I got the book by the author (Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Individuals, Couples, and Families by Susan M. Johnson) on kindle but haven't read it yet. I was on a book buying binge a few weeks ago for anything related to attachment theory.
For further reading, stuff by Cindy Hazan, Phillip Shaver, Mario Mikulincer is good
Attachment theory originally was focused on early stage development in children by John Bowlby. Later it was expanded as a way to conceptualize relationships beyond the child and caregiver, things like friendships, work colleagues, bandmates, etc.
Examples where modern attachment theory could be used formulate a hypothesis (or analyze if you have more than conjecture):
- in interpersonal relations, contradictory, anxious, afraid, erratic behavior - or on the other hand - secure and trusting around someone or a group.
Attachment can explain lasting, functional relationships.
I guess in HN-speak, there could be dyads between startup co-founders, founder <-> employee, investor <-> founder, employee <-> employee. Those cooperational things bubble up into group dynamics and product formation / stuff shipping.
Yes! I like to think my life (relationships, work performance, hiring, firing, well-being) would have been completely different had I known about and understood attachment theory. (I have only learned about it in the last few years.) For me, it explains nearly everything in psychology that has been unclear or mysterious.
My go-to reference is
Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair by Daniel P. Brown PhD & David S. Elliott PhD. [0]
It's a dry academic text intended for therpists that details the development of therapeutic approaches based on attachment theory, as well as specific treatment protocols for various insecure attachment styles.
Change is possible, as is working with people who have attachment difficulties.
George Haas, a meditation teacher in LA, has developed a way of using Vipassana meditation as a method of self-therapy.[1]
I really enjoyed Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love by Levine and Heller [0].
The description of the “types” (avoidant, secure, anxious) was very eye-opening, especially while scoring your own “traits” / tendencies / “patterns” for each type. You sorta know what it means when you answer “very likely” to many questions that point to the same type.
As far as I understand, the book is based on this same Attachment theory — it’s a lighter read / introduction to it, but still very good to get the point across. (I didn’t find it as useful to help deal with / compensate for the non-secure type’s thought patterns — not as much as David Burns’ wonderful Feeling Good, for instance)
If you like David Burns, let me recommend his Feeling Good Podcast. One of the most impactful episodes is one where he works with a woman dying of cancer. You can hear him apply his techniques to a seemingly hopeless situation in real life. It was eye-opening for me, even having read Feeling Good.
> modern attachment theory could be used to formulate a hypothesis ... there could be dyads between startup co-founders, founder <-> employee, investor <-> founder, employee <-> employee
EFT is one of the few couples therapies that has any sort of scientific track record. I looked into it a few years ago and it may have saved my marriage.
I highly suggest a therapist to guide you. They serve as a referee and coach (an impartial person who can call bs or timeout) to get you out of bad communication patterns between you and you significant other. I doubt you could turn this into an app because both partners are effectively learning to relate to each other in a more sustainable way.
I highly recommend this for married couples needing a tune-up and pre-marital couples who didn’t grow up in an environment with parents in a stable relationship.
> It has taken more than 4,000 years, starting from the first love letter – carved in stone for a Sumerian king in the 8th century BCE – to crack the code of love.
Comes off a bit self aggrandizing. Still, time will tell if this method really works
There are downsides to MDMA. Been through the advertised open and connected experience with a group of decade old friends, came out the other side feeling depressed that you can buy love in a pill and that my normal self would not get to those conversations normally. It feels inauthentic to observe people I have known for decades behave very differently to how I know them and would probably not have accessed that experience without a pill. Buying love in a pill robs the story of what it took to get to love normally. It stops being real, and starts being a side effect of a drug.
Your problem, then, is believing that the pill contains something you can never generate without it.
This is a false belief.
You absolutely can, and should, make the conscious decision to be more like X in your everyday life, where X is how you behave under the influence of MDMA.
I had the same problem, and got a horrible down when the drug wore off, UNTIL I realized that what the pill actually does, is SHOW ME WHAT I'M CAPABLE OF FEELING. The very INSTANT I believed it was possible, all bad feels disappeared and I was left with an afterglow that lasted for weeks.
It's not a downside of MDMA, quite the opposite; a reflection of your own weakness, the knowledge of which helps you fix it!
