Episode #128

Attachment Styles & CBT

Our ability to relate to each other as human beings forms the basis of healthy relationships.

What is your attachment style?

How can your attachment style affect you as an adult?

And how can you use CBT with your attachment style to former deeper, more meaningful attachments?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as we articulate this fascinating topic together.

Click to listen now!

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your life.

So thanks for joining me. As always, I'm gonna start with a email I received from a listener, which I really appreciate you guys reaching out.

It says,

“Dr. Osborn, came across your podcast on Spotify and was profoundly affected, particularly by those addressed passive aggression and inner child and OCD. I began a search locally but found it formidable task to find a therapist with a similar CBT and the tools in the inner child approach. Your extensive experience and your very effective way of communicating. I'm asking for your help but don't know if you're taking new patients and if me being in Florida is an issue. In case undergoing therapy with you is not feasible will be grateful for recommendations. Thank you.”

So thank you for reaching out, um, to let you guys know, uh, on my website as well. Which is MyCognitiveBehavioralTherapy.com I have the one referral I send out which I'm a part of called FeelingGoodInstitute.com and Really anywhere in the world. There's therapists all over the world. We're all connected. We're trained with Dr. David Burns who wrote the book on feeling great You can find that on my website as well. But if you go to that website, you'll find a Tab where it says find a therapist you put in Your zip code And, um, it will bring up who is in your area.

And they're all CBT trained like me. So, that's a good place to get started. Um, if you're still having a hard time, please reach out. Um, I do know some therapists in other parts, um, in the United States, um, one or two in some other countries, but mostly here in the United States, of course. I'm licensed in California, South Carolina, Colorado, and Washington State.

So those are some places that I can still do therapy with people if you're outside of California. So, Um, but it's always a good question looking for someone who's really trained in CBT. I know I've said this before, but a lot of therapists will be like, yeah, I do CBT, but it's not their specialty. And I've had plenty of clients that have come to see me after they went to someone who said they did CBT and said they really didn't do CBT and that they were looking for that as a specialty.

So again, I'm here for you guys. I just want you to get connected. I want you to get better. I want you to learn the CBT tools and really incorporate them into your life. Um, I do answer all my emails that I receive. So please don't hesitate if that's something that you want some help with.

So my podcast today was suggested by a couple clients I have that asked me about attachment styles. This is a different theory, but I'm going to obviously incorporate CBT into it because that will always work. And so what I mean by attachment styles is that describes how people relate to one another.

And the theory states that our adult relationships reflect the ways in which we, quote, attach, or attached to our primary caregivers. So, based on our primary caregivers, when we were, you know, babies and infants and all that really do affect us developmentally, and how we get attached to others. There's lots of research on this theory.

And you can read more about it. But I'm going to give you the different categories and talk about how it affects you as a child as well as an adult. And Again, I'm going to incorporate that I can use CBT, um, tools to help with this. Now, there are therapists out there that just specialize in attachment styles, so if that's something you're interested in, of course, you can look into that.

And I will give you a couple books that, um, I researched a little bit that are recommended if you want to reach, read more about this as well. So the main attachment styles are secure, anxious, ambivalent, anxious avoidant, and disorganized. So I'll get a little more specific, but just to give you guys a little idea here.

Um, And because CBT is definitely widely used, that focuses on relationships between your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors, your physical corrections, and your environment, um, and we really identify and we modify our negative patterns and our behaviors, um, so we can improve our emotional well being, right?

So since CBT is also evidence based and it's been effective in treating lots of mental health conditions that I've talked to you guys about over the years. It can really be a good therapy to help in changing the dysfunctional attachment styles. So, let me talk a little bit more about the connection between attachment styles and CBT, um, before I get more specific on what type of attachment styles, and you can maybe figure out where you think you fit in.

So, I talked to you a lot about identifying your core beliefs, and attachment experiences can definitely contribute to developing your core beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. And, as I've shared, these beliefs influence our thought patterns, um, our behaviors, and since CBT is involving identifying and challenging your core beliefs to promote healthier cognitive processes and thinking.

It's a really important part because when you understand your attachment style, you also understand where your core beliefs were developed. So it also talks about exploring maladaptive coping strategies, meaning that attachment styles are It can also shape your coping mechanisms that you developed in response to stress and emotional distress growing up.

