How to Improve Any Relationship: The 4 Attachment Styles You Need to Know & Tools to Become More Secure

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Questions like, why do I always feel left out in my friend group? Why does my spouse just brush me off whenever I'm trying to connect? Why do I always date the same losers over and over and over again? The answer is attachment theory. Now, attachment theory is something you've probably seen online. You may have read about it. It sounds intellectual, doesn't it? But it's not. It is a simple framework backed by decades of research that is going to help you better understand how you and the other people in your life show up in a relationship, and that's exactly what I want to help you do today. I want you to have better relationships. Why? Because you deserve better relationships. I mean, wouldn't it be amazing to have a whole group of friends where you could just text them whatever you're thinking or feeling? You don't have to rewrite it 55,000 times.

 

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You don't have to worry about whether or not they're mad at you. Wouldn't it be wonderful to show up in your married life or your dating life and not feel insecure or not feel like you can't trust people? Wouldn't it be awesome to feel so secure, so deserved that you are such an awesome person that you know exactly how you want to be treated? Wouldn't it be amazing to let love and compliments into your life? You better believe it would be amazing, and the way that you do that is you learn how to improve your relationships, not only your relationship with yourself, but your relationship with absolutely everybody you interact with, and that's where attachment theory comes in. When you understand your attachment style and you understand how to become more securely attached, you will have a better and happier life. Full stop. You're going to feel safer, more secure, and this is the part I love the most.

 

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You'll be able to show up absolutely anywhere with anybody and be your full self. How fricking awesome does that sound? Now, it's interesting because I didn't really understand attachment theory until recently, and now that I've learned a lot about it, I'm like, oh my gosh. My husband Christopher and I have basically been talking about attachment theory for two years in our marriage counseling every week because we have totally different attachment styles. I also know that a lot of you that are in your twenties right now are reading that book attached because it became super popular during the pandemic. Our daughters who are 23 and 22 are reading it, and I know that you've seen attachment theory or maybe you've discussed attachment theory with friends or your therapist, but today, guess what? Everybody is invited to this conversation because we are going to get every one of you up to speed so that you understand yourself, you understand your attachment style, you understand attachment styles and other people, and more importantly, you can use absolutely everything that you learned today to improve your relationship to yourself and others.

 

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So how are we going to do that? Well, I have tracked down one of the world's leading experts on attachment theory. Her name is Dr. Marissa Franco. She's a psychologist, a professor at the University of Maryland. She's also the New York Times bestselling author of the book on attachment styles and how they impact your friendships. That book, it is called Platonic, and don't you worry, I'm going to put all her information in the show notes just like always. And that's important because it's not just your romantic relationships, you're about to learn that attachment style impacts every relationship, your friendships, your work colleagues, your family, yourself, because attachment style is all about you and how you show up in relationships, and that's why it impacts everything. So let's get you feeling secure and get Dr. Marissa Franco on the line people. Dr. Franco, I am so excited that you're joining us. Thank you.

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:04:59):

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:05:08):

Secure? You are comfortable giving and receiving love. You trust that other people love you. You can bring up conflict, very level headedly. Your skill is really perspective taking. When something happens in your relationships, you are thinking about the other person's needs and your own and how to balance both of your needs. You tend to be a really good friend. You're more likely to initiate friendships, less likely to end friendships, more likely to maintain them, very comfortable being vulnerable, but in a flexible way, whereas anxious people, you'll see them be vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable. Other people aren't responding and they're still pushing vulnerability, whereas secure people are like, if you're not responsive to this, I'm going to become less vulnerable. They tend to look for relationships with other people that are healthy because their assumption is that I'm lovable and I deserve to be loved by other people.

 

Mel Robbins (00:05:57):

So at the basis of somebody with a secure attachment style, you have an assumption that you are lovable and that you deserve to be

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:06:05):

Loved. Yeah, it's kind of like you're on your own side. Is there

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:08):

Anybody on the planet that, can you introduce me to them? I am not kidding. It feels like that's a very whole and safe and healthy human being,

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:06:30):

And attachment is a spectrum, so nobody's fully secure, just like nobody's fully anxious or nobody's fully avoidant.

