​​Fighting for the Relationship

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Picture this: Two prickly porcupines are shivering in their burrow in the midst of a snow storm. The biting cold is scary, overwhelming, and painful. In an effort to get warm, they both move close to the other’s body– to share heat and provide comfort. But what happens? Their sharp quills poke their partner, causing a new type of discomfort and pain; so, they distance themselves once again and move back into the cold. The peculiar and painful dance happens again and again throughout the storm as each partner tries to find the exact spot that feels just right. This is the Porcupine’s Dilemma: how do we get and give comfort in our relationships while also maintaining a healthy sense of separateness and distance. At what point is the closeness painful? When does the distance hurt?

 

The concept behind this dance is attachment – “the deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space” (Bowlby, 1969). You’re probably familiar with this term in reference to babies’ attachment to their caregivers; however, attachment is much more than our newborn responses to the world. While it is true that our early experiences with the people who raised us have an immense impact on our physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development in childhood, they also form the blueprint for how we relate to others in intimate relationships as adults throughout our lives. Bowlby described our relationships with intimate others as “the hub around which a person’s life revolves when he is an infant…and into old age.” Attachment creates that sense of what feels just right to us in our relationships. Think of Goldilocks, but for emotional security or distress.

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There are four different “types” or “styles” found in attachment research and clinical practice: Secure; Preoccupied (aka Anxious Pursuer); Dismissive (aka Avoidant Withdrawer); and Fearful (aka Disorganized). These four comfort set-points, or types, are determined by how positively or negatively a person sees themselves in relation to other people. They also correspond to how much anxiety and avoidance the person experiences in intimate relationships. According to Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), “human beings define themselves with others, not from others.” In this sense, who we are is defined by our attachment to others. As an EFT-Certified therapist, I help people understand which style of attachment they have and how it influences their relationships. If you have ever wondered why you keep getting into the same predicaments in your relationships, accused of either not caring or being too needy, attachment science is a good way to understand what’s happening – as well as how you might begin to change it. 

 

If you are interested in completing a self-assessment of your own attachment style, you can visit this website to complete the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, a psychological questionnaire that measures your comfort with closeness and distance in your intimate relationships. In EFT, each partner's attachment style will be a major focus of the work. As a couples counselor, I will ask questions about each partner's childhood experiences with caregivers, abuse or neglect, and romantic relationship history. Did this person learn that they could count on others when they really needed to? Did they discover that trust is hard to come by and easy to lose? Did they learn that they were valuable and worthy of love? These questions and more are constantly at work in our romantic relationships. The good news is that we can learn secure attachment, even if we didn't get it when we were little. No matter what type of porcupine you started out as, you can learn a new way of getting through the snowstorm with your mate.​

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​​                                                               Attachment, EFT, and "The Cycle"

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Emotionally-Focused Therapy is designed to help couples understand their unique attachment dance and each partner's moves within it. This is typically referred to as "The Negative Cycle" in EFT. And just like a cycle, it is a circle with no clear beginning or end. On some occasions, it may be triggered by a reaction in one person; other times, the other person sets it in motion. Regardless of how it begins, once it gets going, each person feels the threat and jumps into action to feel safe the best way they know how. In the majority of couples, this tends to be a Pursue-Withdraw Cycle where one person seeks security by actively confronting the issue while the other pulls away. The more one pushes, the more the other distances, and the cycle continues day after day after day. Mixed into this dance are both partners' physiological/bodily experiences (e.g., heart racing, sinking feeling), their emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, fear), their view of themselves (e.g., unworthy), and the story they construct in their heads to make sense of it all. To make the situation even more difficult, both people are flooded with emotion in the moment and their fight-flight-freeze survival instincts kick in. They may have read all the books and know the skills they should be using, but that feels impossible to do in the heat of the conflict. What keeps couples stuck is that they only see what's on the surface with their partner's defensive moves. The primary emotions, hidden hurts, and unmet yearnings never get communicated or heard, so both people stay feeling misunderstood and alone. Through active, experiential couples therapy sessions, an EFT therapist helps both partners learn steps to a new dance - a "Positive Cycle" - and practice it repeatedly with the therapist's guidance and support. EFT is practicing skills in the therapy office so couples can use them when they need them at home.

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You can find more information about Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT) at the International Centre for Excellence in EFT website here and at Psychology Today here.

 

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