So that's important because with our CBT tools, we can also identify our maladaptive coping strategies and then we can replace them with more adaptive ones, right? Those are the tools that we always have, which is great. Attachment styles also influence how individuals relate to others. So using your CBT tools, which could include skill building exercises to improve your interpersonal effectiveness and communication, helps address difficulties in rooted issues regarding your attachment patterns.

So remember, I have a lot of podcasts on communicating, being a good listener, you know, building your skills, behavior changes. So this is all intertwined together. And for individuals with a history of insecure or disorganized attachment and trauma, CBT can be adapted to address both the cognitive distortions associated with trauma and the interpersonal challenges linked to attachment experiences.

So while attachment theory and CBT originate from different psychological frameworks, uh, therapists can still integrate aspects of both when working with their clients. So I can still use my CBT tools when understanding what kind of attachment issues my clients have, especially when we're addressing issues related to interpersonal relationships, your own self perception, and having emotional regulation, meaning you can manage your emotions and regulate them.

So integrating attachment perspectives within CBT framework can really provide a really comprehensive understanding of your psychological functioning. And really get targeted therapeutic interventions that are really going to help you. So like, really addressing the attachment to figure out the core beliefs and be able to change that.

So, you can do a lot of great things. I recently had a client that, you know, brought up that she understood her attachment was anxious. And she literally said to me, I'm doomed. And I'm like, no, no, no, you're not doomed. You already have so many tools, we're just going to incorporate them with what you're learning more about yourself for it to make a difference for you.

So I wanted to just give you that background to understand a little bit about what attachment theory is, how CBT can work, how they overlap each other. If you're already doing CBT with a therapist, you can incorporate this, you can take this to your therapist and say, I kind of learned. You know, through the podcast, what my attachment styles are and how, maybe, can we work on that together?

And, um, that can kind of give you a place to go forward, especially maybe if you're feeling a little stuck, too, in your therapy, which happens, or just in your own personal growth. So, um, Let me talk about the different attachment styles, as they call them. Um, so the first one, which is the best, meaning that it's the healthiest, they should say.

So the healthiest one is secure attachment. So I'm going to describe this first regarding as children, um, with a secure attachment, feel confident that their needs will be met by their caregivers. They use their caregivers as a secure base to explore the world, and they show distress when separated, but they can be easily comforted upon reunion of that parent.

Alright, so if the parent goes out of the room and they get a little scared, eh, you know, they're crying, they don't know what's going on, the parent comes back and they can be comforted because they know like, okay, they came back, I feel secure with this person. So, that's what happens in your childhood, right, and having a secure attachment.

Adults with secure attachment styles tend to have more positive views of themselves and others. They're comfortable with intimacy and they're effective in managing stress and conflict in relationships. So, that is our goal, to be attached to others in a secure way. Right, so I'm going to just repeat that.

As adults, with secure attachment, we tend to have positive views of ourselves and others, we're comfortable with intimacy, and we're effective in managing stress and conflict in relationships. And as we're working on all of this, we can use our CBT tools to get there, for sure. The second one is called anxious preoccupied attachment.

So, to describe this with children, is when They are anxious and preoccupied attachment. They feel a sense of anxiety and uncertainty about the availability of their caretakers. So they might be really clingy and seeing constant reassurance. And they may become overly dependent on their caregivers. So, As I was reading more about this, what triggered for me in my mind and what I've gone through is, you know, my issue was being abandoned.

And so I always had this fear of abandonment. And so before I worked through all of that, I look back and say, I probably was anxiously attached to my family. Partly with um, with one parent. Not with my dad but with my mom. So my mom's the one that left and I felt abandoned by her. And that I was anxiously attached to other people because I was, I had the fear of abandonment.

So I would say if you have this anxious preoccupied attachment, there's a good chance your core belief could be that. Uh, your fear is that you believe that you're bound to be abandoned, so you end up being more clingy and anxious and more dependent on others, which I'll talk about right now, which is as an adult, right, that if you're anxious and preoccupied, if this is your style, you may seek high levels of closeness and reassurance in relationships, and you might have fears of abandonment and may exhibit heightened emotional responses and concerns about the reliability of your partners.