 

Mel Robbins (00:06:37):

So the second one is anxious. So can you tell us what an anxious attachment style might be?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:06:43):

So your core fear is that everybody's abandoning. You tend to see rejection even when it's not occurring. A friend is tired and you're like, oh my God, they're rejecting me. They hate me. Or a friend has taken a little longer to respond to you. You don't consider other people's circumstances when determining how they're treating you. You just take everything personally at the neurological level. Research finds that your amygdala, which is the part of your brain that's associated with stress, is more sensitive. It lights up more than people of other attachment styles. You are kind of passive aggressive in conflict. You are very self-sacrificing until you sort of blow up because you can't take it anymore. Your relationships just tend to be kind of unbalanced. It's you giving giving until you can anymore, and then you sort of just pull away. You're not very flexible. You can be kind of controlling again, because I spoke about earlier, you need other people to soothe your emotions. So when someone is doing something and you feel triggered, you almost have to try to control them to get you to soothe your own emotions. So anxiously attach people, they're almost, they're kind of avoidant towards themselves. Their internal dialogue is like, I'm too much. These feelings aren't okay. They very much invalidate their own feelings and emotions, which is part of the reason why they really need other people to validate themselves.

 

Mel Robbins (00:08:04):

You basically just described me, I dunno if you knew that this was a therapy session for Mel Robbins, but Dr. Franco, we just have a diagnosis now let's talk about the third attachment style avoidant.

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:08:17):

So avoidant people, they fundamentally don't trust others. They think, if I get close to you, you are going to harm me. So they don't get close to others. They don't initiate as much. They're more likely to end friendships, more likely to ghost on others, not as emotional. Very struggle so much with vulnerability, not only in themselves, but other people. If you're vulnerable with someone who's more avoidant, they might pull away from you in relationships, it feels like there's a dance with them where you feel like you're getting close to 'em and then all of a sudden they sort of back away. They tend to ignore problems, they minimize them, they ignore conflict. They talk like everything's always okay, and why are you making a big deal of them? They have this assumption that people shouldn't have needs both them and other people. And so when it comes to friendship, they're sort of low effort and low reward. They don't put a lot of effort into their relationships and they also feel very disconnected from other people.

 

Mel Robbins (00:09:17):

Then you said there was a fourth one. It's not quite organized, meaning that the style is the style when it comes to connection or trying to connect, but that it's this fourth one that's a little bit more disorganized, you said. So can you explain a little bit more about that one?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:09:35):

Yeah, so this disorganized, it's people that have really grown up in more extreme situations like abuse, and so they have to pull out the whole toolbox of strategies to try to find safety. So it's like they kind of flip between anxious and avoidant depending on how you're interacting with them. Once you get closer to them, they all of a sudden might become avoidant and feel a sudden need to very much withdraw. It's like they feel this duality. I really want to connect with people, but I'm also so petrified of connection and it puts them in a bit of a free state. There's this feeling that I'm paralyzed. I don't know what to do in this relationship. I don't know whether to come close or to pull away because I have both of these needs that feel so strong within me.

 

Mel Robbins (00:10:20):

Why Dr. Franco? Do attachment styles matter?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:10:26):

Yes, so our attachment style really impacts how we give and receive love and thus our ability to build healthy relationships with other people.

 

Mel Robbins (00:10:39):

Wow. Does everybody have an attachment style?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:10:42):

Yeah, we all have an attachment style. It's basically like we all come into new relationships with a set of assumptions, and those assumptions define our attachment style.

 

Mel Robbins (00:10:55):

Okay, so can you give me, we know that the four attachment styles we've already talked about secure, avoidant, anxious and disorganized.

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:11:05):

Disorganized, yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (00:11:06):

Can you give me four signs of each attachment style?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:11:11):

Sure. Yeah. So let's think about this practically in our relationships. If you're with someone securely attached, you set a boundary with them, they accept the boundary, they don't try to push it, change it. They don't suddenly pull away because you set that boundary. If you're with someone securely attached, they're comfortable being vulnerable, you'll see that they're being vulnerable with you, but almost in a more reciprocal way, they'll be vulnerable. They'll wait for you to be vulnerable back then they'll be more vulnerable, whereas someone avoidantly attached really won't be able to be vulnerable. If someone is securely attached, they can address you directly but not confrontationally. So let's say this is in a friendship context where it feels like the friendship has been one-sided. The securely attached friend will say, I love you, I want to be close to you, and I've noticed I've been the one reaching out and that's been hurting me and I want our friendship to continue.

