Dr. Maya Shankar
Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist who served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House Behavioral Science…
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Neuroscientist Amir Levine studies attachment styles – how comfortable we feel with emotional intimacy and how sensitive we are to disruptions in our relationships. For decades, scientists have believed that this wiring is fixed and largely determined by our early childhood experiences. But research by Amir and others in the field has upended this view.
This week Amir shares with Maya how we can learn to shift our attachment orientation no matter our starting point and bring out our most secure selves.
Check out Amir’s latest book, “Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life,” and take this quiz on attachment styles to learn more about your own.
Also, A Slight Change of Plans wants to hear from you!
What helps you navigate moments of uncertainty? Maybe it was advice someone gave you, a mantra you now repeat, or something surprising you discovered in your own moment of transition. Share your reflections with us in a voice memo and tell us why those lessons have stayed with you.
You can email your voice memo to slightchange@pushkin.fm or leave us a voicemail at (646)397-8557. You may be featured in an upcoming episode.
Pushkin. Share your reflections with us in a voice memo. and tell us why those lessons have stayed with you. You can email your voice memo to slightchange at pushkin.fm or leave us a voicemail at 646-397-8557. You may be featured in an upcoming episode. Thanks so much for being part of the Slight Change community.
00:55
Speaker 2
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
01:05
Speaker 3
When people think about attachment, they think, oh, how do I feel about another person, my quality of their relationship with another person? But it's actually, it's much more basic and at the same time deeper than that because it's how do I feel safe in the world?
01:22
Speaker 1
Neuroscientist Amir Levine studies attachment styles, how comfortable we feel with emotional intimacy, and how sensitive we are to disruptions in our relationships. For decades, scientists have believed that this wiring is fixed and largely determined by our early childhood experiences. But research by Amir and others in the field has upended this view.
01:46
Speaker 3
There's so much room for change throughout our lifetime because our social brain is really malleable and we can really shift and change our attachment style, even in adulthood.
02:01
Speaker 1
On today's episode... The Science of Attachment. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who studies human behavior, and this is A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become in the face of a big change. I first came across Amir's work a few years ago, When I was doing research for my book, I was interviewing a woman named Tara who, after a traumatic childhood, developed an insecure attachment style. But over time, she was somehow able to build many relationships that were deeply secure. I wanted to understand how this transformation was possible and ended up finding some answers in Amir's research. His latest book, Secure, teaches us how we can shift our attachment orientation no matter our starting point.
03:03
Speaker 3
So in attachment style, it's like a worldview. We have a preconceived notion of how people are going to relate to us and how safe the world is, safe from the point of view of relationships. It's measured on two dimensions, on the avoidant dimension and on the anxiety dimension. So people who are anxious have this idea that relationships are very fragile. There's a danger around the corner that every little thing can break the relationship, that people will not want to be close to you as much as you want to be close to them. People who are avoidant, they want to be in a relationship, but they don't really feel comfortable with too much closeness. So they're like, I'm better off on my own. You are responsible for your own actions and feelings and I'm to mine. It's all about being self-sufficient and self-reliant.
03:52
Speaker 1
Can you tell me, Amir, what the hallmarks of a secure attachment look like? What does it feel like to be securely attached?
04:01
Speaker 3
So I think the best way for me to describe the secure attachment is if I go back to where these attachment styles were discovered by Mary Ainsworth, who's also an attachment researcher. And what she did was bring mothers and their toddlers to a room full of toys, and they were watched through a one-way mirror. And It's amazing to watch it because the child enters the room and he sees all these toys and gets so excited. Immediately started to play with different things. But then they asked their mom to leave the room and immediately they drop everything they have. They crawl or run, whatever, start banging, crying. The research assistant is there. They try to interest them with the toy.
04:45
Speaker 2
They're not interested.
04:45
Speaker 3
They'll throw it in your face. They just want their mom back. And then They asked their mom to come back to the room.
04:51
Speaker 2
And it's in.
04:52
Speaker 3
That moment, the reunion, that Mary Ainsworth discovered these three attachment styles, the anxious, the avoidant, and the secure.
04:59
Speaker 2
And it's amazing to see the secure.
