Full Transcript for Episode #024 - Attachment Theory: The Philosophy of How We Love

caregiver 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:39.039 does not simply cling to the caregiver. The caregiver's 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.159 availability allows the infant to move away. 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:44.419 to explore the environment, to encounter novelty 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:47.280 and challenge because the infant knows, at some 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:49.439 level, that the caregiver is there to return 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:52.620 to if things go wrong. Security enables exploration. 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:55.439 The capacity to be alone, to venture out, to 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:57.639 take risks, depends on having somewhere safe 00:03:57.639 --> 00:04:00.360 to return. This is not a childhood -specific 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:03.259 truth. It is a feature of human psychology throughout 00:04:03.259 --> 00:04:05.960 the lifespan. Bowlby also introduced the concept 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:08.740 of the internal working model, a mental representation 00:04:08.740 --> 00:04:11.219 of the attachment relationship that the child 00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:14.000 builds up over time and that shapes expectations 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:16.639 about future relationships. The child who has 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:18.879 experienced a consistently responsive caregiver 00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:21.379 builds a model of others as reliable and of the 00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:24.220 self as worthy of care. The child who has experienced 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:27.160 a consistently unresponsive or frightening caregiver 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:29.500 builds a different model, one in which others 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:32.779 are unreliable, threatening or unavailable. and 00:04:32.779 --> 00:04:35.319 in which the self is unworthy or incompetent. 00:04:35.660 --> 00:04:37.899 These models are not conscious beliefs. They 00:04:37.899 --> 00:04:40.720 are procedural structures built in patterns of 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:43.399 expectation and response that operate largely 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:46.019 below the level of reflective awareness and that 00:04:46.019 --> 00:04:47.920 shape how the person approaches relationships 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:50.279 throughout their life. It is worth pausing on 00:04:50.279 --> 00:04:52.600 the evolutionary dimension of Bowlby's theory 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:55.519 because it gives attachment its deepest rationale 00:04:55.519 --> 00:04:58.399 and distinguishes it from earlier psychoanalytic 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:01.189 accounts. Bowlby argued that the attachment behavioral 00:05:01.189 --> 00:05:03.810 system evolved in the environment of evolutionary 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:06.470 adaptedness, the ancestral environment in which 00:05:06.470 --> 00:05:09.050 our species developed because infants who maintained 00:05:09.050 --> 00:05:11.730 proximity to protective adults were more likely 00:05:11.730 --> 00:05:15.629 to survive. Predation, illness, injury, separation 00:05:15.629 --> 00:05:17.730 in dangerous environments, all of these were 00:05:17.730 --> 00:05:20.110 threats that proximity to a caregiver mitigated. 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:22.910 The attachment system is therefore not a neurotic 00:05:22.910 --> 00:05:25.689 response to anxiety. It is an adaptive biological 00:05:25.689 --> 00:05:28.980 system. as fundamental to human nature as hunger 00:05:28.980 --> 00:05:31.779 or the immune system, whose proper functioning 00:05:31.779 --> 00:05:34.420 depends on specific environmental conditions. 00:05:34.740 --> 00:05:36.920 This has an important implication that Bowlby 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.680 was at pains to emphasize. The need for attachment 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:42.819 is not a sign of weakness or immaturity. It does 00:05:42.819 --> 00:05:45.459 not diminish with age. Adults who need their 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:48.199 partners and close relationships for felt security 00:05:48.199 --> 00:05:51.600 are not being childish or dependent in a pathological 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.420 sense. They are expressing a genuine biological 00:05:54.420 --> 00:05:57.000 need that is as natural and as healthy in adulthood 00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.160 as in infancy. The cultural ideal of the completely 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:02.459 self -sufficient adult, the person who does not 00:06:02.459 --> 00:06:05.120 need others, who manages all distress independently, 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:07.860 who treats intimacy as a luxury rather than a 00:06:07.860 --> 00:06:10.920 necessity is, on Bulby's account, not a picture 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:13.819 of psychological health. It is a picture of someone 00:06:13.819 --> 00:06:16.040 who has learned to suppress the attachment system 00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:18.709 rather than to use it well. The neuroscientist 00:06:18.709 --> 00:06:20.769 Daniel Siegel has extended Bowlby's framework 00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:23.649 by showing how attachment relationships literally 00:06:23.649 --> 00:06:26.110 shape the developing brain, how the patterns 00:06:26.110 --> 00:06:28.430 of attunement and misattunement between infant 00:06:28.430 --> 00:06:31.649 and caregiver become encoded in neural architecture, 00:06:32.110 --> 00:06:33.829 influencing the development of the prefrontal 00:06:33.829 --> 00:06:36.689 cortex, the limbic system, and the regulatory 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:38.769 systems that govern how people manage stress 00:06:38.769 --> 00:06:41.269 and emotion throughout their lives. On Siegel's 00:06:41.269 --> 00:06:43.870 account, the attachment relationship is not just 00:06:43.870 --> 00:06:46.660 a psychological experience. It is a physiological 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.680 one, a co -regulatory system in which the caregiver's 00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:52.540 nervous system literally helps organize the infant's 00:06:52.540 --> 00:06:55.160 nervous system. And the traces of that co -regulation 00:06:55.160 --> 00:06:57.680 persist in the architecture of the adult brain. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.160 The empirical foundation of attachment