The 'X' I was under with MDMA was a feeling I can reach when I'm in a loving relationship and have had my needs met. I don't need a pill to get there, but knowing all the meaning and work I put into getting to a relaxed and contented atmosphere can be bought for a few dollars a pill fundamentally changes what those feelings are worth and mean for the worse.
The feeling of bliss should come from a successful relationship with others, not some drug.
Amphetamines are a class of psychostimulant drugs that are widely abused for their stimulant, euphoric, empathogenic and hallucinogenic properties. Many of these effects result from acute increases in dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission. Subsequent to these acute effects, methamphetamine and 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) produce persistent damage to dopamine and serotonin nerve terminals. This review summarizes the numerous interdependent mechanisms including excitotoxicity, mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress that have been demonstrated to contribute to this damage. Emerging non-neuronal mechanisms by which the drugs may contribute to monoaminergic terminal damage, as well as the neuropsychiatric consequences of this terminal damage are also presented. Methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) have similar chemical structures and pharmacologic properties compared to other abused substances including cathinone (khat), as well as a relatively new class of novel synthetic amphetamines known as ‘bath salts’ that have gained popularity amongst drug abusers.
Not the OP, but he’s not joking — it’s an area with an increasing amount of interest and research, although obviously tremendously hampered by the legal issues. I don’t have any links, but you can find plenty on google.
There are also studies using it to treat PTSD in veterans.
MDMA was originally used as a couples therapy drug in the early 20th century. It is a heart opening medicine that gently removes your ego. It is very powerful and beautiful. All about set and setting.
I don't have links (sorry) but a few prominent people in the psychedelics-for-therapy crowd often share anecdotes about these drugs helping people to shed ego, communicate better, and generally build bonds better. There are real accounts of this, but many if not all are anecdotal due to how limited data is and how informal data capture is.
A great place to look is Tim Ferriss' podcast episodes about psychedelic therapy. He has two I can think of, and one has a few great anecdotes. From him you'll find many others. Gabor Maté is a good one to check out. He uses psychedelics extensively in therapy and has for quite some time.
One woman I listened to (I believe on Tim's podcast) detailed how her and her husband would take MDMA (I believe) every year or so and talk things out. Whether things were good or bad. She describes herself as the last kind of person you'd expect to see taking illegal drugs, but here she is, and she believes it has made her marriage far better than it would have been without them.
Great idea but come Tuesday evening you'll have a couple who hate themselves as well as each other, who can't remember a word of that deep-and-meaningful they had at the weekend.
Have you ever taken MDMA? I've personally found that the bonds it builds between people last long after the experience is over, and I know a couple who anecdotally feel like doing MDMA together has improved their relationship. It has risks, including anxiety attacks afterwards if you take too much, but the one person I know who had a couple months of anxiety attacks from taking MDMA (shortly after taking the analog MDA) still felt like the positive interpersonal effects were lasting and unaffected by the later anxiety attacks.
Most of the comments I respond to I don't vote on, and most of the comments I vote on I don't respond to. I think it's generally a bad practice to assume that people who reply to your comments down voted you, but in this case I actually did. I did so because I believe you're spreading a misconception about the effects and aftermath of a drug that I'm pretty sure you're unfamiliar with and not well read on. Human experiences vary, and I would be open to the idea that somebody could come away from dropping MDMA without noticing lasting interpersonal bonds, but when I read a hypothetical description of a drug being used that doesn't match any of the accounts I've experienced, heard, or read, I'm skeptical that the source knows what they're taking about. This discussion seems like an inadvertent distraction from a serious suggestion.
The hangover of depression, agitation, and anhedonia is real, but it just lasts a day. The conversations, connections, and epiphanies you may have had last much much longer.
It's pent up emotions and feelings which flow freely after the drug has removed any blocks. That's the therapeutic part.
> In follow-up psychotherapy, patients process emotions and insights brought up during the MDMA session. The current protocol calls for patients to take MDMA two or three times, each a month apart, interspersed with psychotherapy.
> “The MDMA alone or the therapy alone don’t appear to be as effective,” Dr. Mithoefer said. “The MDMA seems to act as a catalyst that allows the healing to happen.
