The 3 Secrets of Attachment Theory - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

[Music] I'm a marriage and Family Therapist and one of the most common cases that come to me is as follows a couple comes for therapy and I can tell right away that the wife is kind of dragging her husband into the session and they sit down and he kind of like you know kind of shrug his shoulders doesn't want to say anything and his wife brings out a whole list of problems she has with her husband so what does the therapist do with that information he's starting to withdraw and she has so much to say and so much to complain about how do we help such a couple well I want to give you one of the secrets of marriage therapy and it's called attachment theory attachment theory tells us that there are three styles of attachment that all couples have and we could see this when they walk into your office what are the three styles of attachment the first style is called secure attachment now secure attachment is something which happens to somebody when they're a little child when a baby is born that baby let's say is held warmly by his mother the mother can give the child love affection take care of the kids physical needs he can dressed she can dress the child she can feed the child she can make sure the child goes to the doctor if the child is sick and more importantly than that the mother expresses a lot of interest in what the child is feeling so if one day the kid comes home from school and says mommy it got punched in school mommy the mommy goes oh I'd feel so bad for you you're a pot tell me more about your feelings or one day let's say a daughter comes home and she tells the daughter you know I see you look so sad you want to tell me how you're feeling and the daughter starts crying and the mother says let me hold you and listen to your feelings that is called secure attachment when a mother spends a lot of time loving and giving to the child but most importantly when the child feels that he or she is listened to the child develops what we call secure attachment and here's the wonderful secure attachment if you have secure attachment you not only have it as a child you take it with you the rest of your life so 20 25 years later you get married or try to get married you were more easily experienced these feelings of attachment and be able to get close to somebody else what's another style of attachment the second style is called anxious attachment what if somebody had a mother who was very worried all the time and very anxious or very preoccupied she has problems in her phone family there's a physical illness there's poverty there's violence in their family there's trauma and the mother's really not around so much the child kind of feels like the mother loves him or her but he's not sure because mommy's here sometimes and most of the time mommy is just so involved and preoccupied with other people that child develops what we call anxious attachment the child doesn't know if he or she is really loved and they wonder do you really love me mommy are you really here for me and 20 or 25 years later that child tries to get married and as an adult he or she experiences a lot of anxiety in their marriage she would say do you really love me do you really care about me and the third style of attachment is called avoidant attachment let's say someone had a mother who was cold and distant or could even be abusive she didn't care about the child's feelings the child was feeling very frustrated he would come home from school and say mommy I was poached and the mother would say not interested be stronger take care of it yourself that's what we call avoidant attachment whatever the child would try to communicate with the mother the mother would reject the child's feelings and what does the child think the child thinks like this inside unconsciously if I ask for what I need for my mother I'm only going to be met with rejection so it's safer not to ask for what I need and that child develops an avoidance for closeness and an avoidance for emotion let's go back to a couple the couple comes in the husband sits down and kind of shrugs and the wife pulls out of lists of all her problems my husband doesn't love me he doesn't care about me he's never home in time we don't have enough money and so on and so on what are we really looking at what we're really looking at is two different attachment styles the husband in this case is presenting what we call an avoidant attachment style he's avoiding talking to her a lot he's avoiding talking to her about his feelings he comes home sometimes he shrugs he's not interested in talking he gets on the phone he goes in surfs the Internet but he can't communicate with his wife his wife is wandering all the time do you love me do you really care about me you don't bring me flowers you don't text me little messages during the day you don't ever tell me you love me and that's what that couple is really fighting about they're not fighting about small things they're not even fighting about money they sometimes think they're fighting about how the husband is messy with this toothbrush or he doesn't pick up his socks in the morning that's where they're not really talking about what this couple is really fighting for is his deep desire for what we call attachment she is longing for attachment she is longing for closeness but he's uncomfortable with that closeness about 70% of all the couples that come from marriage therapy had this different type of attachment style one person is anxious he or she pursues closeness while the other person avoids closeness and that's what many couples are really finding about think about in your marriage which one of you is avoiding closeness and which one of you is pursuing closeness if this is not working right there'll be a lot of fighting going on and it works like this one person pursues but overwhelms the other person it was avoidant and he or she will tend to withdraw but here's the problem the more that person withdraws the more the other person is going to pursue closeness what we have is what we call pursue withdraw withdraw pursue that couples going to be fighting all the time but here's a secret to marriage it can all be changed it's quite simple if the person that withdraw a lot starts withdrawing less starch showing some affection starts texting messages buying flowers for his wife doing those little things which make her feel loved she begins to calm down and if she's the anxious one or pursues a lot if she's a little less critical if she's more of a accepting of his emotions then that couple comes together and they experience what we call greater a greater sense of attachment and that could be experienced by all couples with a little bit of work welcome to this new series in HIDA Brut called marriage matters my name is rabbi Daniel shomba and I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in New York and around the world via Skype on this important series I will be answering your questions you have about marriage relationships dating parenting and about any issue dealing with family relationships but more than what I have to say I want to hear what you have to say so please email to this address and send in your questions and I'll try to answer as many questions on this new show