05:02
Speaker 3
The minute the mother picks them up, they come down right away. They start to point at the toys and it's like magic. It's incredible to see. But the anxious, not so much. Their mom holds them. They just continue to cry. They don't get that easily interested with other toys. And the avoidance, sometimes they don't even cry. They stay limp in their mother's hands, but they also don't become as interested in the toys.
05:26
Speaker 1
They don't embrace that show of care right away, right? They almost resist it.
05:30
Speaker 2
Interesting. Yes, exactly.
05:31
Speaker 3
But if you look, even though they're not crying, their blood pressure is through the roof. They don't know how to use the mother to regulate their feelings, to regulate their affect. And to me, secure attachment, It's all about having that ability to explore the world because I know that someone has my back. I feel safe. I know that someone is there for me. And we have to remember that attachment exists throughout our whole lifetime. It doesn't just happen in childhood. It starts when we're born and it ends when we die. And I think it's important for adults to understand that we still have that basic need.
06:11
Speaker 1
You came to this research, Amir, in part through a personal experience of your own that you had as a young psychiatrist in training. Long story short, you went through a really rough breakup. Tell me more about that and what about that experience led you down this path?
06:28
Speaker 2
Yeah, it just happened by chance.
06:30
Speaker 3
It had a very difficult relationship where the other person would avoid it. And eventually we broke up and it was so hard because for me, It was like, wow, we really like each other. When I really like someone, I think about a future together. I think about having a life together. But the other person told me, oh, no, no. When I really like someone, I'm thinking about getting on a flight and going to live in San Francisco. We were both in New York. And like, it didn't make sense to me at the time. But then I was doing my child and adolescent psychiatry residency. And we were working in the therapeutic nursery. We did work with mothers with trauma histories, with PTSD, helping them become more secure with their toddlers. And it was so powerful that I did something you never have time to do as a resident. They always give you this huge suggested reading list. I read the whole suggested reading list. And that's where I came across these textbooks of adult attachment. Reading that, it felt like all of a sudden, like a light bulb went.
07:33
Speaker 2
On in my head.
07:35
Speaker 3
Oh, so this really explains so much of what's been going on in the dynamic in that relationship. Before I knew about attachment, I thought that everybody loved the same and that love conquers all. And we're being fed that by all the movies that we watch and our culture. And so to me, this whole idea when they told me, oh, like I think about going to San Francisco, to me it meant, oh my God, this person doesn't love me because if he loved me enough, then he would want to stay. And I'm not the love of his life. And that's why he wants to go away. That's the only way I could interpret it. I didn't know about avoidant attachment style. I didn't know that when they get close, they want to run away. I had no idea. I had no way of knowing that. But then when I read it, it made so much sense because he was classic avoidant.
08:22
Speaker 1
What did you, Amir, identify as your own attachment style in that relationship?
08:30
Speaker 3
Specifically in that relationship, I think he was so avoidant that he definitely made me more anxious. It was so painful because we would never make plans. I would never know each and every day we were together for half a year or a year. Like, but every day was, are we going to get together? Are we not going to get together? I would wait to hear back. And I remember like the tension rising inside me and checking my phone and looking like, did he call? Did he not call? Like, are we going to get together? Are we not going to get together? I would never know exactly what was going to happen. I think that's why ultimately it also ended because I just couldn't handle it over time.
09:11
Speaker 1
We often like the binaries. So we want to label ourselves or others as either secure or insecure. But research shows that we can have very secure relationships in our life and very insecure ones. So you might be deeply securely attached to your romantic partner, but have a very insecure attachment to your mom. Tell me a bit more about that variability across relationships.
09:37
Speaker 3
I really love that because it just shows you how we are such sophisticated social animals. And even in the original studies, if you go back and look at Mary Ainsworth's findings, she found that a child can have an insecure attachment style with one parent, but a secure attachment style with another. So even back then, they knew that we can have different attachment styles with different people. Now I've followed more than 120,000 relationships. I find that even people who are generally insecure, most of us have these secure kernels or secure islands in our lives. But the problem is, is that oftentimes we don't give those secure relationships enough space because secure people are boring. They always show up for us. They're always there for us. We tend to really focus more on the ones who haven't replied to our texts, the ones who are not really showing.
10:38
Speaker 2
Up for us.
10:38
Speaker 1
We chase them.