So, if this is your style, you may also be more likely to be manipulative in relationships because you're so anxious about getting your needs met, making sure that person won't leave you. You know, always asking for reassurance, you know, that could look like nowadays with, you know, text messages, you know, I feel a lot of clients that they'll text someone and they're like, they didn't text back right away, like thinking like everyone's attached to their phone, or that means something negative.

You know, I talk about this a lot with my clients, like there's a million reasons why someone doesn't respond right away. But people that have this anxious attachment, just assume the person is going to respond right away. And if they don't, it must be something bad. So they can end up being manipulative, they can make the person feel guilty, then they get the other person to give them more reassurance, even if that's not what that person wants wants to do or doesn't want to be in that kind of relationship to just kind of, you know, quell that anxiety of the other person.

So you can see how this can get really messy and be very dysfunctional in a relationship until you can identify like, you know, why am I doing this? I think we tend to rationalize like, oh, I just like being close, you know, I like being in relationships, I like being close and being connected all the time.

And, and I give them reassurance, so why can't I reassurance? So these are things I want you to start thinking about. It's like, are these some things I do? Are these some things maybe my partner, my friends, family members complain about me? And I've just kind of dismissed it because I haven't even realized underneath I have this anxiety about being attached to people and it's really getting in the way.

It's really going to create what you fear the most is what I say a lot is that, you know, I want to be close to people, but I'm going to create what I fear, which is pushing them away because of this anxiety. The third one is avoidant dismissive attachment. So, children with avoidant dismissive attachment tend to avoid or downplay their need for closeness with their caregivers.

They may appear independent and self reliant, but they may be actually suppressing their emotional needs. I'm okay. I don't need anything. Right? I'm alright. I did this a little bit too. You know, um, When my mom first left, uh, not on a conscious level, but my mode of dealing with it was just like, I'm okay, I'm going to be fine.

And when some adults would, you know, in a loving way, ask me how I'm doing, I had a teacher, that kind of thing. I was always like, Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm, you know, I'm okay. Nothing's really changed. I'm still going to do this. I'm going to be fine in school. I got my friends. I got my dad. Like, I'm good. So, I, you know, avoiding the severe anxiety and abandonment issues was my way of coping.

So, just to kind of share that with you that it's not like you are solid one way, but you can kind of, you know, fluctuate back and forth depending on your relationships, depending on the situation. Right? If I'm, you know, dating somebody back in the day, I was more anxious and wanted to be attached. But if people asked, like, people would be like, What?

Your mom left? Oh my God, you were eight? She left the state? Like, people were always so, you know, upset about it. And I was always like, Oh, I was fine. I still had a great childhood. It's okay. So, you know, it's interesting how we all cope to deal with those feelings that are so painful. So, um, Instead of, you know, looking and saying, God, that kid's so independent, self reliant.

You know, it's something to say, you know, Are they really getting their emotional needs met? Is that just how they're coping? So, they're being more avoidant. And the other thing that I've had some clients share with me and I've seen in relationships is a lot of times an anxious person actually Tracks an avoidant person, which is not a good fit.

right? The anxious person is wanting that reassurance and the avoidant person is not gonna give that to them, and they're so frustrated they can't get their needs met. So it's interesting to think about who are you in? You know, who's in your life today? Maybe who's in your life before and it didn't work out, or what was the frustrations you both felt?

And then the last one is called disorganized attachment. This is. an attachment that's pretty difficult and . People with this type of attachment are very difficult to love sometimes just being honest. So children with disorganized attachment will exhibit inconsistent and often contradictory behaviors in the presence of their caregivers.

So they may show fear and confusion and may kind of be disoriented. Reflecting a lack of consistent strategy for dealing with stress. So they can kind of be all over the place and it's hard to really understand what their needs are or how they're feeling. So adults with disorganized attachment can experience challenges in regulating their own emotions.

And can have difficulties with self esteem and definitely interpersonal relationships. And they may struggle with consistent and healthy patterns on relating to others. So they desire love and acceptance, but at the same time they fear others will hurt them. So you can hear just In that explanation of like, I really want to be loved, I want to be accepted, but I'm so afraid of being hurt that I'm just not going to be able to let myself go there.

Or, I might let myself go there, and as soon as I feel close to you, I'm going to pull back. Right? I'm going to break up. I'm going to ghost you. Right? And people are like, why did that person ghost me? I don't understand. I thought everything was going okay. And people tend to blame themselves, but now understanding that's usually the other person's issue.