theory 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:02.420 was enormously strengthened by the work of Mary 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:05.480 Ainsworth, a developmental psychologist who had 00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:07.819 worked with Bolby in London and who subsequently 00:07:07.819 --> 00:07:10.160 developed a research methodology, The Strange 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:12.720 Situation, that allowed attachment patterns to 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:15.550 be observed and categorized systematically. The 00:07:15.550 --> 00:07:17.829 strange situation is a 20 -minute laboratory 00:07:17.829 --> 00:07:20.649 procedure in which an infant between 12 and 18 00:07:20.649 --> 00:07:22.910 months of age is observed with the caregiver, 00:07:23.230 --> 00:07:25.769 then with a stranger, then in a brief separation 00:07:25.769 --> 00:07:28.329 from the caregiver, and then in reunion. The 00:07:28.329 --> 00:07:30.449 critical moment is the reunion, how the infant 00:07:30.449 --> 00:07:33.529 responds when the caregiver returns. This response, 00:07:33.850 --> 00:07:36.550 Ainsworth argued, reveals the underlying attachment 00:07:36.550 --> 00:07:38.949 organization that the infant has developed in 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:41.370 relation to that caregiver. She identified three 00:07:41.370 --> 00:07:44.069 primary patterns, later expanded to four by Mary 00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:46.290 Mayne and her colleagues. Secure attachment. 00:07:46.949 --> 00:07:49.310 The infant uses the caregiver as a secure base, 00:07:49.689 --> 00:07:52.149 shows some distress at separation, greets the 00:07:52.149 --> 00:07:54.949 caregiver warmly on reunion, and is quickly comforted. 00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:57.750 The caregiver in these dyads has typically been 00:07:57.750 --> 00:08:00.069 consistently available and responsive to the 00:08:00.069 --> 00:08:02.269 infant's signals. The infant has learned that 00:08:02.269 --> 00:08:04.589 distress leads to comfort, that the caregiver 00:08:04.589 --> 00:08:07.209 can be relied on, and that the world is a manageable 00:08:07.209 --> 00:08:09.970 place. Anxious ambivalent attachment, sometimes 00:08:09.970 --> 00:08:12.589 called preoccupied, is characterized by high 00:08:12.589 --> 00:08:15.550 distress at separation, difficulty being comforted 00:08:15.550 --> 00:08:18.829 at reunion, and a kind of clingy, mixed behavior 00:08:18.829 --> 00:08:21.930 that alternates between wanting contact and angrily 00:08:21.930 --> 00:08:24.410 resisting it. The caregiver in these dyads has 00:08:24.410 --> 00:08:27.029 typically been inconsistently responsive, sometimes 00:08:27.029 --> 00:08:30.050 available, sometimes not, in ways the infant 00:08:30.050 --> 00:08:32.470 cannot predict. The infant has learned that the 00:08:32.470 --> 00:08:34.730 attachment figure is sometimes there, but cannot 00:08:34.730 --> 00:08:37.419 be counted on. that more intense signals produce 00:08:37.419 --> 00:08:39.779 more response, and that the best strategy is 00:08:39.779 --> 00:08:42.700 to maximize distress displays in order to maximize 00:08:42.700 --> 00:08:45.279 the probability of a caregiving response. Anxious 00:08:45.279 --> 00:08:47.960 avoidant attachment, sometimes called dismissing, 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:50.779 is characterized by apparent indifference at 00:08:50.779 --> 00:08:53.639 separation and active avoidance of the caregiver 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:56.419 at reunion. This pattern is easily misread as 00:08:56.419 --> 00:08:58.620 security the child seems self -sufficient, not 00:08:58.620 --> 00:09:01.340 distress. But physiological measures show that 00:09:01.340 --> 00:09:03.879 these infants are in fact highly stressed at 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:06.580 separation. they have simply learned to inhibit 00:09:06.580 --> 00:09:09.440 the outward display of attachment behavior. The 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:11.620 caregivers in these dyads have typically been 00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:14.220 consistently rejecting of the infant's attachment 00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:17.399 signals, not abusive, but emotionally unavailable, 00:09:17.700 --> 00:09:20.360 uncomfortable with intimacy and distress. The 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:22.460 infant has learned that showing need produces 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:25.320 rejection, and that the safest strategy is to 00:09:25.320 --> 00:09:27.960 suppress attachment behavior and manage independently. 00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:30.879 The fourth pattern, identified by Mary Main and 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:34.019 Judith Solomon in the 1980s, is disorganized 00:09:34.019 --> 00:09:37.039 attachment characterized by contradictory, confused, 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:39.480 and sometimes frightening behavior at reunion. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.539 The infant may approach and then freeze, may 00:09:42.539 --> 00:09:45.500 rock, may display dissociative behavior. This 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:48.080 pattern is most commonly associated with caregiving 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.720 that is itself frightening abuse, severe neglect, 00:09:51.059 --> 00:09:53.399 or caregivers whose own trauma is unresolved 00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:55.500 and who therefore present the infant with an 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:58.240 irresolvable dilemma. The attachment figure is 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:00.960 simultaneously the source of fear and the only 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:03.720 available source of safety. The system meant 00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:05.820 to regulate distress cannot function when its 00:10:05.820 --> 00:10:07.980 designated source of comfort is also the source 00:10:07.980 --> 00:10:10.639 of threat. These four patterns are not just laboratory 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:13.019 curiosities. They have been replicated across 00:10:13.019 --> 00:10:15.379 dozens of cultures, and they predict outcomes 00:10:15.379 --> 00:10:17.960 across the lifespan with remarkable consistency. 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:20.740 Securely attached infants tend to develop into 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:23.139 children who are more

socially competent, more 00:10:23.139 --> 00:10:25.480 emotionally regulated, more resilient in the 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:28.299 face of stress, and more capable of genuine intimacy. 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.080 The insecure patterns are associated with higher 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:34.759 rates of anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, 00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:37.200 and in the disorganized pattern, more severe 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:39.879 psychological difficulties, including dissociation 00:10:39.879 --> 00:10:42.220 and personality disorders. The cross -cultural 00:10:42.220 --> 00:10:44.559 replication of the strange situation findings 00:10:44.559 --> 00:10:47.960 is itself philosophically significant. Researchers 00:10:47.960 --> 00:10:50.379 have conducted the strange situation in Germany, 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:53.820 Japan, Israel, Uganda, and numerous other countries, 00:10:54.179 --> 00:10:56.379 and while the distribution of attachment patterns 00:10:56.379 --> 00:10:59.120 varies across cultures, some cultures show higher 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:01.779 rates of avoidant attachment Some higher rates 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:04.539 of anxious attachment, reflecting different cultural 00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:07.379 norms around caregiving and emotional expression, 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:09.980 the basic categories and their developmental 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:13.080 significance appear remarkably consistent. This 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:15.259 suggests that attachment is not a culturally 00:11:15.259 --> 00:11:18.240 specific phenomenon, but a feature of human psychology 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:20.980 that expresses itself differently across cultural 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:23.559 contexts without being entirely determined by 00:11:23.559 --> 00:11:26.179 them. The German studies are particularly interesting 00:11:26.179 --> 00:11:29.210 from a philosophical perspective. Klaus and Karen 00:11:29.210 --> 00:11:31.909 Grossman conducted longitudinal research in Germany 00:11:31.909 --> 00:11:34.909 beginning in the early 1980s and found higher 00:11:34.909 --> 00:11:37.730 rates of avoidant attachment than American samples. 