10:39
Speaker 3
Yes, because our brain gravitates towards something that's unsolved. Whereas with the secure relationships, things are pretty much solved. It's easy.
10:48
Speaker 2
Yeah.
10:50
Speaker 1
It's why if you're in a room full of people and you feel like, oh, most people like me here, but there's that one person in the corner that doesn't like you, you try to ingratiate yourself to them.
10:59
Speaker 3
Yeah, our brain gravitates to that.
11:01
Speaker 1
That's your focus. Even though the other 19 people who have just been loving and kind and stable, you sort of toss to the side. I also have been reflecting on the.
11:12
Speaker 1
Variability that exists within individual relationships and how, depending on various stressors, let's say one person's actually going through a lot of transition in their professional life or a couple is just welcoming a new baby into their lives, attachment styles can be temperamental. They can be very sensitive to those environmental factors where the trust and love and security once had with a partner is, of course, naturally going to be threatened when there's a baby waking you up at all hours of the night and your whole routine is flipped upside down. Tell me more about how circumstantial factors can lead to changes in attachment relationship between two people.
11:54
Speaker 2
The baby is a great example.
11:55
Speaker 3
But if you understand how secure attachment works, you can find creative ways, even just saying, wow, thank you so much for bringing me this or bringing me that, or even just saying, I miss our time together. And I know that right now this is going on, but.
12:12
Speaker 2
I see you.
12:13
Speaker 3
It's just like saying little things here and there can make a huge difference in making the other parent feel more included. Because otherwise, if you're just like, change the diaper, bring this, it becomes so utilitarian and you lose that connection. But if you actually pay some attention to it, it's really about maintaining this thread that's invisible, emotional thread that constantly... is connecting us to others.
12:41
Speaker 2
In our life.
12:43
Speaker 1
I wanted to ask one question about the stakes here. What happens when a person has, generally speaking, a secure attachment leaning versus an insecure one?
12:52
Speaker 3
So the initial research showed that, not surprising, that people with secure attachment tend to report greater long-term satisfaction in their relationships.
13:01
Speaker 2
So that's great. We all want that.
13:03
Speaker 3
But then over the years, more and more research shows that it actually is much broader than that. The effect of secure attachment really touches almost every area of our life. And sometimes things that are surprising, they did this finding where they looked at people with secure attachment and people who were looking for a job and they find that it's much easier for them to go through the job search if they're unemployed and it doesn't affect their self-esteem as much and they can really hold on to a better positive image of themselves. So that's really nice. And then, Like the even more profound effects is that people who are more secure tend to be healthier. And even if they have a chronic illness, one study looked at fibromyalgia, which is like this chronic, painful illness. And they found that people who are secure tend to have less symptoms and have better relationships with their care health providers. So there's so many different aspects of our lives that are affected by our attachment style. because we're a highly social species and we're really highly affected by our connections with others.
14:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. What I love about your work and especially your latest book, Secure, is that you really broaden our horizons to think about attachment styles across the board of human relationships. So many people think about attachment style exclusively in the context of their romantic relationship. And what you articulate is, no, the framework of attachment is a useful way for us to understand our tendencies and behaviors in our relationships, period, whether that's with our partners, with our family members, with our friends, acquaintances, even with people who have kids, like with their own children. We usually talk about the child feeling insecurely attached to the parent, but I'm sure parents can feel insecurely attached to their kids. I'm not getting the kind of love or attention or affection I want back from them, right? So yeah, just reflect a little bit more on utilizing this framework in our lives, period.
15:07
Speaker 2
Right.
15:07
Speaker 3
There's been a lot of research about how the attachment styles actually also manifest with friends, at work, with family. I find that it's very, very useful to think about it from that perspective because feeling safe or feeling secure or learning to become more secure with the people around you can have an amazing effect on our brain. Because attachment, is really linked to our exploratory drive. When we feel safe, when we feel that someone has our back, it can really make us really sore and we can be more daring and we can try different things.
15:43
Speaker 1
I will say, Amir, that I was in part so drawn to your scholarship and the scholarship of other people studying attachment styles because it questioned a long-held belief in the scientific community, which is that Our early childhood experiences dictate our attachment styles in adult life. But research has shown there's only a weak correlation between one's attachment style in childhood and their attachment style as adults. Tell me a bit more about that discovery in the field. I love it, by the way, when a field changes its mind.
