Dr. Colman Noctor

Or you could have an anxious attachment, which kind of would be described as something maybe a bit clingy, maybe needs reassurance quite a lot, is not sure that you're going to stick around.

And then you have avoidant or dismissive attachment, which is someone who says,

I find being cared for or being loved threatening, so I'm just going to push it away and I don't want anything to do with that sort of thing.

So what's happened is I think those have been characterized as traits of people within relationships.

So if people are now self-claiming that I'm an avoidant attachment or I'm an anxious attachment, and it's taken from a very low evidence base to make those claims.

Yeah, it's a big question.

Here's how I'd answer it.

The more understanding you have of why you are the way you are, the more informed you are to make decisions around how that might work.

Does that make sense?

And that's what therapy is.

So say, for example, if you're, and some of the coping strategies that you develop as a child are very understandable in that situation.

So let's say, just bear with me.

So you have a child who's a five-year-old and they grow up

in a really hostile environment, or parents arguing there might be alcohol involved, whatever the case may be.

And so the child develops this skill of disassociating from high-octane emotion.

So they just switch off, they go off.

Fast forward 37 years, they're now a 42 year old in a relationship.

And every time someone wants to talk to them about emotions, they get incredibly uncomfortable and they disassociate.

And so they come to therapy to me, I'm saying to them, that coping strategy is understandable.

And when you were five, it was brilliant that you did that.