00:11:38.190 --> 00:11:40.149 Their analysis suggested that this reflected 00:11:40.149 --> 00:11:42.750 cultural norms around early independence training 00:11:42.750 --> 00:11:45.990 German parents of that era tended to value self 00:11:45.990 --> 00:11:48.370 -reliance and were more likely to discourage 00:11:48.370 --> 00:11:51.450 obvious displays of distress need. The infants 00:11:51.450 --> 00:11:54.330 classified as avoidant were not simply less attached. 00:11:54.649 --> 00:11:57.129 they had adapted their attachment behavior to 00:11:57.129 --> 00:11:59.889 fit the caregiving environment they had. The 00:11:59.889 --> 00:12:02.070 adaptation was functional in the short term. 00:12:02.490 --> 00:12:04.450 The question of its long -term costs in terms 00:12:04.450 --> 00:12:07.070 of emotional intimacy, relational flexibility, 00:12:07.549 --> 00:12:09.730 and the capacity to seek support under stress 00:12:09.730 --> 00:12:12.370 is one that the longitudinal data have been tracing. 00:12:12.950 --> 00:12:15.350 The leap from infant attachment to adult relationships 00:12:15.350 --> 00:12:17.850 is one that Bowlby himself had theorized but 00:12:17.850 --> 00:12:20.440 had not fully worked out empirically. That work 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:22.860 was done primarily by researchers Cindy Hazan 00:12:22.860 --> 00:12:25.580 and Philip Shaver in the 1980s, who proposed 00:12:25.580 --> 00:12:28.299 that romantic love in adults is an attachment 00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:31.460 process that the same behavioral system that 00:12:31.460 --> 00:12:33.840 organized the infant's relationship to the caregiver 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:36.899 organizes the adult's relationship to the romantic 00:12:36.899 --> 00:12:40.240 partner. Their insight was both simple and radical. 00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:42.919 When adults are in distress, they turn to their 00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:45.399 romantic partners as they once turned to caregivers. 00:12:45.789 --> 00:12:48.490 When the partner is unavailable or unresponsive, 00:12:48.610 --> 00:12:51.490 adults show distress and protest behavior that 00:12:51.490 --> 00:12:53.730 is structurally similar to the infant's distress 00:12:53.730 --> 00:12:56.570 at separation. When the partner is reliably present 00:12:56.570 --> 00:12:59.309 and responsive, adults feel safe to explore, 00:12:59.570 --> 00:13:02.250 to take risks in their work, to engage with challenge, 00:13:02.529 --> 00:13:04.889 to be vulnerable in other relationships. The 00:13:04.889 --> 00:13:07.509 secure base and the safe haven of adult romantic 00:13:07.509 --> 00:13:10.549 partnership are functional analogs of the caregiver's 00:13:10.549 --> 00:13:13.000 role in infancy. The internal working models 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.480 that develop in infancy persist into adulthood, 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:18.759 and they shape how adults approach romantic relationships. 00:13:19.100 --> 00:13:21.179 The person with a secure attachment history tends 00:13:21.179 --> 00:13:23.340 to approach relationships with trust and openness, 00:13:23.740 --> 00:13:25.919 to be comfortable with both intimacy and autonomy, 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:28.559 to communicate needs clearly, and to regulate 00:13:28.559 --> 00:13:31.019 distress effectively. The person with an anxious 00:13:31.019 --> 00:13:33.779 or preoccupied attachment history tends to be 00:13:33.779 --> 00:13:35.720 hypervigilant about the partner's availability 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:39.100 to amplify emotional responses in order to elicit 00:13:39.100 --> 00:13:41.860 caregiving. to have difficulty being soothed, 00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:44.379 and to experience the relationship as a source 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:47.080 of chronic anxiety. The person with an avoidant 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:49.539 or dismissing

attachment history tends to minimize 00:13:49.539 --> 00:13:52.360 the importance of relationships, to feel uncomfortable 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:55.200 with emotional intimacy, to suppress vulnerability, 00:13:55.639 --> 00:13:57.919 and to respond to the partner's distress with 00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:00.379 discomfort or withdrawal. This is where attachment 00:14:00.379 --> 00:14:02.679 theory becomes philosophically interesting in 00:14:02.679 --> 00:14:04.960 ways that go beyond developmental psychology, 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.580 because the patterns it describes are not random 00:14:07.580 --> 00:14:10.399 failures or individual pathologies. They are 00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:12.720 adaptation strategies that made sense in the 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:15.220 context of the early caregiving environment and 00:14:15.220 --> 00:14:17.860 that persist because they became encoded in the 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:19.960 internal working model as the way relationships 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:22.620 work. The anxious person who monitors the partner's 00:14:22.620 --> 00:14:25.059 availability obsessively is doing something that 00:14:25.059 --> 00:14:27.580 made sense when the caregiver was inconsistent. 00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:30.179 The avoidant person who suppresses need is doing 00:14:30.179 --> 00:14:32.320 something that made sense when showing need produced 00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:35.610 rejection. The behavior is not irrational. it 00:14:35.610 --> 00:14:38.250 is the application of a perfectly rational strategy 00:14:38.250 --> 00:14:41.190 to a context in which it no longer fits. This 00:14:41.190 --> 00:14:43.470 connects to the question of freedom and determinism 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:45.889 that runs through this show. If your attachment 00:14:45.889 --> 00:14:48.250 style, your characteristic way of approaching 00:14:48.250 --> 00:14:51.470 intimacy, managing distress, and relating to 00:14:51.470 --> 00:14:54.090 partners was shaped by experiences you had before 00:14:54.090 --> 00:14:56.450 you could form explicit memories of them, before 00:14:56.450 --> 00:14:58.710 you had the cognitive capacity to reflect on 00:14:58.710 --> 00:15:01.149 what was happening, are you free to choose differently? 00:15:01.450 --> 00:15:03.769 Or are you running a program installed before 00:15:03.769 --> 00:15:06.210 you could consent to the installation? Attachment 00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:09.309 theory's answer is nuanced. The internal working 00:15:09.309 --> 00:15:12.269 model is not destiny. It is a default, a set 00:15:12.269 --> 00:15:15.450 of expectations and strategies that shape behavior 00:15:15.450 --> 00:15:17.889 in the absence of information that would warrant 00:15:17.889 --> 00:15:21.330 updating them. And those models can be updated, 00:15:21.730 --> 00:15:24.169 corrective relational experiences, relationships 00:15:24.169 --> 00:15:27.309 with partners, therapists, or close friends who 00:15:27.309 --> 00:15:29.549 consistently respond differently than the model 00:15:29.549 --> 00:15:32.389 predicts. can gradually revise the model and 00:15:32.389 --> 00:15:34.370 expand the repertoire of relational strategies 00:15:34.370 --> 00:15:36.929 available. The change is real, but typically 00:15:36.929 --> 00:15:39.950 slow, effortful, and non -linear. It does not 00:15:39.950 --> 00:15:42.190 happen through insight alone. It happens through 00:15:42.190 --> 00:15:44.529 accumulated experience of being treated differently 00:15:44.529 --> 00:15:47.129 than the model expected. The philosopher Peter 00:15:47.129 --> 00:15:50.190 Fonagy has developed the concept of mentalization, 00:15:50.570 --> 00:15:52.830 the capacity to understand