MDMA and LSD affects your perception and brain chemical reactions just like food or cigarettes. The pleasure or sluggish of eating food is real or just chemical reactions?
Take a reasonable dose (~100mg), avoid physical activity, and take a proper supplement stack [0] and you will find no hangover but actually a mild afterglow.
> “Real love stories reflect the wisdom of attachment science, which states that love is an ancient survival code designed to keep a few precious others that we can count on close. We are wired by millions of years of evolution for this kind of connection, and it is as essential to us as our next breath.“
I hate stuff like this because it’s some of the most “just-so” evolutionary reasoning there is. It reminds me a lot of the way “ancient” or “evolutionary” stories are used to justify fad diets.
No amount of statistical studies on current couples therapy outcomes can confirm such a highly specific evolutionary marketing tag line. Not to mention that, like with many parts of social science, we should be hugely skeptical of the research basis for this technique.
I’d need much more compelling discussion of the study methodologies before finding it worthwhile to invest in really reading them and deciding if there is credibility to it, or if the outcomes are due to confounding factors or selection effects.
But hearing just-so reasoning about attachment bonds is a non-starter. What about forager societies with loose sexual norms and cultures that did not emphasize monogamy or long-term partner bonding?
I wish I could upvote this many times. This "just so" reasoning about evolution is basically pure pseudosience, and yet it is so prevalent in so many books, seminars, videos of today... It's like people assume that if they just think up of some reason that would losely make some vague sense and use some of evolutionary terms, if there is a way to picture a mechanism that they are describing and if that mechanism in the picture would have some evolutionary mechanics - that it automaticallt means that it applies to reality, to our physical historical evolution and the exact way that it played out; that they understand the evolutionary traits of those behaviors/qualities...
It's like they think that just because evolution itself is basically a status quo in the scientific community, then any other random preposterous bs argument that you make about it, or just use the evolutionary terms in, would somehow automatically by association have as much predictive power/internal coherence/pure basic connection to reality as the evolution itself. It's a disgrace this is so prevalent nowadays... It is a clear sign that whoever writes the content is no real scientist.
What irks me is that the every time someone finds an evolutionary reason for something, it is just as easy to find an evolutionary reason to explain the opposite of it, which makes the explanation useless.
For example, "men evolved to be promiscuous because having many children gave the biggest chance at surviving offspring" makes sense until you realize "men evolved to be faithful because nurturing their children gave them the biggest chance at surviving offspring" makes just as much sense.
When your theory can explain everything, it can explain nothing.
Yes, it's called evolutionary psychology and it is (to paint with a broad brush that doesn't accurately describe everyone researching related concepts) bullshit.
Attachment science is developmental psychology, not couples therapy. I’m not sure what exactly you’re objecting to (the “real love stories” phrase is extraordinarily tenuous), but the “wired by millions of years of evolution” part is pretty well substantiated.
The author has perhaps unfortunately led you to fill in the blanks about what “this kind of connection” means, but the attachment science part has nothing to do with monogamy or sexual norms.
> “but the “wired by millions of years of evolution” part is pretty well substantiated.”
Can you point to the studies on this? I’m extremely skeptical. I’m sure lots of research papers have been published, much like in evolutionary game theory, while the reality is none of the generalized comments of million-year evolutionary processes has actually been backed up. Most often these claims aren’t even falsifiable.
I understand the marketing tagline / spin part. To be fair, since it's a theoretical framework, the analogy is done in such a way it's hard to disprove. There's a Barnum effect thing to it. I could keep firing off examples and make it really hard to disprove.
I don't necessarily accept this as science, but as way of analogize complex human behavior without being overwhelmed by variables and contradictions.
A framework will tend to pick what's important and be a way of handling signal:noise.
For example, you could take a more grim framework, like terror management theory will say we're all in fear of death and so society make rules, individuals focus on self-esteem, all to shake off the anxiety mortality gives us. It's hard to disprove that, but that's the point: it posits a core human motivation while willfully ignoring other things to get from Point A -> Point B (example: the motivation of Alexander the Great's military campaigns were to spread his cultural standards/law and ensure forces threatening those rules at home were contained / eliminated. Him naming cities after himself explains the self-esteem motive :P. Napoleon, Emperor Qin, all conquered and placed legal/regulatory systems in their wake)
Back to frameworks in general: It's built off observational anecdotes and if put to the rigors of say - a physics experiment - it'd be hard to give that kind control / certainty. We can't read minds, and various types of reporting methods may not pan out. Our whole lives we're forming object relations that have meanings/associations/intricacies on an individual basis. So to handle things, we pick a common denominator and use that to inspect the situation.
