Is Your Attachment Style Sabotaging Your Relationships? Dr Amir Levine Explains How to Rewire It

0:00Amazon presents Jeff vs. Taco Truck Salsa. Whether it's verde, roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habanero? More like habanere, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. Dr. Amir Levine, your book, Attached, I believe is one of the most important books of modern times. It sold multiple millions of copies. It's been translated to 42 languages. It's kind of crazy. You're the godfather of this. Those attachment styles, anxious, avoidant, and secure, is a major predictor of long-term satisfaction in relationships.

0:51How do attachment styles originate? That's kind of like the million-dollar question. So, hey there, before we begin the episode, I just want to say thank you for choosing We Need to Talk. Doing this podcast is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I want to continue to share it with you. So hit follow and the bell icon. It takes just a second, and it helps us to continue to grow this podcast.

1:31Dr. Amir Levine, we need to talk. I'm here to do that. First, I have to fan over you for a little bit, which I don't believe I've ever started any conversation fanning over a guest. Thank you. But I'm going to do it. Your book, Attached, which was, what, 2010, that you wrote with Rachel Heller, I believe is one of the most important books of modern times. Thank you. And it's a book that I've recommended, I have gifted, I have given to many people, I've read over and over and over again. Your book, Secure, which I was privileged enough to read in advance copy, is also, I believe, one of the most important books ever written in modern times.

2:27And I believe will revolutionize how people relate to each other. I am so excited to have you here. There's so many topics that I would love to unpack with you, but I just wanted to make sure that you know how important I believe your work is. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm actually, it's like, I didn't expect this. I'm really, I'm so glad to be here and I'm really looking forward to be able to talk about some of the tools that I have in this book and how he helped me enormously and he helped my patients and I wanted to help others too. Yes, yes. Could we start for anyone who does not know what attachment styles are and what it means and why it's important?

3:11Could we start there? What is an attachment style? So I have to say that I came across these attachment styles by chance. And this whole book came out of just really just like something that really could also have not happened just as easily. I was working. I'm also a psychiatrist and a child psychiatrist, and I was working in a therapeutic nursery, and I knew about attachment styles in children. There's like anxious, avoidance, a cure, but I didn't know anything about that in adulthood. But the work itself was so interesting at the time that I went and I read more and more, and that's where I discovered that, lo and behold, there's also those same attachment styles also exist in adulthood and really determine how we behave in close relationships.

3:59And for me, I was going through a breakup at the time and it was like a light bulb went on. And it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is actually what's going on in the relationship. That's why we broke up. And that knowledge, it almost like you start to see things in color where before you saw everything in black and white. Wow. So I talked to my friend, to my childhood friend, Rachel Heller. And, you know, when you go through a breakup, you incessantly talk about the breakup. So I said, you know, instead of incessantly, let's do something about it. let's take this information and turn it into a book.

4:31But we've always had this running joke that it's only going to sell one copy to the Library of Congress because we wrote it for ourselves, really. Oh, my gosh. Well, you know what? Could you brag a little bit? How many copies of Attached have been sold? It's sold multiple millions of copies. It's been translated to 42 languages. It's kind of crazy. We never imagined it would turn out to be. And it's still selling. It's kind of insane, yeah. Yes, yes. It is, you know, so I've been writing books for the last three years for the most part. I know. Well, thank you. Thank you. And what was interesting is that every time I would see the top ten list anywhere, I would say, oh, great, my book is at number seven.

5:11And I would always look number one attached. Number one was always attached, Amir Levine, which is incredible. Yeah, I know. It's like I think, you know what, I think we were able to do that same like Eureka experience that I had. And it wasn't that easy. It took us like five years of writing it because those attachment styles, the anxious, avoidant, insecure, they didn't really, they were buried in academic papers for adults. Like there wasn't an immediate translation. I could see how it was like, how it mattered to me, but it wasn't that easy translating it. You had to give a lot of examples.