 

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So I figured I'd bring this up. Those are some signs of securely attached people, anxiously attached people. Their core fear is that everyone will abandon them. You can tell what someone's anxiously attached when they're almost like willing to give up their sense of self to be in relationship with other people. They're hyper accommodating often until it really blows up and then they become the opposite. When it comes, they anxiously attach people because they fear abandonment. They're not necessarily good at setting boundaries. So they might agree to things and then it seems like they're resentful about it. We talked about egoistic giving that they're generous oftentimes to get people to like them. They're attracted to relationships with people that don't seem to like them very much because learned that they had to earn love. So you'll see an anxiously attached person having these friendships with people or these relationships with people that kind of mistreat them because that makes them motivated to earn love and that's what they learned about love, that it's something that's earned not freely given.

 

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And then avoidantly attached. People, you'll know they're avoidant because they're never vulnerable. You don't feel like you really know them. When you maybe do have a moment of intimacy and closeness, they suddenly pull away and you're like, what the heck is going on? They have a lot of shame, but they don't really admit to it. So they really struggle with things like apologizing, whereas anxiously attached persons is going to over apologize. They avoidantly attached person is going to say, no, this is not my fault. This is kind of your fault. They just don't tend to put much effort into their relationship. So if you feel like, man, this person, I'm trying to connect with them, they're not really meeting me there, and that person might be more avoidantly attached, I can't get them to try. They're not really trying. That might be a sign of avoid attachment. That being said, of course, attachment is not stagnant in different relationships. We can have different attachment styles based off of the attachment style of the other person. So it's hard to say based on your interactions with one person, what their attachment style is.

 

Mel Robbins (00:14:26):

What about somebody who's disorganized? What are some of the signs that you're kind of in a relationship or a friendship with somebody who has a disorganized attachment style?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:14:37):

So the disorganized attachment style is, it's not organized, so it feels like chaos. Sometimes. They want you to get really close. Sometimes they're pushing you away, sudden withdrawal. They have trouble regulating their emotions because their relationships have not helped them do that. In the past, people have not validated their feelings, so you might get more escalation, more anger. They might be interpreting we your actions with a lot of negative intent, you're going out of your way to harm me, to destroy me. And so it'll kind of feel chaotic. You kind will be like, what is going on? I thought we were just connecting and they have a very different interpretation of the situation. And usually with a disorganized attachment style, there's a history of a pretty brutal background, like a history of some sort of abuse in childhood.

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:15:48):

One way that I hear other people's attachment style is how they perceive other people. So the insecure with anxious people, you hear them say, all my relationships are fragile or everybody's going to kind of abandon me. And the avoidance, you'll hear them say, nobody can be trusted. And when you have this one template about everybody, it's a sign that it's not actually everybody because you're not actually discerning each person. You just are coming in with this understanding and superimposing it onto the present, which is what attachment style is really. So when I hear someone secure though, they always try to give people the benefit of the doubt while having boundaries. So they'll say things like, I had to love that person from afar, and they can admit that even when I had, even though we didn't, maybe when they talk about their exes, there'll be some complexity.

 

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It didn't work out for this reason, but I like them for this reason instead of my ex was just evil. So you'll hear that complexity with securely attached people and you'll hear them trying to be as loving as possible to people while also having them recognize what they need for themselves. So kind of both things. There's just more nuance with securely attached people, and I'm sorry I'm answering your previous question, but I'm realizing so I have so many more thoughts on this. Whereas avoidantly attached people actually have memory issues because they block out their emotion. If you ask them to talk about things, they are not very expressive. It's hard to get them to describe things. It's hard to get them to describe what they think or what they feel because our emotions are big indicators of what we think it feel and our opinions in our internal world.

 

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So it'll almost feel like with someone avoidantly attached, it's like, yeah, the conversation is maybe specifically when you talk about relationships, the conversation doesn't go as deep, whereas anxiously attach people their memory, they tend to misremember things and remember things as more negative than they actually were. So that's really interesting quirk attachment theory and memory. But back to your major question, which was is it easier to recognize in yourself and someone else? Honestly, I think anxiously attached, people tend to be so hungry for information as to how to improve. So when I talk anxiously attach people already, they follow up with me and they're like, that's me. I am anxiously attached. I clinging. I'm so afraid everyone's going to abandon me, and I think everybody's judging me. So I think often anxiously attach people, they hear the basics of attachment and they kind of quickly see themselves in it. That's not happened to me as much with woodenly attached people. Again, they struggle with vulnerability, so I imagine it would be harder to say, I'm attached and I've had these struggles in the past.