We have to look back into relationships and see conditions / cause / effect, rather than being able to simulate in a controlled setting.
> What about forager societies with loose sexual norms and cultures that did not emphasize monogamy or long-term partner bonding?
Attachment theory tries to be a theory of everything. It'd then be chalked up to difference in culture/customs, rather than the theory not fitting. If a monogamous relationship isn't there, some other bond likely will. Doesn't have to be romantic.
The relations between the hunting group, the teamwork and dynamics of the tribe. It could be argued the cooperation based on trust is what kept it together, so they could survive. It involved letting their guard down at times to trust someone else.
It could also explain betrayals, outcasts and desertion, longstanding protracted hostilities and alliances.
Do you truly believe that every (or charitably, most) women have no desire to see men express honest emotions? Is that based on your experiences/observations you'd like to share here?
I understand and am painfully aware of the societal pressure but I don't think it is intentionally malice by any gender moreso than a series of qualities we've fanned that have left this unpleasant side effect
There's no way someone with this outlook on life has ever had a long-term relationship. No one is going to listen to the opinion of a deranged "incel" type.
Monogamy is still one of the biggest societal pressures that people struggle to escape, at the expense of their own happiness and emotional well being. And in some cases there are real punitive consequences for not conforming to it. You should not force exclusivity wherever it does not occur naturally. Not everyone can be 100% fulfilled from one relationship.
I do think that monogamy should be considered "ideal" in some sense (especially for raising children), but I do think we need to understand that not everyone's upbringing, which forms their (surprise, surprise) attachment style, will allow this to be a healthy constraint.
The statistics, obviously, bear out that a large number of, even happy, people cannot hack it under the constraints of monogamy. Either monogamy needs to be better defined or we need to drop it as a societal pressure/constraint on relationships. Probably a little bit of both is needed.
The reason monogamy is ideal is because human beings are a tournament species[1] that's smart enough to have realized that emulating a pair-bonding species results in better societal results. Mainly because if we just followed our animal natures a huge percentage of men (far greater than now) would be shut out of the mating market. Having a large population of young males with no mating prospects hanging around is harmful to society for many reasons, the most severe being one of the charismatic winner types deciding he wants to sell them a dream and putting them to nasty work.
Certainly a couple, by themselves, is the 2nd worst choice for raising a child other than a single parent, by themselves. Children need to be raised by lots of caring adults. However monogamy does provide a sort of back-stop safety protection against adults prioritizing their own relationships with each-other over their relationships with their children (who are naturally less interesting and invigorating relationship partners). Non-monogamous raising of children probably has its own advantages and dangers, the point is to make sure that children are always protected and nurtured to the best of their caregivers' ability. I worry about diffusing responsibility for raising children too much, at the expense of them developing a secure attachment. However, as long as all the adults in a child's life are prioritizing that child developing a "secure" attachment style, I could give a shit who is fucking who.
And yes, this is very much my business, because how you raise your children dictates what kind of society my children will live in, so please raise them right.
> And yes, this is very much my business, because how you raise your children dictates what kind of society my children will live in, so please raise them right.
Sure, but I'd like to see if your conjecture is actually backed up by the evidence. I too might be initially inclined to believe that monogamous partners are better for childcare, but I'm guessing that I am also epistemically biased towards that assumption, just as a product of the societal norms I've grown up with.
This is one of the second order negative effects of low birth rates in the developed world. Low birth rates mean low numbers of aunts, uncles, cousins, and other kinfolk who have a vested genetic interest in the well-being of your child. That's something that money just can't buy, no matter how great your nanny or pre-school or whatever is. And that's assuming you haven't moved away from your family, which many of us have.
Two adults earning incomes and a third (and maybe also a fourth) keeping house and taking care of the kids sure seems a lot better for everyone concerned from my perspective (normal 2-parent household with three young kids).