5:49So I'll tell you, basically, it all has to do with how comfortable you feel with intimacy and closeness, but also how sensitive of a radar do you have to potential infraction in that closeness? So for potential threat, what we mean threat in an attachment is basically like all of a sudden the other person is less available to you. So how sensitive of a radar do you have for that lack of availability? Ah, okay. So it's like these two dimensions. So if you really love closeness a lot, you just can't get enough of it. But at the same time, you're like, oh, they didn't call me back oh what's happening not only bad things you also notice good things and that's very important and we're gonna have to talk about that because I really need people to understand it's not only a bad thing that you notice more but you're able to notice also the bad things then you have more of an anxious attachment styles because you can see why they're not answering what's happening are they okay I see that's anxious and then if you love closeness but all these signals go over your head because I don't want to sort of say oh of secures are so great.

6:56It's just like they are great, but also it's easier for them to be great because they don't notice all these little things that are happening. They'll be the last to know that their partner is cheating on them because it just goes over their head. Interesting. Oh my goodness, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. So it's great to be secure, but also you'll notice things less and you love closeness, so you're not as easily threatened by things that may happen in the relationship. And it's easier for you to keep calm because you don't see the potential threat that's coming. That's secure. And then avoidance, they just don't feel comfortable with too much closeness.

7:31And people say it's because this and that happened to them in childhood. I personally disagree, and I don't think the data supports that. I'm a scientist, so I have to sort of say whether science supports or doesn't support. I find that avoidance just don't feel comfortable with too much closeness, but you can help them work around that, And you can teach them certain tricks where they can actually help them to become more secure. But there is like, just like this, they just don't like to be too close. And they kind of like, it's like, oh, it just doesn't feel right to me if it's too close. So that's avoidance.

8:06And then there's a very small portion. There's a very small portion of the population that is fearful avoidance where they have this, they do notice a lot of potential threat in a relationship. They really want to be in a relationship. but they also need their space. Whereas like classic avoidance, they're like, who needs relationships? I'm fine on my own. They really put a lot of emphasis on self-reliance. Fearful avoidance want to be in a relationship, but then also struggle in it. Okay. Now you just said something in there when you were talking about avoidance that goes against what I often hear people say about attachment theory.

8:46Now, you're the godfather of this. So basically you're telling everyone But, okay, this is a myth. And what that is is you said that avoidance doesn't necessarily come from their relationship as a child. Right. Right. And so if you could speak to how do attachment styles originate, how do they then grow through to how we possess them as an adult? Right. I think that's a great – that's kind of like the million-dollar question. That's a great – I'm glad we're starting with that because it's so important. So I'll tell you first how attachment styles were first discovered. Okay. So, and I think it was an amazing discovery.

9:28We talk about discovering the DNA. It's like for a relationship person, like for me, that's like the discovery of the DNA. It was Mary Answorth. She first discovered these attachment style in Uganda. She went there on a field study. Actually, she went after her husband because he was supposed to go there. And then she just did the work. She was a psychologist. and she looked at how babies are weaning and their patterns are weaning and then she saw these three ways that babies are weaning when they stop. And then she came back to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins and then she did it in a lab. She did something that's called the strange situation test which is very important because it also goes, I'm going to tell you about it a little bit but you'll see, I'll refer back to it because it's important for adults too.

10:16So she took toddlers and their caregivers and she brought them. You could observe them through a one-way mirror. And you put them in a room full of toys. And immediately you start, you can see it on YouTube. They start pointing at the toys. They want to play. They start crawling, playing. Every once in a while, they look back to see their caregiver, their mother is there. And then they ask their mother to leave. And they drop what they're doing. They crawl back. They go over to the door, stop banging, crying. You try to interest them in the toilet. They'll throw it in your face. They don't care.

10:53And then they ask the caregiver to come back. And it's in that moment, the reunion, where she really classified this reattachment style. And it all has to do with how good is the bond in helping the dyad and the baby regulate their emotions. Okay. So secures, it's like a miracle. The moment the mother picks them up, they come down, start again, wanting to play. Anxious? Not at all. They cry and they cry. It takes much longer to soothe them. Sometimes they come down and then they all of a sudden, oh my God, no, remembering how horrible it was, start crying again. And avoidance sometimes won't really even cry and they continue to play.

