Attachment Theory Quotes

“Fearful-Avoidants learn to expect betrayal while also craving love. It also becomes quite difficult for the Fearful-Avoidant to learn a strategy for attaching or bonding to caregivers because of the level of inconsistency. Moreover, since they perceived love as a chaotic entity from a young age, they tend to have immense internal conflict as adults. They simultaneously want to feel a sense of connection while subconsciously believing it to be a threat. This produces feelings of resentment or frustration that can be later projected onto relationships. Ultimately, the Fearful-Avoidant shows up in their relationships as a loving partner, and then will become frightened and pull away when they become vulnerable. To be in a successful relationship with a Fearful-Avoidant, the partner or friend must provide a deep connection in a consistent way. This means openness and respect for boundaries, paired with constant reassurance.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Often demonstrate ongoing ambivalence in relationships—they constantly shift between being vulnerable with their partner and being distant. This behavior is consistent across all their relationships, regardless of whether they are romantic. • Generally express depth of processing—a tendency to overanalyze microexpressions, body language, and language for signs of betrayal. This occurs because they had an untrusting relationship with their caregivers in childhood. Living with a parent who is an addict or emotionally unwell are two examples of what may create this distrust. • Not trust naturally • Often feel as if betrayal is always on the horizon The core wounds for this attachment style revolve around feeling unworthy, being taken advantage of, and feeling unsafe.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“An essential concept to remember from the previous section is that people are very rarely arguing about being right or wrong; they’re more often arguing about being seen and heard. People feel so much pain in intense conflict with those they care about because, when someone has a different perspective, our subconscious perceives it as our feelings being treated as invalid. This ultimately feeds conflict.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“According to Thrivetalk, enmeshment trauma is a form of emotional damage that occurs when one or more parents project their values, needs, and dreams onto their child. This causes the child to abandon their own sense of self in order to please their caregiver. Ultimately, the child feels as though they must adapt to their parent’s needs to be worthy of love, and this, when combined with a caregiver who is also unavailable, leaves the child feeling emotionally abandoned.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“After transcending his anger, he will be examining himself objectively. This is how emotions serve us: They provide us with metaphorical alarm bells to tell us that limiting subconscious beliefs are being activated.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“• Question what needs you are attempting to meet within the conflict that has arisen. • How are your emotions guiding you to behave in certain ways? • What does that tell you about what your core unmet needs are? Remember that during this process you must be kind to yourself. It can be painful to realize and accept core wounds since they have years or decades of built-up negative emotion retained within them. By being transparent and kind to yourself, you will be more likely to find your true unmet need in the situation. Once you have discovered your unmet needs, it can be helpful to consider their opposites. For example, the opposite of feeling abandoned is feeling cherished, adopted, or defended. Once Chris realizes that his core wound surrounds feeling abandoned and discovers that his unmet need is emotional connection, he can look for ways that the opposite emotion has appeared in his life. For example, all the times that Suneel or his other friends have made him feel cherished or defended. The simple act of looking for examples where the opposite emotion of your core wound appears can help neutralize the overall emotional charge in any given circumstance. In summation, the third step of the RAIN process is to investigate what you are feeling by asking probing questions. These questions will lead you to the core wounds you may have and what unmet needs may exist. This will help you understand your behavior in reaction to those unmet needs and core wounds, and thus can help you identify scenarios where the opposite has occurred. By finding situations that disprove the beliefs surrounding your current circumstances and emotions, the pain experienced from what you are enduring will be lessened greatly.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“• Question what needs you are attempting to meet within the conflict that has arisen. • How are your emotions guiding you to behave in certain ways? • What does that tell you about what your core unmet needs are? Remember that during this process you must be kind to yourself. It can be painful to realize and accept core wounds since they have years or decades of built-up negative emotion retained within them. By being transparent and kind to yourself, you will be more likely to find your true unmet need in the situation. Once you have discovered your unmet needs, it can be helpful to consider their opposites. For example, the opposite of feeling abandoned is feeling cherished, adopted, or defended.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“• Question what needs you are attempting to meet within the conflict that has arisen. • How are your emotions guiding you to behave in certain ways? • What does that tell you about what your core unmet needs are? Remember that during this process you must be kind to yourself. It can be painful to realize and accept core wounds since they have years or decades of built-up negative emotion retained within them. By being transparent and kind to yourself, you will be more likely to find your true unmet need in the situation.