behavior in terms 00:15:52.830 --> 00:15:55.490 of underlying mental states, to hold in mind 00:15:55.490 --> 00:15:58.830 the idea that one's own and others' actions are 00:15:58.830 --> 00:16:02.059 shaped by feelings, thoughts, and intentions 00:16:02.059 --> 00:16:05.279 that may not be immediately visible as the crucial 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:08.419 mediating variable between early attachment experience 00:16:08.419 --> 00:16:11.600 and adult functioning. Fanagi argues that secure 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:14.820 attachment promotes mentalization, that the experience 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:16.960 of being understood by a responsive caregiver 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:20.139 is what builds the capacity to understand oneself 00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:24.000 and others. And that insecure attachment, particularly 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.840 disorganized attachment associated with frightening 00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:29.960 caregiving, disrupts mentalization, leaving the 00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:32.460 person with a reduced capacity to reflect on 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:34.840 their own mental states and those of others. 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:37.559 The philosophical significance of mentalization 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:40.279 is considerable. It is essentially the capacity 00:16:40.279 --> 00:16:42.539 for the kind of self -knowledge and other knowledge 00:16:42.539 --> 00:16:45.240 that the philosophical tradition has always placed 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:48.000 at the center of the examined life. The Socratic 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.320 Injunction to Know Yourself is, in Fonagy's framework, 00:16:51.740 --> 00:16:54.220 describing a cognitive capacity that has developmental 00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:56.639 prerequisites, a capacity that can be more or 00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:58.919 less developed, depending on early relational 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:01.379 experience. The examined life is not equally 00:17:01.379 --> 00:17:04.140 available to everyone. Those whose early attachment 00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:06.839 relationships promoted mentalization have a richer 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:09.200 starting point for self -reflection than those 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:11.680 whose early experiences disrupted it. This does 00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:13.480 not mean that self

-knowledge is impossible for 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:15.460 the latter, but it does mean that the work may 00:17:15.460 --> 00:17:17.819 require more sustained effort and more specific 00:17:17.819 --> 00:17:20.470 kinds of support. One of the most philosophically 00:17:20.470 --> 00:17:23.650 significant findings in attachment research concerns 00:17:23.650 --> 00:17:26.849 what is called earned security, the phenomenon 00:17:26.849 --> 00:17:30.289 of adults who had difficult or insecure early 00:17:30.289 --> 00:17:33.069 attachment histories, but who have come to function 00:17:33.069 --> 00:17:36.170 in relationships with the coherence and flexibility 00:17:36.170 --> 00:17:39.579 of securely attached individuals. Mary Mayne 00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:41.500 and her colleagues developed the Adult Attachment 00:17:41.500 --> 00:17:43.920 Interview, a structured interview that asks adults 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:46.339 to describe their childhood attachment experiences 00:17:46.339 --> 00:17:48.720 and to reflect on how those experiences affected 00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:51.059 them. What the interview measures is not the 00:17:51.059 --> 00:17:53.220 content of the childhood memories, whether they 00:17:53.220 --> 00:17:55.960 are positive or negative, but the narrative coherence 00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:58.460 with which the person discusses those experiences. 00:17:58.940 --> 00:18:01.380 Securely attached adults tell coherent, integrated 00:18:01.380 --> 00:18:03.279 stories about their childhoods, acknowledging 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:06.359 both positive and negative experiences, holding 00:18:06.359 --> 00:18:08.519 contradictions without either dismissing them 00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.480 or being overwhelmed by them, making sense of 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:14.160 what happened without idealizing or devaluing 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:16.940 the caregivers. Insecure adults tell incoherent 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:20.099 stories, idealized and vague stories that cannot 00:18:20.099 --> 00:18:22.839 be supported by specific memories, or stories 00:18:22.839 --> 00:18:25.500 so flooded with affect that the narrative loses 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:28.599 its thread, or fragmented and confusing stories 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:31.119 that suggest unresolved trauma. The striking 00:18:31.119 --> 00:18:33.940 finding about earned security is that some adults 00:18:33.940 --> 00:18:36.759 who report genuinely difficult childhood experiences 00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:41.190 neglect, inconsistency, loss, or trauma nevertheless 00:18:41.190 --> 00:18:44.150 produce coherent, integrated narratives. They 00:18:44.150 --> 00:18:46.390 are not pretending the difficulties did not happen. 00:18:46.829 --> 00:18:49.170 They are holding them clearly, making sense of 00:18:49.170 --> 00:18:51.809 them, understanding their effects without being 00:18:51.809 --> 00:18:53.849 controlled by them. And these adults function 00:18:53.849 --> 00:18:56.230 in relationships with the same

flexibility and 00:18:56.230 --> 00:18:58.970 openness as adults who had secure early experiences. 00:18:59.549 --> 00:19:01.849 This is a philosophically important finding because 00:19:01.849 --> 00:19:04.609 it suggests that the pathway to security is not 00:19:04.609 --> 00:19:07.680 only through early experience, It is also available 00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:09.759 through a process of meaning -making, through 00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:12.160 the work of understanding your own history, of 00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:15.220 integrating what happened into a coherent narrative 00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:18.539 that neither denies the difficulty nor is consumed 00:19:18.539 --> 00:19:21.960 by it. This is, in essence, the work that good 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:24.779 therapy aims to facilitate. And it is remarkably 00:19:24.779 --> 00:19:27.440 close to what the philosophical tradition has 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:31.019 called the examined life, the process of honest, 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:33.940 sustained reflection on your own experience that 00:19:33.940 --> 00:19:36.480 produces genuine self -knowledge. rather than 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:39.339 defensive idealization or defensive dismissal. 