I don't necessarily disagree, but lets be wise to the dangers that can present themselves in this situation, and then lets make sure to legislate against them (seriously).
I feel it should be considered reasonable for people to have a stable main partner whom you spend most of your time with and raise a family with, while still having other partners who may only be temporary but you can pursue romantic interactions with. This is basically the idea behind the ethical non-monogamy trend we see on some dating apps.
The problem is people attach too much ego to their relationships and jealously easily flares up when there is a hint that their partner may also be attracted to someone else. There are also financial motivations for catching your partner in an affair and immediately leaving them.
However, the fact remains that people already have these kinds of relationships, they are just not talked about or openly accepted. It’s a bit like being a gay man 40-50 years ago.
If it weren’t for society priming people to instantly dump a partner upon discovering they are a practicing non-monogamist, people might be forced to think for themselves and decide if that’s something their okay with, and I suspect many people might be.
I don't think most poly people advocate for cheating (which is what you're doing here). You also make it sound like people are being "tricked" by society into not liking it when they find their partner is cheating on them, when that's the most natural and human response you can expect when you find out you've been deceived at the highest levels.
The only way having multiple partners is ethical is if they are all aware of each other and it was agreed upon before hand that the relationship is open. What you're advocating for is extremely unethical.
I don't think the post you're replying to is demeaning life choices. The grandparent is advocating for cheating and calling it ethical. The comment you're replying to is correctly stating that it's unethical to have an open relationship when your partner doesn't know it's open. Key quote from the grandparent:
> partner upon discovering they are a practicing non-monogamist
You don't "discover you're a practicing non-monogamist", that's just a euphemism for finding out you're being cheated on. You either agree to non-monogamy or you don't but the only ethical time to give someone that choice is before you've started practicing it behind their back.
> I find demeaning others life choices publicly online to be anti-ethical, but what do I know. Please be nice.
It's actually the grandparent that keeps demeaning people's life choices by calling monogamy "boring", "vanilla" and "on the wrong side of history".
I agree. I'm of the opinion that monogamy is only harmful when it is considered the default. People/couples should put thought into this aspect of their relationship, and choose what is right for them. Even if that means monogamy.
The irony is that modern society has made great strides to promote relationships between all combinations of genders of individuals... but any suggestion of non-monogamy is still struck down with shame or castigation almost reflexively, with little to no thought. It’s getting better though.
There is no irony other than the fact that you think it's ironic. Monogamy is the default for same-sex couples as well. Orthogonal issue.
The issue with non-monogamy is that a pairing (2 people) is the smallest working group, and that's what the game theory of dating proves to be most durable and successful. A 3-person working group requires at least 3x more relationship work, and a 4-person pairing requires 6x as much.
Polyamory doesn't have to be a three or four way free for all. One person could have two independent partners. Some partners will come and go, while others stay. It is more work, but it doesn't have to be as bad as you make it out to be.
It is ironic. I have no data on this, but I would guess that having sex with the same gender is far less common than having multiple sexual partners, so why have we worked so hard to normalize and legalize same gender relationships while giving no thought to polygamous relationships?
The legal frameworks have to do with property transfer and responsibility for raising children, both of which are much more complicated in relationships with more than two partners.
People have partners on the side very successfully until they are caught, and arguably those side relationships would be more successful if they did not have to keep them a secret and their other partners agreed to the open nature of the relationship.
Nope, this is silly. Mutual attraction is what leads you to become couples in the first place. The physical part of attraction is what leads you to notice the other person and then building an emotional bond with each other will increase the attraction. So attraction is a symptom not a cause. Like any emotion attraction comes and goes. IMHO believing this folly is what leads to so many people breaking up when they could be very happy together and why so many people are lonely these days.
My own experience after 15 years of marriage is that attraction comes and goes for both me and my wife. But by not doing anything rash when that happens we have both discovered that it also comes back. Sure the first few times it happened it was quite scary, but then we've found a rhythm with the ebbs and floods.
This is my experience too. Sexual attraction brings you together. This may lead to love, if the circumstances are favorable. And then you can choose to make the effort to nurture that relationship, or not.