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Keeping the kindness aspect of this RAIN step in mind, we can now move on to what it means to investigate. Investigation is the process of inquiring what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you. In the previous steps, the anecdotal characters had accepted that they were feeling a certain way and allowed it to occur. This is the step that would allow them to understand where these core wounds are coming from. Moreover, it will be indicative of what they both need in this situation. Often, without practicing RAIN, an individual would become emotionally caught up in a situation and make judgments about their external environment. However, such judgments are often inaccurate because, ultimately, everyone has their own attachment style and core wounds, and everyone assigns their own individual meanings to situations. To begin the investigation process, remember that what you are feeling when you’re triggered is everything in the current moment in addition to all of the past emotions that trigger is associated with. For example, consider someone with PTSD. When something in their external present is reminiscent of the original traumatic experiences they’ve endured, the emotions they’ll feel in response to the present event will be significantly stronger due to the past emotions they’ve stored. Therefore, it is essential to ask yourself questions like: “What am I believing?” and “What emotional response wants the most attention?” By asking probing questions, you may surface the unmet needs that the situation is calling to satisfy. Ultimately, your subconscious mind will do nearly everything it its power to meet needs that are seemingly unmet.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“In recent studies by David Barlow and Steven Hayes, many adulthood psychological issues were found to be rooted in the habit of emotional avoidance. Although emotional avoidance eases feelings of unpleasantness in the short-term, it can go as far as to inhibit ambitions, create chaos in relationships, and limit the individual’s ability to meet life’s challenges. By avoiding feelings such as anxiety, one will become hypervigilant to scenarios where this anxiety may arise. Moreover, emotional avoidance is often futile. It essentially creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where anxiety arises about anxiety. To make the situation even worse, anticipatory anxiety can then arise, which tends to be even more challenging to cope with than the event that may bring about anxiety itself. As you can see, without the use of proper emotional coping mechanisms, emotional avoidance can create serious turmoil in an individual’s life. This is why allowing is imperative. It softens the emotions felt and it prevents emotional repression.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“It also may include acts like getting dinner together to discuss their lives and talking more frequently. On the days they are not together, Julie should communicate to Emily that she needs time alone to read and pursue the things she enjoys independently. In the end, the goal is to have both parties hear each other’s feelings, validate each other’s and their own feelings, and express themselves in a way that allows them to compromise and set boundaries within which they can operate.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“It is important to also create a clear, coherent strategy for the needs that have been expressed and accepted. Since perceptions for every individual are uniquely shaped over time, saying “I need support” may mean different things to different people.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Transparency in the case of an Anxious Attachment is essential. Since they tend to be people-pleasing, it is imperative that they do not sacrifice their needs and that they communicate them properly. If not, the Anxious individual will begin to harbor resentment.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“As discussed in the CBT section of this book, most of the pain we experience in a situation is based on the subjective meaning we give to a situation as opposed to the objective content of the experience itself.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“First and foremost, it is important to recognize another important reason that arguments with our loved ones can cause so much pain. Most of us think that we are arguing about being right versus being wrong. The truth is, we are almost always arguing about being seen, heard, and understood by our loved ones. It is painful to feel as though someone you love does not understand you in the heat of the moment. It often feels like we are disconnected, and usually that is what hurts more than anything else. This is where a beautiful first step comes in. It is possible to validate a person’s feelings without validating their behavior. If Liam used this tool, he might say to Faith, “Hi, honey. I can see that you’re hurting right now, and I’m sorry for that. However, I don’t like the way you are expressing it, and I would be able to listen better if you could change your approach to become gentler.” Although this might seem like a small trick, it works wonders. The impact of being able to validate a loved one’s emotions in the heat of the moment is profound. It completely removes the helplessness, feelings of being misunderstood, and feeling shamed. More importantly, it prevents the defense mechanism from being tripped due to the stored subconscious associations around conflict. As a result, the individual on the receiving end of this statement is likely to be calmed down instead of fired up.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“At this stage, it is important to evaluate your emotional charge. Once you’ve witnessed your emotions and identified the underlying trigger that is contributing to your pain, ask yourself: On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being most negative, how are my feelings? In traditional EFT, an individual would be encouraged to observe their emotions for a period while they process them and calm down. Physiologically, their brain would shift back into higher processes, and their reptilian brain would deactivate. By also identifying the core subconscious wound that is present, you can find proof of the opposite to begin lessening the emotional charge associated with said trigger.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“In the case of the Dismissive-Avoidant, it is because of the significant emotional neglect they experienced as a child and their belief that self-reliance is the only way to self-preserve. Identify What Triggers Were Fired How do you identify which of your triggers were activated? You must identify which negative core belief you perceive was validated. Ask yourself: • What do I believe this conflict means? • What am I afraid will happen?”