 

Mel Robbins (00:18:34):

I have a question about that because fascinating. If you are avoidantly attached and you're listening to somebody talk about attachment theory, given that somebody that has an anxious attachment style might immediately self-diagnose, might immediately see themselves, what is an avoidant attachment style person likely to experience as they're learning abouts attachment styles and considering themselves as they're listening to you, Dr. Franco?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:19:09):

Yeah, discomfort. When you get deep with avoidantly attached people or you try to get them to acknowledge some of their wounds, they feel very uncomfortable with that and maybe they'll stop listening. Honestly, I mean, this obviously depends, and honestly, there's some research that finds that if you're in a relationship with someone who's avoidant but has humility, there's a lot better outcomes. Whereas if the avoidant person is like, everything's your fault and I'm fine and you're being sensitive, then it's going to be really hard to connect with that specific form of avoidant attachment. So there has to be with an avoidant attachment, a willingness to look at yourself and to be conscious of your patterns, which I think anxiously attach. People tend to be more willing to do. If you're having conflict with an avoidant person, often they are just stonewalling or they're ghosting or they're minimizing or they're saying, we're not going to talk about this.

 

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Basically anything related to relationships and intimacy really scares and overwhelms, avoidantly attach people sometimes we think of anxiously attach people as more sensitive in that they get really overwhelmed when a relationship's not going well, but so do avoidantly attach people? They just express it. They express that sensitivity through removal. They can't, they, they're so overwhelmed emotionally by relationships, by intimacy, and so they're stonewalling, which is a sign of being emotionally overwhelmed. They're being closed off, they're being dismissive because it's too emotionally overwhelming to look at some of their own patterns because fundamentally avoidantly attached, people have a lot of shame if you tell them they've made a mistake. They have this core belief that I am a failure, that I am deficient. They probably won't admit that to you, but anytime you try to offer a critique to an avoidantly attached person that you might trigger that core wound of, I'm a failure, I'm deficient, which is why it feels, it can feel so hard for an avoidantly attached person to hear some of their patterns and hear some of their dynamics.

 

Mel Robbins (00:21:25):

What I love about what you're teaching us is I think that we've gotten to this point, especially when you look at content on social media where there's so much of a push to cut people out of your life to label that sort of stonewalling is the word that you just used. But if you think about it from the standpoint of somebody that has trauma in their past or they have just an avoidant attachment style because of what they experienced as a child and that it's just overwhelming to feel those emotions, if you can come at it from a sense of compassion, I love what you're teaching us because through understanding, you might be able to keep somebody in your life instead of just being like, that's it, you're out. You don't talk. You don't go deep. You're stonewalling me. You're ghosting me. When really there's another side to this coin, which is no, this is a person who through their childhood gets very overwhelmed by these emotions and by intimacy and they protect themselves by removing this isn't about hurting you, it's about them protecting themselves. Am I kind of processing this the right way, Dr. Franco?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:22:45):

You are certainly, certainly, and I think if you want to be in relationship with someone who's avoidant, it's important that you try to get your needs met in another relationship, not trying to depend on this one avoidant person to meet all of your needs. The more that your needs are met elsewhere, the more you can be flexible with the person that's more avoidant. So the more that I feel like in another relationship makes me feel secure, another relationship, I can be very vulnerable and deep, another relationship I feel really loved and valued, then you kind of have your cup full enough to be able to be more flexible with that avoidantly attached person who's like, we had some intimacy. Now I need a breather and I need to kind of pull away for a while. But I do think that we should challenge avoidantly, attach people to say that it's okay that you need boundaries around intimacy, and it's okay that intimacy scares you, but you also need to fill people in. You have to just be able to say, Hey, I'm a little overwhelmed right now. I need about a week, and then I'll come back and we can talk about this instead of not communicating anything and just sort of ghosting on people. That hurts people a lot. So I think on both end, does it

 

Mel Robbins (00:24:11):

Hurt the person who's avoidant when they ghost? Does that contribute to shame or is that just a way to just kind of, sorry, go ahead.

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:24:23):

So what we see the pattern being is anxiously attach. People think too much about other people and not enough about themselves. And avoidantly attach. People think a lot about themselves and their own needs and not as much about their impact on other people. So the anxious person being willing to completely sacrifice their sense of self and do whatever their partner needs and they're not actually happy, but they still feel like they're in a relationship with another person, which is not actually the goal. The goal isn't to be in a relationship at all costs. It's to be in a relationship that elevates you and helps you express who you are and makes you feel happier. But the avoidantly attached person, it's like when you're negotiating with someone and they have all the resources and all the power, it just tends to be the anxiously attached person who's adjusting to the avoidantly attached person because the avoidantly attached person is like, well, I'm okay alone.