16:23
Speaker 3
There's several studies that came out over the years and one actually that came out this year, 2026, that actually followed people for 30 years. And the findings are fascinating and actually corroborated with.
16:36
Speaker 2
Other studies as well.
16:37
Speaker 3
So the attachment style that you have as a child or your interactions with your parents, they do leave a mark, but it's a much smaller mark than people would think. It's definitely not because this was done to you, now you're this way, which we're so used to. It's more like, for example, they found the maternal effect on avoidance was like 3%. So like 97% is explained by other things. And actually, he found that early childhood friendships had a greater effect on our attachment style in adulthood.
17:09
Speaker 2
I think it was like 11%.
17:11
Speaker 3
Still, around 90% is not explained by those early experiences. But we hardly ever think about our early childhood friendships.
17:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. Okay.
17:20
Speaker 1
So let's dig into this, Amir. So what I'm hearing is that somewhere between the range of 3% and 10%, let's say, that's the contribution we can give to one's childhood. But what I want to ask is, what happens when you look at people who have had very extreme childhoods? So profound abuse, neglect, trauma. I have to believe that for those kids, those experiences are going to be more predictive. They will have a stronger signal because of just the magnitude of the traumatic experience.
17:56
Speaker 3
So, I mean, to some degree, But people vary in terms of some of us are orchids and some of us are dandelions. So some of us are more sensitive to the environment and we are highly affected by the environment. So dandelions can grow anywhere, even like in their cracks, like in like about anywhere in the field. And they're less sensitive to an environment. So they're not that affected by adversity. But when you give them an enriched environment, They kind of like stay the same. They don't like really flourish and outperform. The orchids, when they grow out in the wild, they need a very specific habitat to perform really well. And otherwise they will never develop. So if you get an adverse environment, they underperform. But if they give them a more enriched environment, they outperform the dandelions.
18:49
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so interesting.
18:50
Speaker 2
Okay.
18:51
Speaker 1
So what I'm hearing is, look, they haven't, necessarily done a sub-analysis of the general population to say, okay, those with extreme childhoods, what do you find? But what you do see in research is that holding conditions constant, whether extreme or not, any individual person is going to be more or less influenced by that environment and therefore take more or fewer cues from that environment when it comes to adult attachment style. Is that right?
19:17
Speaker 3
Right.
19:18
Speaker 2
That's true.
19:18
Speaker 3
And also, I think the most promising finding is that There's so much room for change throughout our lifetime because our social brain is really malleable and that we can really shift and change our attachment style, even in adulthood. Yeah.
19:34
Speaker 1
And I, look, this research is filled with so much hope because I think for the longest time, people would take the questionnaires, take the quizzes, label themselves, okay, I'm insecurely attached or I'm avoidant, I'm anxious. And feeling like that's not something that's malleable is deeply discouraging. it can also lead you to really resent your past and resent your childhood.
19:56
Speaker 3
Yes. And I have to say, that actually makes you less secure because then you start to dig into your childhood. And I mean, so you find a time where your parents didn't listen to you, but I'm sorry. I mean, raising a human child is really difficult.
20:09
Speaker 2
Totally.
20:09
Speaker 3
It's like, it's like round the clock. So there are going to be times when you're not going to be listened to or where people are not going to exactly be there for you and listen to your feelings if you had a hard time. You will find those scenarios, but whether they actually are causal to your adult attachment style, the research doesn't really support that. And so instead of focusing on that, because we can't prove it, it's better to focus, I think, on things that we can change in the here and now to become more secure.
20:40
Speaker 1
Look, you're preaching to the choir with this audience, right? It's called A Slight Change of Plans. It's all about navigating change and also- inspiring change within ourselves. I love the idea of, look, our brains are highly plastic and they are being remodeled through small and big interactions alike that can either strengthen an attachment style or actually weaken an attachment style, right? There's hope, but there's also bad news for people because just because you have a secure attachment style now does not mean you get to maintain that over time. You know, a bad relationship could totally undermine that stability. So it feels like we should be mindful of our attachment styles and see them as something that we invest in, that we cultivate, that we nurture.
