The New Marriage - Part Three of Four
Harry Stack Sullivan, in The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry,
argues that human beings have a biological drive to develop and
establish interpersonal relationships. In Biological Basis for
Human Social Behavior, R.A. Hind suggests that a person's
"attachment style"--the way in which they relate to other human
beings and form relationships with them--is developed mostly
during childhood. The attachment style tends to persist into
adulthood but is not fixed and can be modified either positively
or negatively as the result of further interactions.
I have had the joy of seeing countless adult clients consciously
change their attachment style. This is a practice that takes
time and is not easy to do. However, I have seen many people
move from a victim stance to living more fully by changing their
attachment style.
Helen was a lovely, dark-haired young woman, the adult child of
an alcoholic. Her attachment style led her to be attracted to
what she called "bad boys." Helen told me she "had radar for the
bad boys in the room," those who would treat her with
indifference and ultimately disappoint her. She had been married
for five years to Paul, who was extremely critical of her, had
multiple affairs, and was also an alcoholic.
We worked hard on her attachment style. Like many clients, she
could not trust her unconscious processes to choose an
appropriate partner. I had her make a list of the
characteristics that she was looking for in a partner and had
her carry it around with her in her wallet. One bright November
morning she came in to tell me of her triumph with another bad
boy situation.
"I was consciously able to make a choice to not follow my
attraction," Helen explained. "I was at a party and was
approached by a very attractive and charming man. My radar went
up immediately, because I felt a strong attraction to his good
looks and charm. However, I also started looking for indications
that he was the type of man that I had been attracted to in the
past. I did not have to consider this for very long because I
realized that he had a date who was over getting something for
both of them to drink. I decided on the spot that I did not want
to go out with him when he asked me out on a date, when he
already had a date." So began a real change in Helen's
attachment style. She has since married a conscientious, devoted
husband.
An attachment style is not simply made up of behavior we have
learned at our parents' knees. An attachment style is a way of
thinking and feeling as well, and shapes not just what we do,
but the meaning we give to the things that happen between our
partner and ourselves. The way we think as children can persist
into our adult lives.
Despite the learning we do later that develops rational thinking
and professional skills, there is a tendency to hold onto
child-like ways of thinking in our long-term and intimate
relationships. Our professional skills are things we learn as
adults, but as H. Stadtman Main points out, love and attachment
we learn as children.
We think of the period when the child is learning about love as
the individual's beginning of the journey that will lead him or
her to the heights of rapturous love and then, all too
frequently, into the valley of faultfinding and blame-gaming.
One's attachment style lays the groundwork. Foster parents
frequently report the lengths to which an abused or neglected
child will go to protect and defend their birth parents,
frequently blaming themselves rather than the abusive parent.
Also well documented is the "cycle of abuse," whereby abused
children become abusive parents. Such behavior patterns are
difficult to break, no matter that after each episode the abuser
is remorseful and promises never to do it again.
The work of Harry Stack Sullivan and others has many
implications for couples. While it identifies the existence of
pre-formed attachment styles as a possible cause of
interpersonal difficulties, it also contends that problematic
attachment styles can be addressed and changed.
Copyright 2005 Linda Miles Ph.D