 

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I'm okay and dependent. I don't really need these relationships with other people. But you will find that avoidably attached people, they tend to have a phantom X, where while they're in a relationship, they don't appreciate it, but then when it's over, they look back on it. Once they're avoidant, they call these deactivating strategies, which is basically at some point this avoidant side of them really takes over and all they can think about is needing space and feeling suffocated and needing boundaries. It's kind of like crisis mode. But once they have that space, that deactivating side moves away and they tend to look back on these relationships and miss them and feel lonely and realize that they do also really need connection. So the avoidantly attached person is kind of in this very stuck place where it's like one side of me really needs connection, and another side of me is so afraid of it, afraid of it, because I think if you get too close, you're going to harm me.

 

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That is what the avoidantly attached person sees. I think if you get too close, you're not actually going to like who I am, you're going to see me as less than and deficient end of failure. So they can't decouple intimacy for its beauty and its feelings of connection and meaning from intimacy as a threat, as a sign of betrayal, as a sign of being judged, as a sign of being ultimately rejected. So once the piece of threat takes over and they ghost and they actually feel relieved from being separated from the relationship at first, but then as that deactivating part melts away a little bit, they start to grieve. They'll have a more delayed grief process around the relationship.

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:27:03):

Yeah. Like I said, in each different relationship you can have a different attachment style, and that is, it makes sense if someone is very anxious and is like, I need all your time and attention and you need to be showing me that you love me all the time, you're going to be like, I need some space. I need some me time. I'm losing myself to try to reassure you in all these ways. And if someone's super avoidant and they're very distant and you're trying to connect with them and they're always pulling away, you're going to feel pretty anxious where it's like, oh my gosh, I feel insecure. Do they actually like me? So it is a dynamic and in different relationships we can see different parts of our attachment style coming out. There's also a really fascinating theory called internal family systems theory, which is this idea that we all have multiple selves within us.

 

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Our sixth grade self that was bullied is still within us and our inner child self that was like five years old and going through what he did in our family life is still within us. And at different moments, each of these selves can kind of come out and take over. And if you follow that framework, each of yourselves can have a different attachment style. But the goal of internal family systems is to be led by your highest self at any given time. Your highest self is your most adult self that is most centered and stable and loving and compassionate, and that self, that highest self within us is all within all of us is secure. I do believe all of us have a piece of us that is securely attached. The more we can access that self, the more we'll feel secure in our relationships.

 

Mel Robbins (00:28:46):

Well, that sounds like good news. So it sounds like within each one of us is a person or a self that is capable of secure attachments. So are you saying that if you can start to identify your default attachment style and see it as a lens and an opportunity for growth and improvement, that it is possible to change your default attachment style and become more secure?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:29:17):

Yes. So I guess it's called internalized secure attachment where you have to start treating and talking to yourself like that secure attachment figure that you maybe didn't have. So when you're feeling a strong emotion, being able to tell yourself, it's okay that you feel this way, I'm right here with you and what are you feeling and what do you need? Almost being on your own side and being really, really loving toward yourself. That's part of the ways that we heal. Part of the ways that we find secure attachment is we think about I'll even, this is different things I've done to find more security is singing love songs to yourself. And when you're activated and triggered realizing that that's not all of you and that there's a piece of you that is still grounded, and what does that grounded part of you want to say to the triggered part of you?

 

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What love does it have to give in this moment? It also takes what's happening with the insecure attachment styles is they're reactive. They're getting really emotionally overwhelmed and they're acting based on that sense of emotional overwhelm. So the anxiously attached person is like clinging, clinging, clinking, and it's almost like reflexive. They're not acting with intention anymore. They feel like they're almost hijacked, and the avoidantly attached person's also very hijacked, but instead it's to pull away, pull away, pull away. But if we can just pause and feel those uncomfortable emotions like, oh my gosh, I feel so rejected right now. I feel so abandoned right now. Where do you feel that emotion in your body? How can you lean into feeling it more deeply? Allow yourself to feel it because fundamentally, this acting out behavior is a way to try to cope with a very difficult underlying emotion. And you can, instead of using this acting out behavior like the anxiously attached person demanding things of the other person or clicking to the other person or the avoidantly attached person, suddenly pulling away, you can develop your own tolerance for that feeling or emotion that's very uncomfortable so that you don't have to act out in your relationships to protect yourself from it.

