Attached Quotes

“Expressing your needs and expectations to your partner in a direct, nonaccusatory manner is an incredibly powerful tool.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Studies have found that the same areas in the brain that light up in imaging scans when we break a leg are activated when we split up with our mate.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“one of the tools most frequently used by people with a secure attachment style is effective communication—they simply surface their feelings and see how their date reacts.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“a series of studies aimed at accessing subjects’ unconscious minds (by measuring how long it takes them to report words that flash quickly on a monitor, as described in chapter 6) compared the reactions of people with anxious, avoidant, and secure attachment styles. The studies found that secures have more unconscious access to themes such as love, hugs, and closeness and less access to danger, loss, and separation.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“in order to thrive and grow as human beings, we need a secure base from which to derive strength and comfort. For that to happen, our attachment system must be calm and secure.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“And above all, remain true to your authentic self—playing games will only distance you from your ultimate goal of finding true happiness, be it with your current partner or with someone else.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: Identify your attachment style and find your perfect match

“A relationship, from an attachment perspective, should make you feel more self-confident and give you peace of mind. If it doesn’t, this is a wake-up call!”
― Amir Levine, Attached: Identify your attachment style and find your perfect match

“You shouldn’t feel bad for depending on the person you are closest to—it is part of your genetic makeup.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: Identify your attachment style and find your perfect match

“The researchers also found that each style corresponded to very different and unique beliefs and attitudes about themselves, their partners, their relationships, and intimacy in general.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“The third hard-to-shed misconception we fell for is that we alone are responsible for our emotional needs; they are not our partner’s responsibility”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“mismatched attachment styles can lead to a great deal of unhappiness in marriage, even for people who love each other greatly.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“The first misconception is that everyone has the same capacity for intimacy.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Secure people also believe that they are worthy of love and affection, and expect their partners to be responsive and caring.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“For Ethan it would have been convenient if Lauren had been willing to simply put up with his behavior indefinitely.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Deactivate: Write down all the reasons you wanted to leave. Your objective is to deactivate your attachment system.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Remind yourself that your attachment system is distorting your perspective on the relationship.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Anxious people may take a very long time to get over a bad attachment, and they don’t get to decide how long it will take.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Your only crime has been to become too close to someone who can’t tolerate it.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“The anxious types find that their perception of wanting more intimacy than their partner can provide is confirmed, as is their anticipation of ultimately being let down by significant others.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“these attachment styles actually complement each other in a way. Each reaffirms the other’s beliefs about themselves and about relationships. The avoidants’ defensive self-perception that they are strong and independent is confirmed, as is the belief that others want to pull them into more closeness than they are comfortable with.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“avoidant individuals actually prefer anxiously attached people.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Activating strategies are any thoughts or feelings that compel you to get close, physically or emotionally, to your partner. Once they respond to you in a way that reestablishes security, you can revert back to your calm, normal self.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“once we choose someone special, powerful and often uncontrollable forces come into play. New patterns of behavior kick in regardless of how independent we are”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Adult attachment theory teaches us that Karen’s basic assumption, that she can and should control her emotional needs and soothe herself in the face of stress, is simply wrong. She assumed the problem was that she is too needy. Research findings support the exact opposite. Getting attached means that our brain becomes wired to seek the support of our partner by ensuring the partner’s psychological and physical proximity.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Letting go in these situations would be insane in evolutionary terms. Using protest behavior, such as calling several times or trying to make him feel jealous, made perfect sense when seen in this light.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“The mechanism explains why a child parted from their mother becomes frantic, searches wildly, or cries uncontrollably until they reestablish contact with her. These reactions are coined protest behavior, and we all still exhibit them as grown-ups.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Although it’s not impossible for someone to change their attachment style—on average, one in four people do so over a four-year period—most people are unaware of the issue, so these changes happen without their ever knowing they have occurred (or why).”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Just over 50 percent are secure, around 20 percent are anxious, 25 percent are avoidant, and the remaining 3 to 5 percent fall into the fourth, less common category (combination”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love