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Ultimately, the first step in traditional EFT is to dive into your emotions. Witness them so that you can identify them and move to a more logical perspective. The next step is to identify what triggers these emotions. Ask yourself: Why are these emotions arising? However, at this point I recommend veering away from conventional EFT teachings. Instead ask yourself: What subconscious core wounds created these triggers?”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Take a moment to recognize in which areas you are feeling your emotions in your body. If you are angry, maybe you feel tenseness in your fists. If you are nervous or anxious, maybe there is a pit in your stomach. Identify all the feelings that are present. The simple act of witnessing and inquiring will move you into a reflective state and out of a reactive state.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“There are multiple ways to implement CBT in your daily life outside of an in-depth subconscious reprogram. Recall that the purpose of CBT is to uproot beliefs that no longer serve you in a positive way. Therefore, to implement CBT daily, look for techniques that allow you to reflect on yourself and your experiences more objectively. Here are some examples: • Journaling. Writing things down not only ensures that memories are accurately recorded for future reflection, but also helps us to evaluate emotions that we experienced in certain situations. From there, we can look for patterns experienced in different areas of life and core wounds that may need to be addressed. • Meditation. Meditation is a wonderful tool that can be an aid to objectively reflect upon ourselves. It helps clear out biases and brings us back to the present. It is incredibly powerful and significantly improves our ability to find contradictory proof throughout the day. • Open Communication. Discuss what you felt throughout the day with your friends, partners, or family. By doing this, you have a sounding board to help you assess the validity of the stories you tell yourself. For example, if you interpreted a friend’s reaction in one way, your partner may be able to give you a new way to look at the situation. Talking through challenges with someone who can be open and unbiased often helps to remove the untrue stories we are telling ourselves. There are a variety of ways to implement certain aspects of CBT in our daily lives, but it is essential to step back and do a deep dive when you feel strongly triggered about something. Generally, the more meaning assigned to a situation and the more pain caused by it, the deeper the trigger and the more important it is to address. By following these steps, fundamental change can be seen in all areas of your life.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“It is important to remember that every day our subconscious is taking in new information. Thus, our attachment styles can still be molded in adulthood by significantly emotional events or one type of event that is less emotionally challenging but occurs consistently. Therefore, it is important to both constantly question our thoughts and to look for other old or new core wounds that may arise. We are in a constant state of evolution and improvement and must prepare our mind for just that. Moreover, after neutralizing the subconscious charge on a core belief, it is important to reflect on your mood at that moment. By doing so, you are continuing to practice mindfulness while working toward more positive habits. This deeper approach to CBT will give you the tools to navigate through difficult situations in everyday life, improve your outlook, and help negotiate triggering scenarios. CBT at a surface level has had an astounding impact on the lives of millions of people. It helps to connect the beliefs, thoughts, physical responses, and behavior of individuals. By examining it at a subconscious level, the root of the beliefs can be revealed and healed. Keep in mind that this process will differ between each attachment style since each style inherently has different triggers.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“By looking for proof of the opposite, you will eventually be able to neutralize the charge you have placed on a specific core belief. From there, you can begin to teach your subconscious a more updated perspective based on how your life is today. For example, if you are in a loving relationship today, it may have taught you that emotional vulnerability is safe and that you are lovable.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“An important strategy here is to actively practice separating one experience from all experiences. If you notice yourself using words like “always” or “never,” this is a sign that you are overgeneralizing. This can be painful when we generalize traits about our partner or loved ones as well. Some other important cognitive distortions include mind-reading, fortune-telling, and personalization. With mind-reading, you assume you know what others are thinking. Fortune-telling is the act of making assumptions about the future that produce negative emotion. Personalization is the act of assuming blame or fault for any situation that takes place. An example of this would be getting upset at yourself if your child gets hurt during recess at school. Take some time to write down which cognitive distortions are most prominent for you. Which ones cause you the most grief or unhealthy habits in your relationships? Follow up by using the strategies described above to return to a fair and balanced perspective. You will know you have reached this place because you will feel as though your emotional charge around the situations has lessened and you are operating from a grounded, realistic frame of mind.