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But Dr. Franco, can we talk to the person who's listening right now who just had a visceral, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No, I'm serious. Because I think that for people who are already like, yeah, I am sick of being hijacked by my emotions. I am married to somebody who is avoidant. I realized in researching this show, Dr. Franco and getting ready for this interview, I didn't understand attachment style, and yet I have been talking about it in couples therapy for two years because I'm anxious and my husband is avoidant, and the shame piece that he feels and puts onto himself is something I was unaware of. I've been griping that, oh, I'm married to this guy that's really quiet and he doesn't and trying to draw him out. And so could you first explain to somebody who's having a this, I'm not going to tell myself, why the hell would you do that? Could you explain why it is so important for happiness and confidence and success, these things that we all deserve to learn how to change and grow toward a more secure attachment, particularly for somebody who's avoidant or disorganized?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:33:36):

Yeah. Here's the thing about avoidantly attached people, they think they're super independent and don't really need anyone, but that's a defense mechanism against an underlying need for connection that they don't think they can actually fulfill. And I think if you're being really honest with yourself, no matter what your attachment style is, you'll see that a part of you really does crave connection. And if you felt like you could find it and feel comfortable and safe with it, it would feel a lot safer for you to admit it to yourself. And I'll also say that you'll not know how beautiful connection, deep, profound sustaining connection is until you find it. That's the only way that you'll be able to judge whether you need connection in your life or not because you're thinking you don't need connection. But fundamentally, you don't even know what connection is because avoidantly attached people when they're in relationships, they're not actually vulnerable, they're not sharing anything about themselves.

 

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They're not very authentic to be real. And so they're connecting in a very shallow way. And they're saying when they're saying, I don't need connection, it's like, I don't need that, which is arguably not true and deep connection because not revealing and you're not actually being known by other people and they're not knowing you, and there's not this giving and receiving of love that's happening. It's kind of just like we're two people that are in each other's presence. And so I think there's this, what I'm saying is that there's this disjuncture between what the avoidant person doesn't think that they need and what connection actually is and what connection actually can be and how connection can make you feel alive and seen and centered and grounded and supported and lighter. Those are all the things that true connection will give you that you will miss out on if you're very avoidance,

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:36:21):

You have to reconnect with your own emotions. You can't connect with people if you're always suppressing your emotions, which is what avoidant people do. And it starts, I mean, obviously therapy. I think therapy really, there's therapists that focus on attachment style specifically. I think a lot of male therapists who see a lot of men tend to do a lot of avoidant attachment work because this is part of how we socialize men. And there is a gender difference when it comes to attachment style where women are at least slightly more likely to be anxious. Men are slightly more likely to be avoidant. So therapy can help, but it's even when we start allowing people to reconnect with their emotions, at first they might feel it as a sensation, do you feel a tingling anywhere in your body? And if you had to turn that tingling sensation, you had to find a feeling label for it, and we take out the

 

Mel Robbins (00:37:17):

T wheel. Can you walk us through this? So let's just say for somebody listening right now who literally Dr. Franco is about to go, okay, I'm turning this off. We're talking to you.

 

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And for everybody who has somebody in their life like this, and I'm glad you said the piece about the research showing that women tend to be more anxious and men tend to be more avoidant. And the only reason why I'm saying this is because as you're very well aware and you wrote about in your book when it comes to friendship, women are way better at naturally forming communities and men every year that you get older, you actually get further and further and further away from those connections of sports teams and fraternities and work friends and men become more and more and more isolated. And we tend to be better as women connecting and staying within friendships where we're airing emotions. And men typically do not. And so I want to speak directly to somebody who may be hearing and learning about attachment theory for the very first time they are considering, holy cow, I think I'm avoidant. I don't like to talk about my feelings. I don't have a lot of friends

 

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Other than the person I'm dating or family connection. I don't have this kind of intimacy in terms of emotional support. What is an exercise and can you and I role play it for somebody that's listening right now to just dip your toe into the water of trying to experience this connection to your own emotions that you're talking about?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:39:11):

Yeah, we can definitely do that. One thing that I also just wanted to share briefly for avoidant buy-in, because it's hard to get avoidant people to buy into this is the physical health implications of your attachment style that securely attach people both anxious and avoidant, more likely than secure people to suffer from mental health issues, anxiously attached people have the highest rates of mental health issues, avoid an attachment avoidantly attached somewhere between secure and anxious and insecure people have the best mental health, physical health because avoidant people don't access their emotion. It manifests physically. So if you're avoidantly attached and you're experiencing migraines, headaches, you don't know where they came from, gastrointestinal issues, stomach ulcers, and there's really no, you have no idea where this is coming from and you're like, what is happening to my body? Why am I in chronic pain? Right? That's connected to emotional suppression and not releasing your emotions. So that is my last plug for finding secure attachment. Is your health really your physical health and how long you live? That's in part predicted by your ability to reconnect to human connection.

