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The Avoidant Attachment Pattern · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

0:00
SPEAKER_00: You get used to the noise.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of constant background and it's tolerable.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Or at least it feels that way.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: But it changes.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: When it does, it sounds quite different.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Some people fear abandonment, and others fear something else entirely.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Fear need, dependence, closeness, emotional exposure.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And to the outside world, these people might seem calm, independent, possibly self-contained, and in certain situations emotionally controlled.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: But underneath, something very different is happening.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Because for the avoidantly attached individual, intimacy itself may feel psychologically dangerous.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't because they don't feel, but because somewhere deep inside they learn something devastating.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: They learn that needing people is unsafe.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the most misunderstood attachment styles.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Because avoidant individuals are often mistaken for being emotionally cold, uncaring, narcissistic, detached, or unaffected by relationships.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: But psychologically, avoidant attachment is not the absence of attachment, it is attachment organized around defensive emotional distance.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: And over time, that distance can become profoundly disrupted, not only to relationships that they try and occupy, but to themselves.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Avoiding attachment often develops in environments where emotional need wasn't safely received.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: The caregiver may have been emotionally dismissive, overwhelmed by dependency, psychologically unavailable, and rejecting of vulnerability.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So the child learns something very quickly.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Need does not reliably bring comfort, it brings shame, irritation, emotional withdrawal rejection, or the experience of becoming too much.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: So the child adapts, not by becoming less attached, but by suppressing attachment needs quite consciously.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Now this is critical to understand, and it's about the defensive self.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Avoidant attachment is not genuine emotional independence, it's a defensive self-reliance.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Because the child learns if I do not need, I can't be rejected.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: If I stay emotionally self-contained, I remain psychologically safer.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: And over time, this adaptation becomes identity.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: The individual becomes highly self-sufficient, emotionally private, uncomfortable with vulnerability, and psychologically organized around minimizing dependency.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, what this looks like in relationships is initially the avoidant person may appear charming, emotionally engaged, attentive, even intensely connected.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: But once emotional intimacy deepens, something changes.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: The relationships begin activating attachment fears, not fear of abandonment, fear of engulfment, fear of emotional dependence for whatever might follow, and fear of losing psychological control.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: And so distance begins subtly at first, delayed responses, reduced emotional openness, withdrawal after intimacy, maybe an increased focus on work, independence or space, creating a sort of distance, and then emotional shutdown occurs during conflict.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And often the partner feels this shift immediately.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: Now the emotional experience of the avoidant person, and this is what is often misunderstood, is that they're not necessarily emotionally unaffected.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: In fact, many experience a profound internal activation.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: But instead of moving forward and towards a connection under stress, they move away from it.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: The nervous system becomes overwhelmed by emotional proximity.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: So the person distances, intellectualizes, minimizes, shuts down, or emotionally disappears.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Or they externalize, meaning that they project onto the other that which they're experiencing as being it was caused by, it's not me, it's what was done to me.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And it would be understandable to think they don't care, but closeness itself has become associated with psychological danger.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Now more recently, the term an avoidant or the avoidant has become very common.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really describe the avoidant attachment style that an individual may have.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that when someone might say this person's a narcissist, well, they may demonstrate traits of narcissistic difficulty, but it it's bigger than that in terms of how these things are put together.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: But the point here is not so much about the two terms, it's about the fact that people use them critically.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Why?
