Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again

by Jeffrey E. Young

Detachment is the Counterattack for Abandonment. When you are detached, you are denying the need for connection. It is a defiant, “I don’t need you.” There is usually some anger mixed in with your detachment, and it is partly punitive. You punish your partner for withdrawing from you, for not giving you what you need. Although this helps you cope with your feelings of abandonment, you pay a price: you give up your feelings and exist in a chilly emotional numbness.