grouping of behaviors that are associated with certain patterns of attachment system activation or deactivation
• attachment style is a complex blend of traits and learned behaviors that seem too complex and broad to have selective pressure on
• this is also quite ancient—most likely mammalian so quite a far back recent common ancestor and maybe related to milk feeding

i don’t like how secures “instinctively” know how to comfort and compromise

• it seems more likely to me that they have good models of behavior or have learned over time
• there are temperaments that are better suited to not getting angry as quickly and being more acquiescent
• they may have less anxiety which lets them be more outwardly focused instead of inward anxiety and cognitive biases
• “insecure assumptions interfere with conflict resolution” (256)

protest behavior might be freudian?

• projection

“people have different capacities for intimacy”