00:19:39.559 --> 00:19:41.779 Bowlby himself described the goal of attachment 00:19:41.779 --> 00:19:44.599 -informed therapy as helping people to mourn 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:46.880 to grieve what was lost or absent in the early 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:49.200 relationship, to feel the full weight of what 00:19:49.200 --> 00:19:51.440 they needed and did not receive, and through 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:53.579 that mourning to arrive at a more realistic and 00:19:53.579 --> 00:19:55.980 more compassionate understanding of both the 00:19:55.980 --> 00:19:58.900 caregivers who failed them and themselves. The 00:19:58.900 --> 00:20:01.140 mourning is not about assigning blame. It is 00:20:01.140 --> 00:20:03.180 about acknowledging reality, about letting the 00:20:03.180 --> 00:20:05.579 facts of one's own experience be genuinely felt. 00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:08.500 rather than managed at a distance. The philosopher 00:20:08.500 --> 00:20:11.660 Peter Goldy wrote about what he called narrative 00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:14.839 self -understanding, the capacity to understand 00:20:14.839 --> 00:20:18.099 oneself through the stories one tells about one's 00:20:18.099 --> 00:20:20.579 own life. He argued that narrative coherence 00:20:20.579 --> 00:20:22.680 is not just a psychological achievement, but 00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:25.319 a condition for genuine agency, for being genuinely 00:20:25.319 --> 00:20:27.640 the author of one's own life rather than simply 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:30.220 its subject. On this view, the earned security 00:20:30.220 --> 00:20:32.700 that attachment researchers describe is not just 00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:35.019 a relational achievement. It is a philosophical 00:20:35.019 --> 00:20:37.920 one. the achievement of becoming genuinely the 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:40.160 narrator of your own experience, rather than 00:20:40.160 --> 00:20:42.700 being narrated by it. The connection between 00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:45.299 narrative coherence and self -knowledge is one 00:20:45.299 --> 00:20:47.859 that several philosophical traditions have emphasized 00:20:47.859 --> 00:20:50.759 independently of attachment theory. Paul Ricoeur, 00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:53.279 the French philosopher, argued across a series 00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:56.119 of major works that the self is constitutively 00:20:56.119 --> 00:20:58.259 narrative, that we understand ourselves through 00:20:58.259 --> 00:21:00.339 the stories we tell about our lives, and that 00:21:00.339 --> 00:21:02.859 a fragmented or incoherent narrative reflects 00:21:02.859 --> 00:21:05.690 a fragmented or incoherent self, rather than 00:21:05.690 --> 00:21:08.470 a mere failure of storytelling. On Riker's account, 00:21:08.849 --> 00:21:10.769 the work of achieving a coherent life narrative 00:21:10.769 --> 00:21:13.250 is the work of achieving genuine selfhood of 00:21:13.250 --> 00:21:16.430 becoming, rather than merely having an identity. 00:21:16.990 --> 00:21:19.269 Attachment -informed therapy, specifically the 00:21:19.269 --> 00:21:22.049 approach developed by Sue Johnson, called emotionally 00:21:22.049 --> 00:21:25.109 focused therapy, works precisely at the intersection 00:21:25.109 --> 00:21:27.710 of attachment and narrative. Johnson's approach, 00:21:27.849 --> 00:21:30.369 which has the most robust empirical support of 00:21:30.369 --> 00:21:33.369 any couple's therapy modality, focuses on helping 00:21:33.369 --> 00:21:36.049 partners identify and communicate the underlying 00:21:36.049 --> 00:21:39.309 attachment needs and fears that drive their dysfunctional 00:21:39.309 --> 00:21:42.410 interaction patterns. The pursue -withdraw cycle 00:21:42.410 --> 00:21:45.490 that characterizes many distressed couples, one 00:21:45.490 --> 00:21:48.789 partner pursuing, escalating, demanding contact, 00:21:49.190 --> 00:21:51.890 the other withdrawing, shutting down, becoming 00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:55.250 emotionally unavailable is, in Johnson's framework, 00:21:55.769 --> 00:21:58.609 a dance between anxious and avoidant attachment 00:21:58.609 --> 00:22:01.029 strategies. Each partner's behavior activates 00:22:01.029 --> 00:22:03.690 the other's attachment system in ways that confirm 00:22:03.690 --> 00:22:06.549 rather than disconfirm the negative working models 00:22:06.549 --> 00:22:09.049 both are bringing to the relationship. The therapeutic 00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:11.890 work is to help each partner see behind the behavior 00:22:11.890 --> 00:22:14.869 to the attachment need and to create enough safety 00:22:14.869 --> 00:22:17.049 for those needs to be expressed and responded 00:22:17.049 --> 00:22:19.849 to directly rather than through the dysfunctional 00:22:19.849 --> 00:22:22.670 cycle. The philosophical dimension of this therapeutic

00:22:22.670 --> 00:22:25.579 work is significant. It is not merely about teaching 00:22:25.579 --> 00:22:28.259 communication skills or resolving conflicts more 00:22:28.259 --> 00:22:30.720 effectively. It is about expanding the capacity 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.180 for genuine self -knowledge and genuine knowledge 00:22:33.180 --> 00:22:35.420 of the other, about developing the mentalization 00:22:35.420 --> 00:22:38.019 capacity to see one's own attachment needs and 00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:40.200 strategies clearly, and to see the partner's 00:22:40.200 --> 00:22:42.960 behavior as driven by attachment needs and strategies 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:46.240 rather than by malice or indifference. That expansion 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:48.900 of vision, the capacity to see what is actually 00:22:48.900 --> 00:22:51.460 driving the interaction, rather than what the 00:22:51.460 --> 00:22:54.200 internal working model predicts, is exactly what 00:22:54.200 --> 00:22:56.640 Iris Murdoch meant by the moral achievement of 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.359 attention. I want to spend some time on the philosophical 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:01.839 implications of attachment theory, specifically 00:23:01.839 --> 00:23:04.599 on what it tells us about moral obligations in 00:23:04.599 --> 00:23:07.160 relationship, about what we owe each other as 00:23:07.160 --> 00:23:09.359 attachment figures, and about the conditions 00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:11.759 under which genuine love is possible. The most 00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:14.319 direct moral implication is about the caregiving 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:17.019 responsibilities of parents. Attachment theory 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:19.500 is not just a descriptive theory, it is a normative 00:23:19.500 --> 00:23:22.200 one. It tells us not just what happens when children 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:24.579 have certain kinds of early experiences, but 00:23:24.579 --> 00:23:27.400 what children need in order to develop the capacity 00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:29.859 for secure relationship. And what children need 00:23:29.859 --> 00:23:32.799 consistent availability, emotional responsiveness, 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:36.000 the capacity to function as a secure base makes 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:38.519 genuine moral demands on those who are responsible 00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:41.289 for them. The parent who is consistently emotionally 00:23:41.289 --> 00:23:44.309 unavailable is not just failing their child psychologically. 