Attachment styles

Many child development specialists talk about how important attachment is throughout childhood. This book explores how it plays out in adulthood. In “Attached”, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller reveal how an understanding of adult attachment can help you find and maintain functional relationships. Based on the work of renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, the field of attachment posits that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:⠀

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ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back. ⠀

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AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimise closeness.⠀

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SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. ⠀

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These attachment styles are deeply rooted in the way we were treated as children. The emotional availability, attunement and attachment of our caregivers affects the way we go on to attach ourselves to others. This is central to the science of attachment - our need to be in a close relationship is embedded in our genes; so, contrary to what many relationship experts today may tell us about the importance of remaining emotionally “self-sufficient”, attachment research shows us that our need to be close to others, in particular our partners, is essential.⠀

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This book offers great insights into your own attachment style, as well as significant others in your life (in particular, romantic partners) and offers a road map for building and maintaining stronger, more fulfilling attachments and connections. It will encourage you to think about how your parents responded to you when you were a child, and how you are currently responding to your children, in a scientifically-based, non-judgemental way.⠀⠀

Has anyone else read it and found it as life-changing as I did?