Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Why You Feel Insecure in Relationships (And It’s NOT Your Fault) | Dr. Amir Levine

This episode is brought to you by: AG1: Get FREE AG1 Flavour Sampler, AGZ Sampler, Vitamin D3+K2 and Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription (worth $87, US only) https://bit.ly/43FwxQl BON CHARGE: Save 20% off all Bon Charge products with code LIVEMORE https://boncharge.com/livemore THE WAY APP: Get 30 FREE sessions and begin your journey towards peace, calm and wellbeing. https://thewayapp.com/livemore What if the secret to great health, more energy and feeling happier isn’t a diet, a fitness routine or a supplement – but the quality of your relationships? This conversation, with neuroscientist Dr Amir Levine, will challenge your preconceptions about how you relate to others and, more importantly, empower you to change that. Dr Levine is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University and bestselling author of Attached – a landmark title about attachment theory in adults. But it’s his new book Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life, that we’re diving into today. In it, he makes the case that all of us, no matter what our attachment style, can learn to build relationships that help us thrive – in all areas of our life. Not familiar with the four attachment styles? Dr Levine explains all and tells us how they might show up in everyday life. They aren’t disorders that need to be fixed, but natural variations in how we understand and interact with others. And getting to know yours could help you feel more secure in your relationships, work and wellbeing. We explore the evolutionary science behind why our brains, which are wired for connection, can experience social exclusion as physical pain. It’s what makes ignoring someone just as damaging as lashing out – and explains why positive interactions with strangers (a hello here, a wave there) don’t just make your day, they can actually change your brain’s structure over time. If, as Dr Levine reveals, 95 percent of our adult attachment has nothing to do with childhood, that means we have huge potential for change. We don’t have to be held back by patterns we thought were with us for life. We just need to play to our strengths in relationships – and give our brains the right signals in the present. And if that sounds promising but puzzling, Dr Levine shares lots of practical ideas and tools you can use right away – including his five pillars of secure attachment and two, game-changing rules for managing conflict. We also discuss why some common ideas, like seeking closure after a break-up or setting boundaries, might not offer the security you’d like. What I hope you’ll take from this conversation is a sense of optimism. It’s the ideal episode for anyone feeling stuck in a relationship, struggling with conflict, or who simply wants to feel more secure in themselves. #feelbetterlivemore Find out about Dr Levine: Website https://www.amirlevinemd.com/ Dr Levine’s books: Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life UK https://amzn.to/486u3PF US https://amzn.to/4tCadEe Attached: How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep - love UK https://amzn.to/4cc5sda US https://amzn.to/4tyWaPD #feelbetterlivemore #feelbetterlivemorepodcast ------- Order MAKE CHANGE THAT LASTS. US & Canada version https://amzn.to/3RyO3SL, UK version https://amzn.to/3Kt5rUK ----- Follow Dr Chatterjee at: Website: https://drchatterjee.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drchatterjee Twitter: https://twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Newsletter: https://drchatterjee.com/subscription DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

RCDr. Rangan Chatterjeehost

Apr 8, 2026·1h 47m·Watch on YouTube ↗

📖 CHAPTERS

1. 1

   Defining a “secure life” through attachment theory

   The conversation opens by grounding the idea of a “secure life” in attachment theory—how relationships help regulate emotion and create a felt sense of safety. Dr. Levine frames security as something that can be built by shaping relationships to be supportive rather than destabilizing.

2. 2

   The Strange Situation test: how attachment styles form and what they look like

   Dr. Levine explains Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation experiment and how it revealed distinct patterns of distress and reunion behavior. He details how secure, anxious, and avoidant children differ in their ability to use the caregiver bond to calm down.

3. 3

   Adult attachment: the same patterns show up in romantic relationships

   The discussion transitions from childhood to adulthood, referencing research showing the same attachment styles appear in adult relationships. Dr. Levine argues attachment extends beyond romance into broader life relationships that shape our stability and wellbeing.

4. 4

   Why security is empowering (health, resilience, consumerism, and social media)

   Dr. Chatterjee emphasizes the book’s theme of hope: security is possible regardless of past experiences. They discuss how security correlates with better health, fewer symptoms during illness, and less susceptibility to advertising and social media pressure.

5. 5

   From ‘Attached’ to ‘Secure’: Levine’s personal path and a brain-based approach

   Dr. Levine shares how writing his first book began as a way to make sense of a breakup and a gap in clinical training. He explains how patients’ questions—“How do I become secure?”—pushed him toward integrating neuroscience with attachment science.

6. 6

   Moving beyond the medical model: attachment styles as normal variation

   They challenge the popular framing of “healing” anxious/avoidant attachment as though it’s a disease. Levine argues attachment styles are common traits—variations in the population—best judged by effectiveness in life, not pathology.

7. 7

   Are attachment styles caused by childhood? Adaptability, genes, and weak predictability

   Levine highlights research suggesting adult attachment is only weakly predicted by childhood attachment, which offers hope for change. They discuss gene–environment interaction, multiple attachment models across life, and the difficulty of proving causality in psychology.

8. 8

   Rewriting emotional memories: security in the present changes the past

   They explore how recalling memories in a safe relational context can alter emotional meaning—less about making a story of blame and more about reconsolidation. Secure priming therapy is introduced as a way to help people find more secure interpretations and relief.

9. 9

   The four adult attachment styles: two dimensions and real-world examples

   Levine outlines anxious, avoidant, secure, and fearful avoidant styles using two dimensions: comfort with closeness and sensitivity to threat. They discuss how anxious sensitivity can be a strength, why avoidant distance is often misunderstood, and how fearful avoidant combines both tensions.

10. 10

    Exclusion as pain: safari lessons, Cyberball, and the Still Face experiment

    Levine connects evolutionary safety to modern social pain—why exclusion hits like physical injury. Through the Cyberball and Still Face experiments, they show how ignoring/withdrawing can be profoundly distressing and triggers “protest behaviors” to restore connection.

11. 11

    Relationship repair tools: one-upset-at-a-time, the mea culpa rule, and “stop and apologize”

    They offer practical rules that prioritize restoring emotional equilibrium over being right. Levine describes how secure relationships function as co-regulators, why both partners share responsibility in non-abusive conflict, and how touch can rapidly calm the attachment system.

12. 12

    Becoming secure with CARP + SIMIs: engineering “hyper-connectedness” day by day

    Levine introduces the mechanisms for building security: CARP (the five pillars of secure connection) delivered through SIMIs (small daily moments that reshape the brain). They link this to hyper-inclusion effects, social micro-interactions (including with strangers), and the brain’s energy savings when it feels safe.

13. 13

    Closure, people-pleasing, and boundaries: common modern lenses that can mislead

    Levine argues “closure” often functions as an activating strategy—an attempt to re-engage when the attachment system can’t let go. He also reframes people-pleasing and boundary-setting as downstream symptoms of insecure dynamics, suggesting CARP-based reciprocity and clearer attachment logic can reduce the need for rigid boundaries.

14. 14

    Closing message: security is learnable—small course corrections compound

    The episode ends with a strongly hopeful takeaway: people can change even if insecurity feels lifelong. Levine compares progress to loosening a knot thread-by-thread and steering a cruise ship—small shifts compound into a different life trajectory.