People with avoidant attachment ARE able to love and be in fulfilling relationships. They subconsciously use avoidance as a way to protect themselves. It is an adaptation developed from childhood as a response to a caregiver (often the mother) who …
Category: Psychotherapy
Tools for those with an Avoidant Attachment Style
The avoidant attachment style grows in children due to a caregiver (often the mother) who is emotionally unavailable and non-attuned to the child’s needs. Over time they suppress their natural desire to be comforted even when they are ill. These …
The Role of Self-Criticism
The antidote to self-criticism is self-compassion. We can learn self-compassion. The outstanding researcher Dr Kristin Neff has broken down self-compassion and has a suite of excellent tools to help increase our self-compassion quota. Compassion and Acceptance is also Module 5 …
How To Be With A Partner Who Is Anxiously Attached
Some common scenarios that come up when you are in a relationship with an anxiously attached partner: You have a busy day at work and couldn’t return his call and have received ten text messages which become more and more …
Tools For Those With Anxious Attachment
It is common for anxiously attached people to judge themselves for their insecurity. Having grown up with a mother (or primary caregiver) who was not consistently available and attuned to their needs, these children learnt that they were not important, …
Disorganised Attachment
This attachment style is a combination of the previous two (avoidant and ambivalent/anxious). Disorganised children give inconsistent responses in the presence of their primary caregiver (often the mother). They seem disoriented and confused. This is likely the result of erratic …
How to Get to Self-Love
I remember when I first heard about the concept of self-love. It was totally foreign. What did it mean to love yourself? I had only ever been taught that it was good to love others, to be kind to others. …
Avoidant Attachment
Attachment behaviours are the response of children to their primary caregiver (often the mother). With the amount of rapid brain growth occurring throughout childhood, the brain is literally being wired for relationships. With the avoidant attachment style, the mother is …
Ambivalent (Anxious) Attachment
All attachment styles are the child’s response to the mother’s behaviour (or primary caregiver). The child’s brain is being wired in specific directions regarding intimate relationships, based on the primary relationship; with the mother. There can be a few reasons …
Why Therapists Go To Therapy
I went to see my therapist yesterday to do some work around the birth of my two children. They are now 10 and 12 years old, but I still feel a queasiness in my stomach when I think about my …