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Automatic thoughts occur because the subconscious mind stores information that is meant to protect you. However, it also stores negative associations better than positive ones because it acts as a safety mechanism. Although this is effective from an evolutionary standpoint, it unfortunately perpetuates a lot of anxious and hopeless thoughts. Also keep in mind that since the subconscious mind is programmed through repetition and emotion, the more we perpetuate beliefs, the more deeply ingrained they become over time. So, how do we identify automatic thoughts and the core triggers that created them? Well, the brain is always looking for information to support what it believes. This is called supportive evidence. Supportive evidence is the information that the brain picks out of its environment to reinforce its existing thoughts. In the context of reprogramming your subconscious, this is a negative practice. An example of this may occur if Connor were to go to a work party—remember that he believes that he is fundamentally unworthy of emotional connection. When he walks in, his automatic thoughts include “No one likes me, and no one wants me here.” The brain then begins to look for supportive evidence: Someone frowning in conversation while looking in his direction, to Connor, means that they hate him and want him to leave. With Suneel, supportive evidence may occur when Suneel makes grammatical corrections in the project they’re working on together. To Connor, this may again reinforce that Suneel is trying to undermine him. A powerful aspect of supportive evidence to consider is that it occurs every day and everywhere in our lives. Our mind is constantly looking for supportive evidence of what our subconscious believes. When the subconscious stores fundamentally painful beliefs, they become projected onto our reality everywhere we look. Therefore, it is essential to begin looking for contradictory evidence for our core wounds to reprogram our subconscious and heal our everyday perspectives. Contradictory evidence is information that disproves existing beliefs. Since memory is colored by emotion, finding contradictory evidence in our past and present and pairing it with the emotions associated with that experience allows us to begin reprogramming our subconscious. Essentially, finding proof of the opposite helps to equilibrate our subconscious, and from there, it can be taught new and updated beliefs.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Often, our emotions lead us to believe that the problem at hand is unsolvable when in reality the true problem is not properly identified. Begin by isolating and identifying the actual emotional challenge. What needs are unmet in this situation? For Connor, from a tertiary perspective, it is support and validation. For Suneel, it would be respect and the safety to express his opinions. What meaning is being given to the situation? Again, for Connor it would be that he is unworthy. For Suneel, it would be that vulnerability is unsafe. By taking a moment to witness the strong emotions, we can identify the core wound that causes the response. It is essential to remember that our emotions are here to serve us—they are like alarm bells that are telling us a core wound is being triggered and our needs are unmet. To better illustrate this concept, consider how you feel when you are hungry. Hunger is a feeling that exists to elicit a response out of us. It is telling us that we need to be fed. Other emotions act in the same manner—they exist to elicit a change that will help us.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“As you can see, attachment styles have key subconscious triggers that occur because of the repetition of a specific emotion at a young age. These core wounds are then what produce automatic thoughts that must be witnessed to avoid perpetuating outdated beliefs.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Often, our emotions lead us to believe that the problem at hand is unsolvable when in reality the true problem is not properly identified. Begin by isolating and identifying the actual emotional challenge. What needs are unmet in this situation?”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“An important aspect to note about triggers is that although the triggered feelings are real, the thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions surrounding the triggers may not be an accurate representation of what is actually happening.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“CHANGING YOUR OUTLOOK This chapter will explore the ways in which Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques can be applied to difficult situations to relieve emotional suffering. Moreover, by taking a more intensive approach than that traditionally outlined in CBT, you can look at the core subconscious beliefs that you are projecting onto a situation and which may be causing undue pain. This approach allows you to truly create long-lasting change in all areas of your life and helps you to truly address the underlying wounds that your attachment style may exhibit. The approach that I have created follows a series of steps that draw on fundamental aspects of CBT, as well as the trends I have seen in thousands of clients. It is as follows: • Begin by reflecting on the situation and identifying emotional patterns. • Ask yourself what meaning is being assigned to the situation and what core wound it activates. • Look for proof of the opposite and reflect.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life

“Needs do not only stem from your attachment style. Personality needs are the subconscious strategies you’ve programmed with the most positive—over negative—associations to getting your six basic human needs met. According to the Habits of Well-Being, from the work of Tony Robbins, the six basic human needs are: 1. Love and connection 2. Significance 3. Certainty 4. Uncertainty 5. Growth 6. Contribution They are the basis of the choices we make and are fundamental to success and happiness. The first four of the six needs are what are called Needs of the Personality. They help define the human sense of achievement: 1. Love and connection is the need for attachment 2. Significance is the need to have meaning 3. Certainty is the need for safety or control 4. Uncertainty is the need for challenges or excitement The remaining two needs are what are known as Needs of the Spirit. 1. Growth is the need for intellectual or spiritual development 2. Contribution is the need to give beyond ourselves Needs are also paradoxical. With more challenges come less certainty, and more value placed on a search for deeper meaning often comes at the cost of less intimate connection with others. Within the spiritual needs, more growth comes with less contribution. By considering these needs in conjunction with the voids created by your attachment style, you can therefore begin to understand your most important needs and your unmet needs. For example, as an Anxious Attachment, you may value the basic human need of love and connection more so than significance. By overlaying the Robbins theory with attachment theory, one can begin to identify their subconscious needs and which ones are unmet. The combination of Tony Robbins’s teachings and attachment theory can be taken one step further—to illustrate that the void in your attachment style that creates resonance with certain basic human needs then goes on to form your identity.”
― Thais Gibson, Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life