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:32):

One other thing I would love to add in my own experience, and then you can talk about it, Dr. Franco clinically is just seeing that my husband is now very clear that he was not only suppressing his emotions, he was numbing them with a daily weed and alcohol habit.

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:40:52):

Yep. You'll definitely see that.

 

Mel Robbins (00:40:58):

What's the first thing to do? Because the north star here, everybody is to become securely attached, not only because of the mental health, but the physical health and just the fact that it's going to impact the quality of the life that you're living and how you feel as you live that life and you deserve that. So what's the first thing that somebody that is just realizing, I think I might have an avoidant attachment style should do today?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:41:26):

Yeah. So the avoidant attached person, our goal is to help them reconnect with their feelings, reconnect with self-expression, basically find their most authentic self instead of pushing it away all the time. So clinically, that might start very simply with being like, what sensations do you feel in your body? Is there a tingling sensation anywhere? Is there pressure on your chest? Is there a lump in your throat? Are you feeling like a headache? Asking them what sensations are you feeling in their body? And then you present them. You can kind of google the feelings wheel or put it in the show notes or something with this wheel of feelings where they can choose from all of these different feelings that they might feel comfortable labeling this sensation that's going on in their body with a certain feeling that's on this feelings wheel. So what feeling would you choose here that represents the sensation that's happening in your body?

 

(00:42:34):

So it's sort of like a language. It's kind of learning a new language, and it's a practice of being able to throughout the day reflect and ask yourself, okay, what is it that I'm feeling right now? Here's a list of feelings. Which of them when I go through this list feel like they might resonate with me? Which of them stir something in me? And then I think we can encourage avoidantly, attach people to literally do anything self-expressive. Anything self-expressive. So would you journal, do you want to make art? Do you want to sing? And I'm saying this and I'm like, I don't know if an avoidantly attached person's going to buy in, but anything that in your mind is self-expressive to you. It could be origami. What does this origami piece mean about your own experience that you're going through right now? I think that is also really, really important for that reconnecting with the feelings process. I also think if you're avoidantly attached, there might be one person in your life where you're less avoidant with them because of how safe they make you feel. So could you be a little

 

Mel Robbins (00:43:48):

Bit, is there another word for safe, Dr. Franco? So if somebody's kind of new to clinical or therapeutic language and you're avoidant or disorganized, but there is that one person that in our world we're talking safe, but if you're avoidant or disorganized, how would an avoidant or disorganized person describe how that person makes them feel like themselves? Are they more fun? Do I feel like I can be myself around that? You know what I mean? How might they describe that feeling?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:44:28):

So what is going to make an avoided person feel very safe is if you don't take their actions personally when they pull away, they can come back and you'll kind of accept them if you respect their boundaries. Like they say, I can't hang out right now. I can't do this right now. And you're sort of like, okay. When you're free, when you're comfortable, you're willing to kind of move at the speed of avoidance. You can't move too fast with an avoidantly attached person. They need time, they move slower. And intimacy avoidantly attached person, you'll hear them say, it takes longer for me to build trust and the anxiously attached person's like, I'm a drag you along on this journey at my speed. If you're not moving at my speed, I feel like you're going to abandon me. So the avoidant person wants someone that's going to be able to work on their timeline so that person that feels safe to them will usually be someone they've known for a very long time.

 

(00:45:22):

It's someone where they feel like they can express boundaries with or there's need for separation or autonomy with, and that person can be okay with that and accepting of that it's someone who they feel like is nonjudgmental if they do share, this person isn't trying to change the way that they feel. They're just willing to kind of listen and accept the avoidance for where it is, right? We can't bulldoze people's defense mechanisms. They're there for a reason. We have to make them feel safe enough to be willing to pull down these defense mechanisms a little bit. And yeah, I think the avoidant person will also feel more, I think of safety as how do you feel after hanging out with people and the avoidant person might when hanging out with other people because they'd never feel really authentic around people. They might feel really drained by social interaction, but with the person that feels safe, they might feel, and this is hard because avoidant people aren't always in touch with their feelings, but not as exhausted instead more recharged after someone's company.