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, probably because they've had bad experiences with the people who they describe either as avoidant or narcissistic.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And that's important because in both cases people will be damaged in relationship with either of these two attachment types because the amount that people invest in others only to experience the other as being either narcissistic and abusive or avoidant in their behavior, the damage can be considerable.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And we need to be honest here because this is deeply damaging in relationships, and especially for anxiously attached individuals, because avoidant dynamics create chronic ambiguity, emotional deprivation, inconsistency, withdrawal, and profound relational confusion.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And the partner may spend years pursuing closeness and questioning themselves, suppressing needs, tolerating emotional starvation and slowly psychologically deteriorating inside the relationship.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And one of the cruelest aspects is that the avoidant person may genuinely believe they are simply protecting their space while leaving emotional carnage in their wake.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: For the avoidant anxious trap to be fully understood, we do have to see that this is a kind of I'm referring to a relational pairing between the avoidant type and the anxious type.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And what you find is that the person with predisposing or an anxious attachment style continues to move move forward to connection, but the avoidant person experiencing experiences increasing pressure and moves away.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And the withdrawal just intensifies abandon fear.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And the pursuit intensifies engulfment fear, and so the cycle escalates.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: One person is saying, Please don't leave me emotionally, the other feels like, please stop overwhelming me emotionally.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And unless this pattern becomes consciously understood, people can spend years re-traumatizing each other.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Emotional starvation is a sort of self-explanatory term, really, but it's one of the deepest experiences reported by partners of avoidantly attached individuals.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's the emotional loneliness inside the relationship itself.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: The relationship exists externally, but psychologically, something essential is missing.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Emotional availability, accessibility, relational reciprocity.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: The partner begins surviving on fragments, brief warmth, intermittent intimacy, temporary closeness before withdrawal returns again.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: And over time, many people just become psychologically depleted, hyper-vigilant, anxious, obsessive, and emotionally exhausted.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And I think there are times where a point is reached after after the best efforts have been made that the partner of an avoidant attachment type starts to realize this is this is pointless.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I'm here.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: I've given everything.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: I've given everything to this other person.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I've abandoned myself.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And there is no recognition.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: There is no appreciation.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: There's no reciprocity.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: There is implicit or sometimes explicit demand or just silence.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm being used.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I have no value.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's something wrong with me.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And then the true realization comes.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: The true realization is when it's decided that there is a severe, rigid chronic pattern, the psychological cost to the other person becomes devastating.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: No amount of love can force somebody into emotional availability if they are psychologically organized to avoid.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And so a painful recognition is reached.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: They are slowly disappearing emotionally inside the relationship.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Their nervous systems have become organized around waiting, hoping, monitoring, adapting, and surviving emotional deprivation.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And so in some cases, recovery just requires withdrawal from the dynamic itself, not as punishment, not as revenge, but because prolonged exposure to this chronic emotional unavailability can profoundly distort self-worth, attachment security, emotional regulation, and psychological stability.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: And this is interesting from the point of view of some people might say, well, why didn't you leave earlier?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess hope keeps people there.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: But eventually when hope moves out and reality moves in, then it's possible to step away and recover.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: The recovery process is complex.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: And some people will make they'll make efforts to try and restore the relationship, sort of last gasp efforts.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Others, and I think this is probably the healthier option, step away and have no contact.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: They step away because they realize that it is not good for them to be involved with or close to something that is so enormously damaging.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: But avoidantly attached individuals often suffer themselves.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Many experience isolation, internal loneliness and emotional suppression, their fear of dependency and very often chronic patterns of difficulty in trying to hold on to and sustain intimacy.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And they also experience profound disconnection from vulnerable parts of themselves.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: But the suffering that they experience does not erase the impact.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And one of the tragedies of avoidant attachment is that people may deeply long for closeness, but they're simultaneously defending themselves against it.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, the experience for the other of leaving will see them going through stages of loss, shock, the loss of something they thought was there but actually wasn't.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: They will feel cheated, they will feel wounded, very wounded in some instances.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Then there will be anger, there'll be a desire for retribution, there'll be a desire to confront the person with the behavior that having had some distance from them, they can now see as a pattern.