11:38But then the mother picks them up and they don't even hug them so much. But when they looked inside, their blood pressure is through the roof. So they're calm, but they're not calm inside. And they're not able to use the bond effectively to regulate their emotions. And then in 1987, Hazen and Shaver thought, well, the same neurocircuitry may also apply to adults. Let's test that. And they did the seminal studies where they had people in romantic relationships weigh themselves according to the parameters that we talked about. Are you anxious, avoidant, and insecure? And lo and behold, they saw that it actually is about the same amount of people as babies are anxious and avoidant and secure.

12:26Like 50 % are secure, around 54%. 25 % are avoidant. Around 20 % are anxious. Okay. And also, it really is a major predictor of long-term satisfaction in relationships. Look at that. Okay. So it's a predictor of long-term satisfaction that I would imagine it's also then a predictor of what, physical health maybe, how long you live. So I'm glad that you're bringing that up because, first of all, I really think it's important that it's like, oh, it's not a predictor of happiness. It's something that sounds a little bit more mundane. Oh, long-term satisfaction. But if you really think about it, long-term satisfaction means, yeah, you're going to have difficult moments.

13:09You're going to be – but in the long term, how stable and good you're going to feel about the relationship. Because really, we are such a social species. We never really – like we're never doing stuff on our own. Even when we do stuff, we have conversations in our heads. So we're so innately social that it really has something to do with our health. And also it affects our relationship with our health care providers. It even has to do with how we shop. People are secure, care less about logos and consumerism. It also really dictates how we feel about going online and how we can manage the online stuff.

13:52You know, who likes you, who doesn't like you. who it all affects a lot of our perception way beyond our just like one close relationship. It affects our relationship with our friends. It's just like with our colleagues. Becoming more secure has a much more widespread effect than just like how good is the romantic relationship. And that's why I wrote secure, because I wanted people to have that benefit and we can all become more secure. And that's another very important message. But is that the goal, to become secure? Because what you mentioned also, that blows me away, is when you said in the 87 test with the adults, it was roughly the same percentage.

14:37So to me, it sounds like then those adults didn't change from childhood. Okay, great that you're bringing that up because that's probably, I think, the biggest myth, the biggest, biggest myth. And there is research that actually tells you exactly. And it's not just one study. It's multiple studies that replicated the same finding, is that your childhood attachment explains less than 10 % of your adult attachment. So more than 90%, sometimes 95 % in some studies, are not explained by your childhood attachment. So I actually find it an extremely hopeful message. Yes. Because it means that we can change and we can change throughout our life, even in old age.

15:21And we do, in fact, change. We can help it by change because it doesn't really make sense. You know, we are we're an uber social species and are really our biggest asset is our ability to collaborate with others. I mean, we're not very strong animals, but we yet we live. We made it to the moon. We can live in the North Pole and all because we can collaborate with others and come up with solutions. so it wouldn't make sense that it will be just stay fixated with one thing that happened to us early on and that's how we're going to be forever and ever now. We're much more agile. Our mind, our brain is much more agile than that.

16:00And I actually discovered that in my work in the lab because I'm also a molecular neuroscientist and that's where I really, when you do those experiments on the molecular level, you really get a sense of how we call the plastic, but really how malleable the brain is. On that note, can we talk about the attachment test that I took and even break down the results and what that means? So this is in your new book that you're providing. It's an app. Right. It's a research-based questionnaire that I sort of modified a bit. And I actually call it in the book, you can really look and figure out your attachment topography.

16:43Because when you see it on a graph, you fill out the questionnaire about different people in your life, people that you're close to, even your pet, by the way. I mentioned that to you because we're so close to them, right? So it's an experience in close relationship questionnaire. But it really gives you a wider way. So at the end of it, you get to see where you are. And you also can get to see, and that's the new book, Secure, is really about how to change your attachment style. So you can take it over time and you can actually see how much progress you're making with all the tools that I actually give you, that I give readers in the book.

