![]() Safety - Can I trust you to be a safe haven for me? Can I be vulnerable with you and express my deeper feelings and be held and reassured by you? ![]() These are the basic needs of attachment that we all have.Īcceptance - Am I acceptable to you? Do you honor and value me as I am?īelonging - Am I important to you? Do I matter? Will you share with me? Can you see me and take me in? Will you be my touchstone and my shelter from the storms of life?Ĭomfort - Are you emotionally present? If I reach for you, will you be there? Will you come when I call and put me first when I am in distress and comfort me? One way to think about this and talk to couples about it is using the acronym: the ABC’S of attachment, which refers to Acceptance, Belonging, Comfort, and Safety. Even if people have never experienced security or seen a good relationship, they will fight for connection and love. When they fight, it is about the nature of their emotional connection. Johnson)Ĭouples come to therapy because there is a rupture in the attachment system. We have also learned from neuroscience research that “proximity to an attachment figure tranquilizes the nervous system.” (S. Studies done on 9-11 survivors revealed that the people who could share with others about it, felt stronger afterwards, and the ones who did not have someone to share with developed PTSD responses. ![]() If we have love and security (whether from a partner, friend, family, community, spiritual resource, pet, etc.), it is easier to face the world. Our brains are not wired to do things alone. We are social animals, and men and women have the same attachment needs. We help couples step out of their negative dance and create a new dance that is safer, closer, and more satisfying. In EFT, we talk about these patterns as a “dance” (Susan Johnson). Love is about being emotionally responsive, and most couples come to treatment when they are stuck in a pattern that does not work and is causing distress. ![]() When love does not work, it hurts, and secure emotional attachment is the cure. We are all hard wired for attachment: we need love and security and how we deal with this vulnerability is what determines how we are in relationships. Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (EFT) is a very technical, complex model, but it has some simple concepts that help define secure attachment in relationships. ![]()
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