00:23:44.690 --> 00:23:47.809 They are, on this account, failing them, morally 00:23:47.809 --> 00:23:49.710 depriving them of something they have a genuine 00:23:49.710 --> 00:23:52.589 need for and a genuine claim to. This connects 00:23:52.589 --> 00:23:54.609 to the care ethics tradition we discussed a few 00:23:54.609 --> 00:23:57.470 weeks ago. Care ethics argues that the dominant 00:23:57.470 --> 00:24:00.210 frameworks of moral philosophy have been built 00:24:00.210 --> 00:24:03.049 around an individualist, autonomous model of 00:24:03.049 --> 00:24:05.849 the self that ignores the relational and caring 00:24:05.849 --> 00:24:08.880 dimensions of human existence. Attachment theory 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:11.299 provides empirical grounding for the care ethics 00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:14.339 critique. The autonomous, self -sufficient, rational 00:24:14.339 --> 00:24:17.500 agent that moral philosophy tends to assume is 00:24:17.500 --> 00:24:20.119 not the kind of creature we are. We are creatures 00:24:20.119 --> 00:24:22.259 who become what we are through relationships, 00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:25.539 whose very capacity for agency, for emotional 00:24:25.539 --> 00:24:28.980 regulation, for genuine intimacy is constituted 00:24:28.980 --> 00:24:31.779 through early attachment relationships. A moral 00:24:31.779 --> 00:24:34.640 philosophy that ignores this is not just incomplete. 00:24:34.940 --> 00:24:38.240 It is describing a fictional kind of being. There 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:40.400 is also a question about what we owe each other 00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.920 as adult attachment figures. Bulby described 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:45.200 the attachment relationship as one in which the 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:47.460 attachment figure provides a secure base for 00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:50.119 exploration and a safe haven in times of distress. 00:24:50.579 --> 00:24:52.980 These are not just romantic functions, they are 00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:55.039 ethical ones. The person who invites another 00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:57.559 into intimacy and then consistently fails to 00:24:57.559 --> 00:25:00.579 be available, to respond to distress, to provide 00:25:00.579 --> 00:25:02.779 the emotional safety that genuine vulnerability 00:25:02.779 --> 00:25:05.819 requires, is not just failing relationally, they 00:25:05.819 --> 00:25:07.720 are causing a specific kind of harm, the harm 00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:09.759 of activating the attachment system and then 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:12.119 not meeting its needs, which is exactly the kind 00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:14.319 of experience that produces insecure attachment 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:17.480 in infants and maintains it in adults. The philosopher 00:25:17.480 --> 00:25:19.660 Annette Bayer, whose work on trust we touched 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:22.380 on in the Ethics of Care episode, argued that 00:25:22.380 --> 00:25:25.200 trust is the fundamental moral relationship and 00:25:25.200 --> 00:25:27.180 that its violation is one of the most serious 00:25:27.180 --> 00:25:29.819 moral failures. Attachment theory provides a 00:25:29.819 --> 00:25:32.319 specific account of what trust and intimate relationship 00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:35.220 means and what its violation costs. The person 00:25:35.220 --> 00:25:37.099 who trusts a partner enough to be vulnerable, 00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:39.680 to show need, to allow their attachment system 00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:42.140 to engage has extended something irreplaceable. 00:25:42.519

--> 00:25:44.359 The partner who responds to that vulnerability 00:25:44.359 --> 00:25:47.160 with unavailability, dismissal, or punishment 00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:49.799 has committed a specific kind of moral failure 00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:52.559 that goes beyond mere inconsiderateness. They 00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:54.779 have exploited the architecture of the attachment 00:25:54.779 --> 00:25:57.460 system against the person who activated it. The 00:25:57.460 --> 00:26:00.000 question of what genuine love requires is also 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:02.700 illuminated by attachment theory. Love, in the 00:26:02.700 --> 00:26:05.400 popular imagination, is often conceived as a 00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:07.839 feeling, a state of positive regard and attraction 00:26:07.839 --> 00:26:10.960 that one either has or does not have. Attachment 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:13.700 theory suggests something more demanding. Love, 00:26:13.940 --> 00:26:16.380 as an attachment relationship, is a set of behaviors, 00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:19.619 availability, responsiveness, the capacity to 00:26:19.619 --> 00:26:21.980 function as a secure base and a safe haven as 00:26:21.980 --> 00:26:24.130 well as a feeling. The parent who loves their 00:26:24.130 --> 00:26:26.970 child and feeling but is consistently emotionally 00:26:26.970 --> 00:26:29.630 unavailable has not fulfilled the obligations 00:26:29.630 --> 00:26:32.269 that genuine love generates. The partner who 00:26:32.269 --> 00:26:34.609 feels love but cannot respond to their partner's 00:26:34.609 --> 00:26:37.170 distress, who withdraws when the partner is most 00:26:37.170 --> 00:26:39.750 vulnerable, who cannot tolerate the partner's 00:26:39.750 --> 00:26:42.329 need is not loving well regardless of what they 00:26:42.329 --> 00:26:45.450 feel. This is a demanding account of love and 00:26:45.450 --> 00:26:47.500 I want to be honest about that. It does not mean 00:26:47.500 --> 00:26:49.660 that imperfect love is not love at all. Bowlby 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:51.980 was clear that good enough caregiving, rather 00:26:51.980 --> 00:26:54.380 than perfect caregiving, is what secure attachment 00:26:54.380 --> 00:26:56.759 requires. The perfectly attuned caregiver is 00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.160 not the standard. The standard is consistent 00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:01.859 enough availability and responsiveness that the 00:27:01.859 --> 00:27:03.759 child can build a working model of the caregiver 00:27:03.759 --> 00:27:06.480 as basically reliable. But it does mean that 00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:09.019 love generates obligations that go beyond good 00:27:09.019 --> 00:27:11.539 intentions, obligations to show up in specific 00:27:11.539 --> 00:27:14.279 ways, to manage your own anxiety and distress 00:27:14.279 --> 00:27:16.900 well enough to be available to the other, to 00:27:16.900 --> 00:27:19.140 develop the relational capacities that genuine 00:27:19.140 --> 00:27:21.960 love requires. I want to close the substantive 00:27:21.960 --> 00:27:24.079 part of this episode by addressing the question 00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:26.119 that I think is most pressing for anyone who 00:27:26.119 --> 00:27:28.660 encounters attachment theory and recognizes themselves 00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:31.480 in one of the insecure patterns. What can change 00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:34.259 and what cannot? Is attachment style destiny? 00:27:34.660 --> 00:27:36.980 The honest answer is that attachment styles are 00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:39.400 genuinely stable across time, more stable than 00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:41.480 most other psychological constructs, but that 00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:43.829 they are not fixed. The longitudinal research 00:27:43.829 --> 00:27:46.410 shows that the majority of people maintain roughly 00:27:46.410 --> 00:27:49.109 the same attachment organization from infancy 00:27:49.109 --> 00:27:52.130 through adulthood in the absence of significant 00:27:52.130 --> 00:27:54.710 life events that would warrant updating the internal 00:27:54.710 --> 00:27:58.130 working model. But significant life events, positive 00:27:58.130 --> 00:28:00.549 and negative, do change attachment organization. 