Right? And, you know, God, I thought things were going well, and then they just seriously pulled back. Right? Because they're afraid of getting closer. You know, people have asked somebody to go out as a boyfriend, girlfriend. And then soon after that, they're like, Oh, I'm really not ready for this. Right? Or people call off weddings at the last moment.

So those are just some examples to share of like, Oh, that's what that can look like. Right? So it's really hard, especially if you're putting yourself into the relationship and especially say you're a secure person and you first get attracted to someone who's disorganized but you don't see that because they really want to be loved and accepted so they may be giving and being connected and going along with things and then all of a sudden they pull back or they're gone and that's why they're most difficult to love because it's really hard to understand or know or predict.

How are they going to react to things? In a healthy relationship, you don't have to predict how someone is going to react to things. Because if two people with secure attachment, which is the goal here, are together, Um, then it is more predictive, predictable because with that secure attachment, you have more of the confidence, um, that that person you're with as well as yourself is again comfortable with intimacy and they can manage their own stress and conflict within the relationship.

So they're more likely to come to you, talk through things, share their feelings, want to work things out. One other thing I wanted to share, I don't mean to jump around, but, um, Also, with going back to the avoidance. if the person is also fearful, um, this kind of attachment, a lot of times they suffered neglect and harsh criticism.

Um, a lot of fear and abuse as children is what created a lot of this, or these attachment issues. Um, again, they have a really negative view of themselves. Um, and others as well. So just not themselves, but others. Um, and they tend to believe that others are not able to help, love, or support them. So you can understand with the avoidance and the fear that comes with that is thinking, you know, I'm on my own, right?

That core belief could be that, you know, I'm not good enough. Um, nobody's there for me. This could be a core belief about others, about the world, right? The world's a dangerous place. It's unloving. It's untrustworthy. So going through these experiences and developing these attachment styles, um, is also, like I said, very, very connected to your core belief.

And I wanted to share too that it's really important to know that theorists have stated about attachments that security is in no way whatever your attachment style is, fixed or fully determined in your infancy. There's many positive negative experiences throughout our lives that can alter regarding our own development as a child with respect to attachment

and that we can go between different attachments. As I was saying it is not rigid at all. And it can be influenced by various factors such as your genetics, the early caregiving experiences you had, and again, later life experiences. So I tell people with core beliefs that, you know, you can develop them, yes, as an infant, as a child, as a teen, and you can develop them any time in your life because things can happen at any time that you can go through a traumatic event or be in a long term negative situation and develop a new core belief.

So, um, I don't want you, you know, Listening, going, okay, which one am I? Which one am I? Because like I said, I can see in the past, I was anxious, but I was also avoidant at times. Right? And through my own therapy and learning CBT, I've been able to be more on the secure attachment now with the relationships I have in my life now.

And then I'm attracted to other people that are in that same attachment that before I was attracted to other people that weren't as healthy because that's just kind of what I brought into my life. a secure person would have not been attracted to me earlier in life because of my own anxiety and not working through my issues of abandonment and that fear that always got in the way of relationships.

So, you know, again, it's not set in stone, it's not rigid, you know, Listening to this today, I just want you to get some more insight into who you are, and maybe your attachment style from the past or what it is now, and how it's now working for you, how it's maybe causing problems, right? How you are still making decisions based on how you feel versus what's best for you, right?

Because anxiety, is a mood, right? And when we feel anxious, we find a behavior that just makes us feel better, so that would be texting or asking for reassurance. That's a behavior, right? You know, um, doing too much for somebody to hope that they're not going to leave us or they're going to stay or they think I'm the greatest boyfriend or girlfriend ever, so, I'm not gonna lose that person or doing too much for our children to make sure they're happy and they like us and they have a good relationship with us.

Um, you know, doing too much of work and never saying no, not having any boundaries. These are all things that come out with not having healthy attachment styles. But I don't want, you know, what I've noticed sometimes is people get, they're, you know, uh, too caught up in their attachment style and then they're just like, oh, that's just how I am.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a part of who you are, right? Your core belief, I tell people, is like part of your DNA. You've probably had it for years and years and years, right? So we're going to change it. It makes sense on where it developed. It makes sense on how you've coped with believing this core belief about yourself, others of the world, but it can definitely be changed with using your CBT tools.

