Why Is Everyone So Anxious & Avoidant? - Connor Beaton

What is attachment theory? How would you describe it to someone that's never heard of it before?

Yeah, I mean the, the definition of attachment theory is that it is a psychological and evolutionary, um, theory concerning relationships between humans, so it's basically the th- the theory of relationships between people, essentially. And the, the sort of most important part of it is that young children, as young children, we need to develop a relationship with a primary caregiver, and that, that is one of the foundational tenets to us operating as a normal human being in the world as adults.

Right. There are a lot of different attachment frameworks, a bunch of people that have written books. Lots of talk about it now. I think it's kind of starting to become a meme of its own, and-

Yeah.

... lots of people are probably using it and misusing it and abusing it in bad ways. What's the best attachment framework that you like to focus on? Uh, wh- what are the things that people kind of need to know as the fundamentals of this?

Yeah, I mean the, like, the godfather of attachment is, uh, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. They're, they're really the first two people, um, that, that really created the structure of what we know today to be attachment theory. Um, there's a great book called Attached which has gained a lot of mainstream popularity, um, a- and I do think that, you know, it's kind of been hijacked by the TikTokers and Instagrammers of the world to, like, gripe about their exes, you know? And it's become the, the, like, end-all be-all of relational problems, and you can use some of these terms and label people and pathologize them and put them into neat little boxes to say, "Y- see, this is why the relationship ended. It wasn't me, they were just avoidant or they were just anxious." But yeah, I mean the, the main people are, are John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, and, um, you know, this is... John Bowlby really started the work back in the '50s. Mary Ainsworth continued it on. Um, she really created the labels that we know today to be anxious and avoidant. Uh, a lot of the research was interesting because it would watch children and you can tell, uh, around two to three to five, in that age range, (clears throat) how a child responds to a parent leaving and returning, where their, where their attachment style rests. And, you know, if, for example, if you have a kid that, um, uh, you know, a kid and a parent, the parent walks out of the room and goes away for five minutes and then walks back in, and that kid is, is pretty much just ignores that their parent has left and come back in, that's a good signal that they're a little bit avoidant, or, you know, if as soon as the kid breaks away from the mom or the dad, uh, that that child becomes sort of, uh, crying and ornery and they're, you know, pretty upset, it's a good sign that they're anxious. Um, but ideally we're mo- we want to have a secure, healthy relationship with one primary caregiver as a child, because what a lot of the research has shown is that this will go on to form the behavioral patterns and the ways in which that we engage with people as adults. And so, uh, the reason why I think that attachment has gained a lot of mainstream popularity is that it does talk about a lot of the relationship issues and, y- you know, garbage (laughs) that we see in modern day relationships where people are ghosting and peacing out or, you know, love bombing and turning, turning into stage five clingers, and so it does explain a lot of that behavior.