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: I think those experiences are necessary, and I think the desire to balance things up is perfectly healthy.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Rageful fantasies, expressions of hurt, the desire to expose the person, the desire for the world to know, look what they did to me.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's okay.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's okay because it is something which is about processing, it's almost like psychologically working through something.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: So it's of course it's okay to feel it, it's okay to think it.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: However, and here comes the caveat you can't say it to the person who treated you in that way because it will be meaningless, and it will be meaningless because the clue in their attachment type is the word avoidant, and that will, I think, in some way just re-ignite the toxic relational field.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Say it to yourself, say it to yourself as much as you want, that's healthy.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: But if you have walked away and you have decided that you have to protect yourself and recover, you cannot do that healthily if you engage any with with the the the avoidant in any way.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it uh sounds like a play on words, but sometimes it's unavoidable.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes circumstances arise where you have to have some kind of contact.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And in those instances, you simply don't engage, you maintain a boundary, you hold the line, you don't allow yourself to be pulled across it, and you certainly don't cross it yourself.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: This is important because as a therapist, I am constantly working with people who are recovering from all manner of damaging relationships and the effects that those relationships have had on them.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And I often talk about the line and staying behind it.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Behind the line, you can have any kind of aggressive, accusatory, violent fantasies and thoughts that you want, but the moment you cross the line, there is a risk that those will find expression or that you will be pulled back in.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: You see, the irony is that part of us in those sorts of situations inevitably wants to try and make it right, but it's just not possible.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: I think what matters here is that if we go back to the type itself, and this is this is paradoxical because really, were it the case that somebody with an avoidant attachment type came into therapy, it would be possible, but only if they could cope with avoiding or not avoiding, which is the sort of you know, the the juxtaposition.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: They may learn that emotional closeness is survival and that dependence doesn't mean annihilation, and that intimacy doesn't inevitably destroy autonomy and that emotional needs aren't shameful.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: It's possible, but this can only work where there is not only a genuine self-awareness and willingness to confront the defensive structure of self, but where there is a where there is a good good reason.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody if somebody goes into therapy saying, I always do the you know the following, I my relationships always end in the same way, you know, my friends leave me, my and so on and so forth, then they are at the beginning, because they genuinely don't understand why, then there is the beginning of the possibility of change.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: But it's rare, very rare, and so what happens is the pattern usually just repeats itself.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: There is a kind of curious extension to this attachment type, which has to do with intolerance and arrogance and grandiosity, and there's a kind of narcissistic element in those in those concepts, but certainly I I I know of at least one person with this attachment type whose capacity for just saying what they think and having limited or no awareness of what that looks like and how it's how it's experienced.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: And there is an intolerance in that person to difference, intolerance that demonstrate that demonstrates itself through criticism.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And oddly enough, the same person seems genuinely puzzled as to why their relationships break down.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think the lack of awareness there is what's meaningful.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: But this is so sometimes the the picture that we're faced with is is quite puzzling because there are additional components.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: So I think what really we have to do is be be aware of what are the patterns in the relationship that you're in, or the relationships within your family and what they look like.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I think it's about asking yourself, do I experience this kind of now you see me, now you don't behave you?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Do you experience periods of emotional availability?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Do you experience the other person as not being aware of or being seemingly interested in you rather than just themselves?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you find yourself asking what's wrong with me?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you find yourself working harder to make something happen?
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you find yourself maybe on flexion thinking, what the hell was I doing?
21:46
SPEAKER_00: I gave so much.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe even in the situation.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: But you can't quite put your finger on the specific thing.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Because when we when we it's only when we look at the the episodes, the the the Different events over time that we can draw back and see there's a pattern here.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Now the avoidant personality or the avoidant attachment type will always rationalize, reframe the events, should you bring them to the surface.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Because they have to control the narrative.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Because if they don't control the narrative, then they open themselves up to exposure, and that is not something they can tolerate.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a crucifix to a vampire.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Interesting, interesting little symbols in there.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: But it is true, they cannot cope with exposure.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Exposure is something they have no defense against.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: But what then happens, of course, is that the exposure results in uh absenting themselves completely.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So I think what happens, what are the relational patterns?
22:58
SPEAKER_00: How do you know that this is somebody who is consistent, who is reliable, who is predictable?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Or are we dealing with something and someone who is something of an unknown quantity, something which maybe started in one way, but then perhaps quite quickly or perhaps slowly, just became something else?
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.