To be fair there are a lot of very unhappy coupled folks out there as well stuck with essentially the opposite problem: the attraction has left the building and hasn't been there for a very long time and waiting for it to come back is likely an exercise in futility. See r/deadbedrooms etc.
Well, rereading what I wrote I was maybe not so clear on that.
If you are just waiting for the attraction to come back, chances are that it doesn't, even though it certainly could. It all depends on the reason that attraction disappears. Sometimes it's related to the things you do and sometimes it isn't. The key, I believe, is to always try to be a better spouse than you were a year ago, or even a month ago. But that of course presupposes that there exist mutual trust and respect between you. It won't work if only one part is trying to be a better self for the other.
I think you may need to define what you mean by attraction, then. He said again comes and goes for both him and his wife. I see no reason to disbelieve him, especially since that is what I experience with my wife as well. It's fine if you have a different definition of attraction, one where the members of both couples here (his and mine) can be considered to still be attracted to each other. But simply stating that he's wrong does not advance the conversation or reveal what your point of view actually is.
My physical attraction to my wife comes and goes. When that first started happening, it was traumatic. At this point, it really doesn't feel like a big deal. There are always more important things to be working on when it happens. (Probably not coincidentally!)
A bit later in our relationship, the same thing started happening for more general attraction. The decision to stay together would get very practical for a time. Again, this was initially very traumatic, but over time it became more and more clear that it was an effect, not a cause. Our focus shifted to the true causes, to the extent we could figure them out, and that was vastly more effective than trying to somehow address lack of attraction directly.
In short, my experience directly contradicts your position, anecdotal though it may be.
Shared trauma, childhood upbringing, and many other factors have a much higher correlation to successful relationships than merely attraction.
Attachment Theory attempts to explain why certain relationships are better than others which is dependent on how secure or insecure each partner is with regard to attachment. For example, if both parties are classified as having “secure attachment”, they may feel distress when their partner leaves them for say a long work trip but they’re able to compose themselves and control those worries. That sort of relationship would be said to have a higher chance of survival than two partners who are both “anxious-ambivalent attached” because in this case, the parties would instead have strong fear or worry of rejection by their partner, higher dependency on each other, and less likely to be comfortable being alone. None of those elements rest solely on the basis of attraction. This type of behavior stems from being a witness to conflicting figures in their life (e.g. divorced parents, unsafe family habitat, etc.)
The first definition I see for attraction is "pleasing to the senses" and the second is "sexually alluring." If OP meant something more than physical, then "attraction" was a misleading word choice.
Even with your definition of attraction, attraction-based love is fundamentally self-serving, and those who practice it rob themselves of the beauty of blind commitment in loving relationships.
If the definition of attraction is to be read to encompass everything that makes you like a person, doesn't it make the original statement vacuous? "Liking each other is what helps couples stay together?" I suppose it's true that few couples ever got divorced who wanted to be together. But it doesn't tell us anything.
What would it even mean to have a romantic relationship without attraction?
Why do people bother dating if it’s sufficient to move in with a friend?
How do we explain people who already live with close friends and are also out seeking romantic partners? What marginal benefit could they be looking for? Why limit the search according to gender, if attraction is not essential?
More on EFT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotionally_focused_therapy
Regarding attachment theory itself: A major paper in adult attachment theory is Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d36/ac75d7081fcd86d467f6d2....
For further reading, stuff by Cindy Hazan, Phillip Shaver, Mario Mikulincer is good
Attachment theory originally was focused on early stage development in children by John Bowlby. Later it was expanded as a way to conceptualize relationships beyond the child and caregiver, things like friendships, work colleagues, bandmates, etc.
Examples where modern attachment theory could be used formulate a hypothesis (or analyze if you have more than conjecture):
- why a band breaks up
- why CrunchPad failed (https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/)
- in interpersonal relations, contradictory, anxious, afraid, erratic behavior - or on the other hand - secure and trusting around someone or a group.
Attachment can explain lasting, functional relationships.
I guess in HN-speak, there could be dyads between startup co-founders, founder <-> employee, investor <-> founder, employee <-> employee. Those cooperational things bubble up into group dynamics and product formation / stuff shipping.
New startup idea: Founder therapy :)