And it's interesting. to look back, I think, in our lives and start getting more insights into our core beliefs and why I have this particular attachment style right now and where do I want to get to. So if I want to have that secure attachment, what does that look like? What are things I need to work on?

What are tools I can use, right? With my CBT, obviously your thought records, so you can identify your hot thoughts, your negative thoughts, right? And create more balanced thinking, but also learning. How to communicate in a healthy way, how to be a good listener, how to set boundaries, right, how to have self love, how to have self care.

Right? It's so important, all of these things that I talked to you guys about, to get yourself to a place where you would have the secure attachment and you will be attracted to people like that in your life. So it's not just your intimate relationships, but it's your friendships, right? It's how you relate to your kids.

You know, if you have this anxious, attachment, you know, you're probably going to be too much of a worrier. It might be more of a helicopter parent, right? If you have an avoid, avoid an attachment, that's not going to feel good to your kids too, because they may just feel like you don't really care because you might be dismissive, right?

And if you're definitely disorganized, that creates a lot of chaos for raising children or being in friendships or where people can't really predict how you're going to be. So it's going to be really hard to get close to them, even though that's what they want. So again, it can, you know, they can get messy, right?

So, I'm just giving you a lot of different ideas and thoughts to think about for you to be like, Oh, now I understand that. Or yeah, I actually, I do that. Or you know what? That's why I'm so frustrated with this person in my life. I'm going to go talk to them. If they're open to that kind of share what I learned and see how can we do things better?

Where am I coming from? Where are you coming from? And how can we make this work? And where's that ebb and flow? So remember, we all have. 80 90, 000 thoughts a day and we all have hundreds and hundreds of moods and all of our moods are good and they all serve a purpose, right? As long as we're not acting out on them.

We just want to understand why am I feeling nice right now? Why do I want to avoid this? Why am I feeling kind of disorganized and all over the place and I'm having a hard time regulating my moods? You know, let's stop, look at the environment we're in, ask ourselves what am I thinking about? What's going on?

What's the situation that I'm having this reaction? Right? Are these hot thoughts? Is this my core belief coming up that I want to learn about, identify, so I can start changing it? Because core beliefs, just like attachment styles, are learned. We weren't born with our attachment styles. We weren't born with our negative core beliefs, right?

They happen based on experiences we've had, good and bad. So we, anything we've learned, we can unlearn and relearn something new. There's always hope. You're not doomed. I think it's exciting to find out these things about ourselves so then we can start moving forward, you know Sometimes when I'm like, oh, I didn't realize I was doing that.

What can I do differently? You know what that feels better. It might be a little uncomfortable There might be some discomfort at first, but I'm going to work on this I'm going to create some support system with it's a therapist I'm working with or sharing with my friend or my husband or whoever I'm wanting to work with tell about this and, and maybe improve our relationship, right?

This is what I know about me. You can understand me better and I'm going to be doing it differently. So I hope you can support that and we can work on this together and make things better. Because that's our goal, right? Our goal is to feel better, be happier, have healthier relationships, and not make decisions based on how we feel, but what's best for us.

So, let me share a couple books, uh, with my research that I found that, um, I have not read these books, right, but the popular books on attachment, one is called Attached by Aneer Lavine, one is called Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin, and one is called Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Jay. So, you can do your own research, please go and, you know, Google, look up recommended books on attachment theory if you're more interested to read more in depth. I know I'm just kind of giving you guys an overview to just kind of get an idea.

So I hope this was helpful. Please share with anyone you might find benefit from this. You guys know how to find me at my website.

MyCognitiveBehavioralTherapy.com. I'm pretty excited to hear back from you guys after this podcast because I think there's going to be a lot of good insights, a lot of great questions, and um, I'd love to keep talking about this with you.

You can also find me on Instagram under MyCBTPodcast and Dr. Julie Osborn on Facebook.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions. Again, I love hearing from you guys and getting your feedback. Please hit the subscribe button to make sure you'll never miss another episode. And I know I shared with you earlier, but I'm really excited about my new store that I have on my website.

You can take a look and find some products. Um, that you might find helpful to help you with your CBT journey. I have my CBT logo on shirts and cups and all different kind of fun stuff. And again, they're designed to, they're all designed towards your therapy goals. So you can also find it at mycbt. store.

And as always, make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.