21:23
Speaker 2
Definitely.
21:24
Speaker 3
The way that I see it is that we have to understand our biology, what we're bringing to the plate. If we are an orchid or we do have that sensitivity, how do we work with that? Like instead, like, yeah, okay, I can think about the potential origin of it. And maybe because my parents were this way or that way, or maybe it's genetic or maybe who knows. But How do I work with it in the here and now to help me actually cope better with the world around me?
21:54
Speaker 1
After the break, Amir helps me see that my anxious leanings might actually come with some superpowers, plus a roadmap for finding the people who bring out our most secure selves. We'll be back in a moment with a slight change of plans. So we've covered factors that people might not know exist within attachment theory. So for example, one, early childhood experiences, weak predictors of adult attachment. Two, there can be variability in your attachment style across relationships. There can be variability within a relationship depending on these environmental factors. But the research does generally show that we might have a leaning towards a particular attachment style. So I lean anxious. And one thing I found fascinating in reading your book is that the way that we connect with other people can tell us a lot about ourselves, right? So there's a study that showed, for example, that hypervigilant anxious attachers could pick up on changing facial expressions faster than people who have non-anxious attachment styles. On the one hand, it's a liability for an anxious attacher, but on the other hand, it's a hidden superpower, which is that they can read the room really easily and understand what people are feeling. Yeah, I just would love to hear you reflect on this. It was so interesting.
23:28
Speaker 3
So this is really, really important, and I'm so glad you brought this up because I think there's like negative biases. But when you actually, when I looked at the actual data, you see that people with an anxious attachment style really do have this ability to read social and environmental cues that other people can't see. And some people show, oh, but it's like you paid your price for it. And that's true. In some cases, you can pay your price for it. No one said that it's easy. That's why I like this superpower analogy, because knowing like being Spider-Man is not easy. And then especially if you don't know how to control those powers, as you see in all those movies, it can really go astray. But if you learn how to hone in those abilities, then it can make for a richer life or better, like really better coping. Even, for example, doing this podcast and learning, picking up or seeing the subtleties and learning to ask about things that other people don't think about. So these are ways that you can actually really use it in many different lines of work, but I think it can also be very, very difficult when you're in an insecure environment and things become very, very challenging. So what I tell people who are anxiously attached is that you really have to learn to use all these different tools to create a life or a social milieu for yourself. in which the majority of your life is secure. So for example, like if someone texts you or if someone says something to you and you need to sort of really get reassurance right away. So imagine a world where you have a lot of people around you where they will give you that reassurance very quickly. So how much more, how much easier it would be for you.
25:18
Speaker 2
Yes.
25:19
Speaker 1
Can you talk, Amir, about your five pillars of secure connections? So consistent, available connections responsive, reliable, predictable.
25:31
Speaker 3
Yeah. So the thing is, I was looking for like something simple that will help people understand what secure attachment is about, because it sounds really nice to feel safe, to feel this, to feel that, but okay, how do we break it down to little things, to like everyday things that we actually need to do in order for people to feel safe around us? So I found that it's actually simpler than people think. It's not about having like hour-long conversations with them. It's not about being attached at the hip. And it's not enough that you feel, oh my God, I'm so great. I'm consistent, available and responsive. It's a two-factor authentication kind of thing. You have to sort of make sure that the other person experiences you as reliable and predictable. So then you're sealing the deal and you're actually CARP, which is C-A-R-R-P, consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. And secure people do it automatically without even thinking. But people who are anxious and avoidant have a harder time with it. So it's like really you have to learn how to be a carp with others and also help teach others how to be carp with you. And in addition, really use it as a tool to recurate your social life to create a more secure village for yourself.
26:54
Speaker 1
I love learning from you that having a secure attachment style doesn't just benefit you, it has these wonderful spillover effects on the people around you because they get a different kind of love and presence from you by virtue of your having the secure leaning.
27:15
Speaker 2
Completely.
27:16
Speaker 3
I quote Simone Weil, who's like this French philosopher, has a very, very interesting life. And she says that attention... is the rarest and purest form of generosity. And I never thought about being consistent, available, and responsive, like as a form.
27:34
Speaker 2
I just thought, yeah, I need to show up for people.