17:19As you can see, you can map your progress, but you can also get a sense where you are. And if there are outliers, maybe you need to look out for those too. Yes. And that was something that I really appreciated. So the app, it's my attachment topography calculator, correct? Right. And you can also, if you go to my website, amielelevinemd.com, there's a link there and you can just go there because that's a mouthful. All right. Super. So, Dr. Levine, if it's possible to grab those results. So I went to the calculator. Yes. And what I did is, and what I love is that you can put in as many relationships as possible.

18:00So you put your, I didn't know I could put my dog in there. You could. I wonder if I could look him out. I'm going to do that now after this. But I put Jill in as one, so my wife. I also put my friends in as another. And then I put my coworkers in. And I saw that each one did come back with different results. Yes. I mean, you're all, like, it's all within the secure realm. There's a quadrant. But then with the friends and with the colleagues, it sort of, like, shifted a little bit to, like, closer to, like, more to, a little bit more to avoidance. But I think that's fine. We don't really share or sort of bear our souls to our colleagues.

18:42Well, friends, maybe like, I don't know, maybe you want to think about that. No, no, but really, could you, looking at those results, what, I mean, now, what would you say I should do with those results? So it depends. That's what I really, you know, this is what I really love about attachment. and that's another myth that I need to dispel right away here. It's so important that often time, when I went online, I said, oh, you have to heal your attachment style or they treat it as if it's a pathology but one of the reasons why I fell in love with this field is that it doesn't come from the medical model and so it doesn't so to pathologize these attachment styles is really not the right way of looking at it because it's not it's really a variation on the norm It's like saying that because I have blue eyes, it's a pathology.

19:37I see. But it's not a pathology. Maybe if I live in a very sunny place, I need to wear sunglasses more to protect, to sort of to work with my biology. But it's not like, oh, you're like, it's like terrible that you have blue eyes. Okay. So it's the same kind of thing. And I can even, there's been studies that show how in certain circumstances, there's an advantage to having an anxious attachment style and an avoidant attachment style. One study that I love, I think it's brilliant, they had a group of people in a room, and they had smoke starting to come out, very little in the beginning, barely noticeable from a computer.

20:14And it was the anxious attachment style people that noticed it first. And it was the avoidant people who were like, fuck y 'all, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. But then everybody followed. So it's like, you know what? I'm not going to start looking around me to see what's happening and check on other people. I need to get out. I'm curious, what are the security? They just said, ah, it's somewhere in the middle, right? They're not as quick to respond, right? So I think it's so telling. And that's also part of what I try to address in Secure is to really show each attachment style, like what are their superpower?

20:55But also, you know, like what is your version of putting on sunglasses to help you work with your biology better rather than against it. Okay. So when we get back to this, attachment is not about like healing something. It's about more, is it effective or is it not effective? Is it working for you or is it not working for you? Okay. So we'll start, but if it's working for you, then that's fine. That's great. We don't need to change anything. But it also gives you an idea like, oh, I'm very close to my wife. and looks like I'm very, very secure. I would say that she's probably your biggest confidant and the person that you were back to.

21:34And she fulfills the role of the emotional connectedness that you need to do. And with other people, you don't feel that need. And it's fine because we all have an attachment hierarchy in our brain. Okay. And that's really important to understand. It's important to understand that attachment is really, it's all about, it's a safety mechanism. It's how we feel safe in the world. We really focus about the relationship and the quality of the relationship. But it's really, I mean, it is about that, but it's fundamentally something much more profound. Because we're not descendants of elephants or lions or eagles.

22:11We are descendants of animals that were in the middle of the food chain. And it's hugely, our way to feel safe is by having others around us and knowing that they're available to us and they're looking at us. because we'll start with the fact that just by the fact that you and I are sitting here, if a predator came, just by the sheer fact that you're here, there's a 50 % less chance of me getting eaten. Because they either get you or me. But that's a big reduction. Not taking into account the fact that maybe we can fight them together, that I can alert you to something that's happening, that we can sort of devise ways of sort of like all that.