 

Mel Robbins (00:46:31):

This is so fascinating. I want to go through a couple quick questions to further help people reflect on what their own attachment style might be. So how does each attachment style deal with anger?

 

Dr. Marisa Franco (00:46:49):

So John Bulby father of attachment theory, he talks about two types of anger, anger of hope, which means I use my anger as a signal that I need to heal something in this relationship. So his example is this child that she was sick when she was really young and her mother left her alone at the hospital because of the hospital restrictions, and they're watching a video of her being alone at the hospital and she's angry. So she turns to her mom and says, mommy, where was you? Where was you? It's vulnerable. It's a vulnerable anger. I'm angry, so I'm going to be vulnerable and admit that I'm hurt. Whereas anger of despair, boldy argues is what insecurely attach people express. And he describes this child, Reggie and Reggie had different caretakers growing up, and one of them was a nurse. She left to get married, she comes back.

 

(00:47:43):

Reggie is my very own Maryanne, but I hate her. So Reggie's angry and his anger manifest is, let me destroy you. Let me get revenge on you so that I don't have to deal with this strong emotion. I have to coddle this strong emotion by destroying this relationship and getting revenge. And it's fundamentally because the insecurely attached person is not aware that it's possible to express yourself vulnerably and get your needs met. Really. They think either I'm not talking about this at all, or I'm going to have to attack you and put you down because there's no middle ground of me sharing vulnerably that I'm hurt and you listening to me. That's impossible in the eyes of the insecurely attached person. So what we see in anxiously attached adults is they don't express their needs. They don't express their needs, they don't express their needs.

 

(00:48:33):

They get completely overwhelmed. They haven't created that space for them to feel safe until they blow up and they make these demands and they'll put you down and they'll call you incompetent. They might try to psychoanalyze you, tell you about yourself and all of your problems, right? It is just they're going to a character assassinate you a little bit, is the anxiously attached person, the avoidantly attached person when they're angry and well, here's the other thing you might see with the anxiously attached person. If you bring up a problem with the anxiously attached person, they're going to go into super self-blame like, I am horrible. I'm awful. I've done everything wrong. And in some ways they make it all about them. In that sort of response, it's like, Hey, you hurt me and now I'm stuck trying to reassure you because all of a sudden you feel like I am attacking the very core of your being by telling you there's an issue in this relationship.

 

(00:49:33):

So you'll see those sort of poles with the anxiously attached person, but the avoidantly attached person, they're angry, honestly, they're probably not telling you. And then they leave and they just withdraw, and you're like, what the heck happened? I have no idea. I thought everything was fine. But again, the avoidantly attached person feels like if I express a need, you'll reject me and maybe even shame me. So they do not express the need. They do not express the need, they do not express the need, and then they kind of withdraw or pull away. And when you try to approach them with the need, they might tell you you're too sensitive or you want too much or you're too fragile, or you need to learn to be more independent. This very natural and normal giving and exchanging of needs that happens in any intimate relationship in their eyes to need is to be weak.

 

(00:50:26):

So that to themselves, and they apply that to anyone else around them. So they just kind of get angry by pulling away. But then if you get them to engage, they'll also kind of blame it all on you. So sometimes you'll see the avoidant person being like, it's your fault. I'm not attracted to you, or You need too much, or You're being too sensitive. Avoidantly attached. People, again, have a lot of trouble apologizing and admitting fault because of that core fear of being a failure and being deficient. And so when you try to address anything that core fear gets sort of rubbed that I'm a failure to you. So they need a lot of softness, honestly, avoidantly attached people if you need to address something with them, making sure you're acknowledging everything they did. Well, I love that you did this. I love that you cooked for me.

 

(00:51:24):

I loved and appreciated that you responded to my text message this morning, and I would just add that if this additional thing would happen could happen, it's going to make me really happy. If you try to bring them too much emotion, they're getting very overwhelmed. So if you want to try to approach the avoidantly attached person about an issue, trying to remain calm, trying to remain grounded, admitting all the things that they're doing, and then just saying, and I would like to add what would make our relationship even better is if you did this additional thing for me, and that's important. I think sometimes the anxiously attached person is the avoidantly attached person is not meeting my needs. And so they're not a good person to be in a relationship with, and they don't notice that actually the avoidantly attached person has made improvements. They're not necessarily at where you want them to be, but if you want them to keep growing, you have to make sure you're recognizing those improvements. If you leave them in that place where they feel like they're a failure, they're going to be paralyzed, they're going to feel like no matter what I do, I can't meet this person's expectations, and then they're just going to sort of withdraw.