27:36
Speaker 3
This is my responsibility towards them. But I never thought about it as a form of generosity. But it really is to our social brain, if we understand how important it is for us to have these because we all know it, we all feel it when we send an email to someone and then they reply right back. Or when we text and we get it, we all have a little bit of a feel-good jolt from it, from feeling that back and forth. But that feel-good jolt really translates to greater health, greater immune system, longevity, all these amazing things that I never really thought are that connected to showing up to people. It's probably the biggest present we can give others.
28:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, and look, this whole conversation is built on the premise that new interactions we have with human beings can in turn affect our attachment styles. So when we have a interaction that is positive and affirming and trust-building, that can increase the security, but we have a relationship maybe where trust is broken, lies are told, or we feel abandoned in some way, that can decrease security. And so what a secure person is actually gifting to another person who might be insecurely attached, whether anxious or avoidant, right, is the gift of a new interaction that can rewire their brain towards security.
29:02
Speaker 3
Completely, entirely. And it actually gives a greater sense of connection. And then there's this amazing findings that show that when we feel hyper-connected in that way, It increases our self-esteem, how much we are in control of our life, that life is more meaningful. And when I came across that research, I was really surprised because I never thought that my self-esteem or how much in control I feel in my life or like how meaningful I feel life is, is related to how connected I feel to others. I thought it had to do with my own feelings about myself.
29:37
Speaker 2
And if I if I don't.
29:38
Speaker 3
Feel that way, I need to do the work within myself to actually create that. But apparently the more connected we feel, the more we feel the back and forth from other people, the more we feel that. But the opposite is also true. And I think that's really, really important to say when we have those Disconnected relationships, those non-carp relationships in our lives, they really have the opposite effect really on our body or on our biology. And they're really detrimental. There's this one study that came out this year where they looked at those insecure relationships and they found that they actually, they biologically age us by nine months each year. insecure relationship like that, that we like the people. And what I try to do in secure is really tell people to shift towards those interactions that may help us feel more connected to other people.
30:33
Speaker 2
Yeah.
30:35
Speaker 1
Now that listeners know, hey, your attachment style is malleable. It's recommendations do you have for a person who very much leans insecure, who wants to move towards more security?
30:52
Speaker 3
So the tool that I have for anxious people is I called it a CARB intervention, where you have to really look at your social life and map it and see who are the CARB people in your life and who are the people in your life that are not CARB. Now, let's say this person fails your CARB intervention. I don't really say, okay, you have to exclude them from your life. I'm just saying maybe they don't need to get such a high priority. So it's like, if you're thinking about like boarding a plane, they don't get priority boarding to your social life. They, I don't know, they can put them in group seven or eight. They get to board last.
31:33
Speaker 2
Oh my God.
31:34
Speaker 1
I've never loved a metaphor more than that.
31:38
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly.
31:39
Speaker 2
Standby.
31:40
Speaker 1
Standby.
31:41
Speaker 2
That's amazing.
31:43
Speaker 3
So you don't want to cut them out of your life because oftentimes what happens, especially for anxious, you get an attachment backlash. You start really missing the person. People with anxious attachment have a very sticky attachment style. It's not easy for them to let go of people. So if you start to completely shut them out of your life, it's going to come back and hit you really strongly. So the one tool that I teach people with anxious attachment to use is something that I call Walt Tennis with Love.
32:12
Speaker 2
I don't know if you ever played tennis against the wall.
32:14
Speaker 3
Whatever you dish the wall, it returns to you in the same way, not more, a little bit less. So in World Tennis with Love, you are the wall, but it's with love. So I have a friend that we've been friends for 20 years and it hasn't been an easy friendship. We haven't talked for a while and it's been really, it's been painful and difficult. But now with World Tennis with Love, it's pretty amazing because like he will text me, hi.
32:42
Speaker 2
Well, tennis with love. I'm the wall.
32:43
Speaker 3
I text immediately hi, if I can. Then I don't hear from him for a week. After a week, he texts me another hi, and I'll text another hi. And then three days later, he calls me. I pick up the phone, and we talk, and it's with love, and it's warm, and it's nice. I'm not trying to ignore him, which I would do in the past, or teach him a lesson, or get upset with him. I know what he's capable of. And I return it in kind, but with love. And if I have a problem or an issue, I'm not going to turn to him. I'm going to call my partner, my sister, another friend that is car. He's not a car person. So I use wall tennis with love. But actually it really strengthened our relationship because before there was so much upset there. But now it really, it puts it on the right level of what the expectation should be. And slowly, slowly actually became stronger for whatever reason.