00:28:01.130 --> 00:28:03.190 The securely attached person who experiences 00:28:03.190 --> 00:28:05.509 serious losses or betrayals can shift toward 00:28:05.509 --> 00:28:08.529 insecurity. The insecurely attached person who 00:28:08.529 --> 00:28:11.309 finds a consistently responsive partner or who 00:28:11.309 --> 00:28:13.970 does serious psychological work and therapy can 00:28:13.970 --> 00:28:16.390 shift towards security. The mechanism of change 00:28:16.390 --> 00:28:19.410 is important. Attachment organization does not 00:28:19.410 --> 00:28:21.609 change through intellectual insight alone, through 00:28:21.609 --> 00:28:23.450 learning about attachment theory and deciding 00:28:23.450 --> 00:28:25.970 to behave differently. It changes through repeated 00:28:25.970 --> 00:28:28.329 experience that violates the predictions of the 00:28:28.329 --> 00:28:30.609 internal working model in ways that are safe 00:28:30.609 --> 00:28:33.369 enough to be processed rather than defended against. 00:28:33.650 --> 00:28:36.250 The anxious person who is repeatedly not abandoned 00:28:36.250 --> 00:28:38.769 when they expect abandonment, over a long enough 00:28:38.769 --> 00:28:41.420 period, in a relationship safe enough for that 00:28:41.420 --> 00:28:44.359 expectation to genuinely register, can gradually 00:28:44.359 --> 00:28:46.720 update the model. The avoidant person who is 00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:49.000 repeatedly not rejected when they show need, 00:28:49.559 --> 00:28:52.200 again over time and insufficient safety, can 00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:54.500 gradually develop the capacity for vulnerability 00:28:54.500 --> 00:28:57.519 that the model had foreclosed. This is slow. 00:28:57.980 --> 00:29:00.559 It is not the work of a few months of good therapy 00:29:00.559 -->

00:29:03.539 or a few years of a good relationship. The internal 00:29:03.539 --> 00:29:06.099 working model was built from thousands of interactions 00:29:06.099 --> 00:29:08.710 over the first years of life. each one adding 00:29:08.710 --> 00:29:11.309 a small increment of evidence about how relationships 00:29:11.309 --> 00:29:14.490 work. Revising it requires accumulating comparable 00:29:14.490 --> 00:29:16.990 amounts of disconfirming evidence, evidence that 00:29:16.990 --> 00:29:19.470 the world works differently than the model predicts. 00:29:19.670 --> 00:29:22.910 The work is not impossible, but it requires patience, 00:29:23.289 --> 00:29:26.089 persistence, and the kind of honesty about one's 00:29:26.089 --> 00:29:28.349 own patterns that is one of the hardest things 00:29:28.349 --> 00:29:30.859 self -knowledge demands. The philosopher and 00:29:30.859 --> 00:29:32.960 novelist Iris Murdoch, whose work on attention 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:35.660 we discussed in the Ethics of Care episode, argued 00:29:35.660 --> 00:29:38.339 that genuine moral change requires a transformation 00:29:38.339 --> 00:29:40.920 of the faculty of vision, the capacity to see, 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:44.240 clearly, without the distortions imposed by self 00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:47.460 -interest, fantasy, and fear. Attachment theory 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:50.240 describes, in the language of developmental psychology, 00:29:50.839 --> 00:29:53.059 exactly the kind of distortions that Murdoch 00:29:53.059 --> 00:29:55.400 was pointing at. The internal working model is 00:29:55.400 --> 00:29:57.640 a filter through which relational experience 00:29:57.640 --> 00:30:00.539 is interpreted a set of assumptions and expectations 00:30:00.539 --> 00:30:03.099 that shape what is noticed, what is attended 00:30:03.099 --> 00:30:06.119 to, and how it is understood. Changing that filter, 00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:08.279 developing the capacity to see the partner as 00:30:08.279 --> 00:30:10.799 they actually are rather than as the internal 00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:14.079 working model predicts is simultaneously a psychological 00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:16.460 and a philosophical achievement. It is what the 00:30:16.460 --> 00:30:18.779 examined life looks like when applied to the 00:30:18.779 --> 00:30:21.299 domain of love. There is something both humbling 00:30:21.299 --> 00:30:23.849 and hopeful in this picture. Humbling because 00:30:23.849 --> 00:30:26.250 it acknowledges that how we love is not simply 00:30:26.250 --> 00:30:28.410 a matter of will, that the patterns we bring 00:30:28.410 --> 00:30:30.829 to intimate relationship were shaped by experiences 00:30:30.829 --> 00:30:33.450 we did not choose and cannot simply override 00:30:33.450 --> 00:30:36.730 by deciding to be different. Hopeful because 00:30:36.730 --> 00:30:39.089 it insists that the patterns are not fixed, that 00:30:39.089 --> 00:30:41.670 experience can change them, that security can 00:30:41.670 --> 00:30:44.809 be earned rather than only inherited, and that 00:30:44.809 --> 00:30:47.269 the capacity for genuine love is one that can 00:30:47.269 --> 00:30:49.890 be developed even by people whose early experience 00:30:49.890 --> 00:30:52.740 did not provide a secure foundation for it. I 00:30:52.740 --> 00:30:54.660 want to say one more thing about what attachment 00:30:54.660 --> 00:30:56.920 theory implies for how we think about choosing 00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.160 partners and about what we should be looking 00:30:59.160 --> 00:31:01.700 for in intimate relationship. The philosophy 00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:03.940 of love episode we did earlier in this series 00:31:03.940 --> 00:31:06.880 argued that philosophical compatibility, a shared 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:09.380 orientation toward the world, matters more than 00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:12.220 shared values because values shift while philosophical 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:14.779 orientation is more stable. Attachment theory 00:31:14.779 --> 00:31:17.480 adds a complementary dimension that alongside 00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:20.259 philosophical compatibility, Attachment security 00:31:20.259 --> 00:31:22.740 matters both your own and your partner's capacity 00:31:22.740 --> 00:31:25.619 to be a secure base and a safe haven. This does 00:31:25.619 --> 00:31:27.740 not mean that insecurely attached people cannot 00:31:27.740 --> 00:31:29.839 have good relationships. The research on earned 00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:32.119 security makes clear that attachment organization 00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:34.619 can change. But it does mean that the relational 00:31:34.619 --> 00:31:37.119 work of building genuine security together is 00:31:37.119 --> 00:31:39.980 a real project with real requirement. It requires 00:31:39.980 --> 00:31:42.259 the willingness to be vulnerable in ways that 00:31:42.259 --> 00:31:44.500 the avoidant person finds threatening and the 00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:47.099 anxious person finds unreliable. It requires 00:31:47.099 --> 00:31:49.680 the capacity to regulate your own distress well 00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.039 enough to be responsive to your partners when 00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:54.900 both are activated simultaneously. It requires 00:31:54.900 --> 00:31:57.099 enough self -knowledge to recognize when your 00:31:57.099 --> 00:31:59.380 internal working model is distorting your perception 00:31:59.380 --> 00:32:01.680 of what is actually happening in the relationship. 00:32:02.299 --> 00:32:04.980 None of this is automatic. All of it can be developed. 00:32:05.400 --> 00:32:08.380 And the examined life in the domain of love is 00:32:08.380 --> 00:32:10.680 the ongoing practice of developing it. I want 00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:13.420 to say something personal about why I find attachment 00:32:13.420 --> 00:32:15.819 theory philosophically compelling in a way that 00:32:15.819 --> 00:32:18.680 goes beyond its empirical richness. Attachment 00:32:18.680 --> 00:32:21.039 theory is one of