22:55And that's also, it's not just in humans. They even find it in social birds. Social birds oftentimes, I mean, the life of a bird is like you peck for food and then every once in a while they swoop up and look to see if there's predators coming. But if they're in a group, they actually look up a lot less and they get this freedom. It really gives them more energy and more ability to kind of like look for food. So basically, the relationship is more about how we feel safe because we didn't have like money or credit cards or condos or like fancy cars. People think that that's what's going to make them feel safe, having those assets.

23:31But that's not fundamentally how our brain feels safe because it didn't exist when our emotional brain formed. So we all have a surveillance system. Even now, it's always going on in the back of our head. Like you have an idea where your loved ones are and that they're OK. But if I told you, oh, like a terrible thing, like maybe some sort of an accident happened or a building fell or something, I don't even want to say it because it's, yeah, then it will be hard for you to sort of continue this interview. You'll have to stop and make sure that you're okay. And then you can resume, albeit a little rattled, but still.

24:05Oh, yes. I mean, on that point, something that actually happened during an interview, or should I say right after an interview, was my son sent a text. So he was at school. There was an intruder. It was an intruder alarm. So not a fire alarm, but an intruder was in the building. They had to hide under desks. Oh, my God. He sent a text saying, Mom, Dad, I'm hiding under a desk right now. My world stopped. You see? I couldn't do anything else. It gives me goosebumps. So to your point, absolutely. So I see that we have that hierarchy, if you will, in our mind. And continued surveillance, continued surveillance, even if we're not aware of it, of knowing where our loved ones are, you know, knowing that they're safe and vice versa for them to us.

24:57So if I'm looking here, I see that you have one person that can really rely on like a lot. and the rest. I mean, it's fine not to like, and we all have that number one that we know if something bad happens, that we go to. And if we're securely attached to them, it's amazing because sometimes all it will take is one word or it's just like simply a hug, which is also very important because attachment, a lot of it is pre-language. So we have to remember that. So sometimes a hug, or if you're not close to them, one word over the phone and they can really help you in an amazing way. And I always like to say that there's no, and it's so important, I'm a psychiatrist.

25:37So there's no Xanax or Klonopin in the world that can sort of like make us calm down that quickly because there's so such social species. So when relationships, when relationships are secure and they work effectively, it's amazing how how they can regulate our emotions. our emotions, but the caveat is that insecure relationships can be one of the most potent instigators of emotional upset. Attachment is both at the basis of suffering and then healing from suffering. Wow, look at that. So you said an insecure relationship will exacerbate issues in essence. I believe, because we were talking about also that I believe that my relationship with Jill went from a place of maybe it was an insecure relationship.

26:29Maybe I think I was highly anxious in the relationship. I think I was highly avoidant at the same time. And it's moved to a place of security. How does that happen? My guess would be that she's probably more secure. I don't know if that's true or not. I think so. So in the course of doing this work from the very beginning and then now more and more all the time. And that's why I call this new type of therapy that I've devised to help people become more secure. Because initially I didn't really know. You know, when I wrote about attachment styles and attach came out, then patients started coming, like, help me become more secure.

27:09But there was no immediate way of becoming more secure. Because again, these attachment styles, they didn't come from the medical model. I didn't ever learn about adult attachment styles in my psychiatry training. It's all something that I discovered by chance. So over the years, I really had to sort of really think hard about how to help patients become more secure. And surprisingly, I found a lot of these answers from my work in the lab and understanding the brain. And I find myself deviating more and more from the regular therapeutic techniques and talking to my patients about the brain and the social brain and how the brain works and devising specific tools to help people become more secure.

27:48But even before you go into all that, if just by sheer luck you ended up with someone secure, they're amazing. They're like these relationship pros. It's like having a built-in relationship coach that will teach you the ways of becoming more secure. And again, it's because it's not, I mean, they're amazing. But if you think about it, I told you in the beginning that it's because they don't have such a sensitive radar. But think about really of it as like an alarm system that goes off. So it's not a very sensitive alarm. How much harder it is if you have an alarm that goes off of every little thing that happens.