601. What's Your Attachment Style? - with Stan Tatkin
Jun 4, 2024
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Attachment specialist and couples expert Stan Tatkin discusses adult pair bonding, insecure vs secure attachment styles, abandonment fears, raising secure children, and the polarization in the world. He explores 'island' and 'wave' attachment styles, nervous system responses to threats, and navigating attachment styles in relationships.
Understanding and respecting different attachment styles like islands and waves is crucial for healthy relationships.
Focusing on creating a shared mythology and cooperative dynamic in relationships fosters mutual growth and resilience.
Parents play a pivotal role in children's emotional development by modeling healthy relationship dynamics and prioritizing their partnership as a supportive unit.
Deep dives
Understanding Attachment Styles
Attachment styles, such as islands, anchors, and waves, play a crucial role in relationships. Islands are characterized by distancing behaviors, while on the other hand, waves exhibit clinging behaviors. An island partner may need space and privacy, and it's important to respect their independence while still showing understanding and connection. For partners who are waves seeking reassurance and fear of abandonment, it's essential to provide comforting touch, eye contact, and reassuring words to soothe their anxieties.
Maintaining Harmonious Relationships
In relationships, partners should focus on understanding each other's attachment styles rather than seeing them as problems to be solved. It's vital to work cooperatively, acknowledging where differences lie and finding common ground for mutual growth. By fostering a shared mythology or ethos built on safety, security, love, and shared vision, partners can align their behaviors towards a common purpose, creating a harmonious and resilient union.
Parenting and Secure Attachment
When it comes to raising children, the parents' love relationship forms the foundation for the child's sense of security and attachment. By demonstrating healthy relationship dynamics and prioritizing the couple as a cohesive team, parents model positive behaviors for their children and provide a secure environment for their emotional development. By emphasizing a couple's relationship as a primary pillar, parents create a supportive atmosphere that benefits not just the partnership, but also the children.
Addressing Relationship Challenges
Dealing with relationship challenges and conflicts requires a shift in focus from seeking the right partner to building the right relationship. Partners should aim to co-create a shared understanding of how they operate, aligning on core values, relationship ethics, and mutual objectives. The key is to commit to a collaborative and cooperative approach, prioritizing the relationship's health and longevity over individual desires or conflicts that may arise.
Personal Growth and Relationship Success
Personal growth and addressing attachment patterns contribute significantly to relationship success. By fostering self-awareness, tolerating discomfort, and prioritizing the relationship's well-being, individuals can navigate challenges with resilience and empathy. Developing a relational culture based on shared purpose, effective communication, and a willingness to understand and address differences sets the foundation for a thriving and fulfilling relationship.
Attachment specialist and couples expert Stan joins me to talk adult pair bonding, why we war, the threat system, waves vs islands, secure vs insecure attachment, how to assess yourself, abandonment and rejection, being needy, cultural factors, what to do with your partner’s attachment style, how to raise secure children and the polarisation in the world. A hugely important one if you have humans in your life.
Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT is a teacher, clinician, researcher, and developer of the Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy® (PACT).
Beloved by colleagues and clients alike, Stan is an expert on human behavior and couple relationships. He speaks and teaches around the world on secure-functioning relationships – how to understand them, create them, and support them.