the few frameworks in psychology 00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:23.779 that takes seriously both the reality of early 00:32:23.779 --> 00:32:26.759 experience and the possibility of change. It 00:32:26.759 --> 00:32:29.039 does not say, your childhood determined your 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:31.880 fate and nothing can be done. It does not say, 00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:34.720 you are entirely free to choose who you are in 00:32:34.720 --> 00:32:37.599 relationship and any difficulties are simply 00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:40.799 a matter of will or decision. It holds both the 00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:43.799 genuine shaping power of early experience and 00:32:43.799 --> 00:32:46.619 the genuine, if difficult, possibility of revision 00:32:46.619 --> 00:32:49.759 through later experience. That combination, honest 00:32:49.759 --> 00:32:52.579 about constraint, insistent on possibility, is 00:32:52.579 --> 00:32:55.079 what I find most valuable in any philosophical 00:32:55.079 --> 00:32:57.920 or psychological framework. It is what the existentialists 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:00.059 were trying to describe with situated freedom, 00:33:00.299 --> 00:33:02.559 the recognition that freedom is always exercised 00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:05.279 in conditions that shape what is available, without 00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:07.650 those conditions being the final word. It is 00:33:07.650 --> 00:33:09.549 what Frenkel was pointing out when he said that 00:33:09.549 --> 00:33:12.170 even in the most constrained circumstances, the 00:33:12.170 --> 00:33:14.150 attitude toward those circumstances remained 00:33:14.150 --> 00:33:16.750 a free choice. And it is what the virtue ethics 00:33:16.750 --> 00:33:19.250 tradition was saying when it insisted that character, 00:33:19.710 --> 00:33:22.289 while shaped by habit and upbringing, is always 00:33:22.289 --> 00:33:24.410 capable of further development through deliberate 00:33:24.410 --> 00:33:27.269 practice. Attachment theory gives that philosophical 00:33:27.269 --> 00:33:30.349 position an empirical grounding. It shows, in 00:33:30.349 --> 00:33:32.450 the specific domain of intimate relationship, 00:33:32.619 --> 00:33:35.000 how early experience shapes the patterns we bring 00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.579 to love, and how those patterns can be changed 00:33:37.579 --> 00:33:40.240 through the kind of corrective, relational experience 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:42.819 that amounts to a revised internal working model. 00:33:43.180 --> 00:33:45.759 It connects the philosophical ideal of the examined 00:33:45.759 --> 00:33:48.740 life to the psychological reality of how people 00:33:48.740 --> 00:33:51.440 actually change, not through insight alone, but 00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:53.839 through the accumulated experience of being in 00:33:53.839 --> 00:33:56.279 relationships that treat them differently than 00:33:56.279 --> 00:33:59.019 their history prepared them to expect. The connection 00:33:59.019 --> 00:34:01.759 to last week's Golden Rule

episode is worth drawing. 00:34:01.980 --> 00:34:04.640 The golden rule, at its most demanding, asks 00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:07.180 you to genuinely imagine the other's experience, 00:34:07.400 --> 00:34:09.579 not to project your own preferences onto them, 00:34:09.780 --> 00:34:12.139 but to understand their actual needs and respond 00:34:12.139 --> 00:34:15.260 to them. Attachment theory is, in part, an account 00:34:15.260 --> 00:34:17.719 of what that genuine understanding requires in 00:34:17.719 --> 00:34:20.280 intimate relationship. The securely functioning 00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:22.860 partner is not one who loves without limit or 00:34:22.860 --> 00:34:25.300 without need. It is one who can be genuinely 00:34:25.300 --> 00:34:27.980 present to the other's experience, who can tolerate 00:34:27.980 --> 00:34:30.139 the partner's distress without being overwhelmed 00:34:30.139 --> 00:34:32.920 by it. who can respond to need without being 00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:35.340 threatened by it, who can be available without 00:34:35.340 --> 00:34:38.360 losing themselves. That capacity for genuine 00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:41.000 presence is not something most people are simply 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:43.719 born with. It is something that has to be developed 00:34:43.719 --> 00:34:46.179 through the accumulation of secure relational 00:34:46.179 --> 00:34:48.920 experience and the willingness to do the sometimes 00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:51.460 difficult work of understanding how one's own 00:34:51.460 --> 00:34:53.659 history shapes how one shows up for the people 00:34:53.659 --> 00:34:56.099 one loves. Fulby wrote something late in his 00:34:56.099 --> 00:34:58.420 career that I find genuinely moving. He said 00:34:58.420 --> 00:35:00.719 that the most important aspect of the attachment 00:35:00.719 --> 00:35:03.139 relationship is not what caregivers do for their 00:35:03.139 --> 00:35:05.239 children, but what they allow their children 00:35:05.239 --> 00:35:08.980 to do specifically. To explore, the secure base 00:35:08.980 --> 00:35:11.239 frees the child to go out into the world, to 00:35:11.239 --> 00:35:13.300 encounter its challenges and its possibilities, 00:35:13.739 --> 00:35:15.960 to become progressively more capable and more 00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:18.599 autonomous. The gift of secure attachment is 00:35:18.599 --> 00:35:21.360 not dependence. It is the confidence to be genuinely 00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:23.559 independent, to move through the world without 00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:26.000 the constant monitoring of the attachment system 00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:29.000 that insecurity requires. The paradox of attachment 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:31.300 is that the deepest security produces the greatest 00:35:31.300 --> 00:35:34.119 freedom. And the examined life, at its best, 00:35:34.440 --> 00:35:36.900 is the ongoing practice of building that security 00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:39.380 in yourself and in the people whose lives are 00:35:39.380 --> 00:35:41.920 entrusted to your care. Sean is back next week 00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:44.380 for our episode on Stoicism versus Buddhism, 00:35:44.699 --> 00:35:47.019 two ancient traditions that arrived independently 00:35:47.019 --> 00:35:49.800 at remarkably similar conclusions about the nature 00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:52.300 of suffering and that diverged in fascinating 00:35:52.300 --> 00:35:54.880 ways on what to do about it. It is a conversation 00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:57.420 I have been looking forward to. and one that 00:35:57.420 --> 00:35:59.559 connects directly to everything we have said 00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:02.340 about how we manage distress, how we relate to 00:36:02.340 --> 00:36:04.920 what we cannot control, and what a philosophical 00:36:04.920 --> 00:36:07.380 approach to suffering actually looks like in 00:36:07.380 --> 00:36:09.840 practice. If this episode gave you language for 00:36:09.840 --> 00:36:11.619 something you have been experiencing but could 00:36:11.619 --> 00:36:14.019 not quite name, share it with someone who is 00:36:14.019 --> 00:36:16.300 asking the same questions about their own patterns. 00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:18.780 That is how this show finds the people it is 00:36:18.780 --> 00:36:21.480 meant for. Sources and further reading are in 00:36:21.480 --> 00:36:24.239 the show notes. We are Philosophy for Lunch. 00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:28.719 New episodes every Monday. Big ideas. Human conversations. 00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:30.079 See you next week.