33:37
Speaker 2
Do you need to.
33:38
Speaker 1
Worry, Amir, in that situation that you are compromising who you are? You're playing the role of a chameleon adapting to meet this friend of yours' personality type? I both like your approach and I want to adopt it, but I will say that when I've tried to do that, I can feel almost like I'm betraying myself a little bit, like I'm becoming a different person to meet their needs and that the friendship operates on their terms.
34:06
Speaker 2
So that's the part with love.
34:08
Speaker 3
It's very, very important where I have an understanding that they need a different type of closeness. And also that when they reach out to me, I respond to them with warmth, but I'm not going to go above and beyond that. Whatever they're dishing me, I'll dish back. So it doesn't create expectations on my end that then will actually then backfire.
34:34
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, because you're not, putting yourself then in a vulnerable situation. How much of the work, Amir, needs to happen internally? Because obviously you've given us advice for taming our anxious or avoidant attachments in the context of a relationship, but it feels like some of this has to just be self-work, confidence-building, self-compassion, feeling like we bring value to the world and don't need as much validation from others as we might think. And so tell me about that piece when it comes to changing our attachment style.
35:14
Speaker 3
I really believe that once we form a more secure world, like once we form our secure village and really learn how to make those interactions more secure, that in turn will change our like perceptions of ourselves too. So in that way, secure priming therapy and coaching, which is the new treatment that I'm researching, is really different from other treatments because it puts a lot of the emphasis on changing our social world or changing our social habitat. And so it doesn't mean that other treatments are not effective. A lot of the psychotherapies and coaching puts a lot of emphasis on internal work. and doing the work within ourselves. But you can do that internal work until the cows come home. And then you go out there and you text someone and they are mean to you or something like that. And then you're back to square one. So I really, I think the external social habitat has been neglected to some degree.
36:20
Speaker 1
One of the studies that I stumbled upon when writing my book showed that merely reflecting on past secure encounters with other people could significantly reduce anxious attachment in an eight-week period, which is really profound, right? Because what that reveals is our lives become what we focus our attention on, where we shift the spotlight, and we can either marinate in the negative, insecure relationships we've had, or we can shift the lens towards the ones that have renewed us and we've found sustenance in, and that can actually change our orientation.
37:00
Speaker 2
Oh, entirely.
37:01
Speaker 3
So in my therapy, we give a lot of room for people to recall those secure experiences in their lives and to really, like we seize on them as really stepping stones because in a way, the way in psychoanalytic terms, people think about those as secure representations that exist within us. And there's like the psychoanalytic literature that talks a lot about ghosts in the nursery, which is like the basically traumatic things that have happened through generations. But then in more recent years, they wrote also papers about having those angels in the nursery. So those people in our lives that really showed up for us in so many different ways. And I think when we all look at our history, like many of us will find Some people like that, it can be a grandfather, it can be a teacher, it can be the neighbor, a sibling, people that have really showed up for us in profound ways.
38:28
Speaker 1
Hey, thanks so much for listening. Amir developed a quiz you can use to learn more about your attachment style. You can find that in our show notes. And before we go, a reminder that we, on a slight change of plans, want to hear from you. What helps you navigate moments of uncertainty? Maybe it was advice someone gave you, a mantra you now repeat, or something surprising you discovered in your own moment of transition. Share your reflections with us in a voice memo and tell us why those lessons have stayed with you. You may be featured on an upcoming episode. You can email your voice memo to slightchange at pushkin.fm or leave us a voicemail at 646-397-8557. All right, we'll be back soon with another episode of A Slight Change of Plans.
39:18
Speaker 2
I'll see you then.
39:29
Speaker 1
A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced by me, Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner, Alexandra Gerriton, our editor, Daphne Chen, our lead producer, Megan Lubin, our associate producer, Sonia Gerwitt, and our sound engineer, Erica Huang. Luis Guerra wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there. And of course, a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
40:07
Speaker 2
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
The Host
