Learn from Lysa TerKeurst, Dr. Joel Muddamalle and Jim Cress in Episode 5 of this six-part series of Therapy & Theology titled “I Want To Be More Self-Aware.” Each week, we’ll hear conversations providing tools for how we can live as the most healthy versions of ourselves.

Welcome to this episode where we are talking about attachment styles.
And, you know, in this whole series, we’re talking about self awareness.
And I have to say when I first heard of attachment styles and started really looking into this helped me become software, probably more than anything else.
And so I wanna get both of your feedback on a attachment styles, but mainly, Jim, we’re gonna lean into you for this episode.
Mhmm. So take it away.
Well, I would start with, you know, we’ve done self disclosure appropriately on this program before.
And so my attachment style is an anxious from childhood and ancient anxious attachment style, and I guess ancient too.
And, um, the idea of going around constantly looking, am I safe? Do you approve of me?
Do you like me? And that ran the show in my life for for many, many years.
So that’s just a true confession of my own style.
People will ask not trying to get too far ahead of it. Do you think attachment styles can change?
The best research I’ve read would be maybe a 30% chance or 30% of people can.
And I’ve said this way, I don’t know if attachment styles really can change.
I guess they can, but I know that I can change and I will and I have.
The number one thing I found in the attachment research, if you want your attachment style unless it’s a secure attachment, if you want it to change, do lots of self awareness and a lot of therapy, usually, to work through that and you move from as I have from an anxious attachment style that can still rear its ugly head to more of a secure attachment style in functionality.
People will know, by the way, when doctor John Bowlby, uh, who was really the father and founder of the attachment field.
And he looked at, you know, think about a baby in uteroza is attached to an umbilical cord, life, and how safe they feel.
Then they come out of the womb, and it’s like, where am I? It’s alright.
We’re all a little bit born into trauma, right, and separation after being with mama, separation from Mama.
He, uh, was this British psychoanalyst, and he talked about really, really studying infants And they found out that these caregiver roles, whether it’s the parents or caregivers, date day care is a big issue in our time these days.
He found that infants would basically go to extreme measures to try to reconnect to mom.
If mom was in the room or out of the room, or any other, um, caregiver to reestablish contact.
He said it this way, I’m quoting Doctor Boulby, the propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals is a basic component of human nature.
I don’t care now. I’m 61. I still want to connect.
I definitely wanna be attached let alone getting to the word of god that the 2 become one flesh.
So there’s that think of bonding when you look at that.
Back in the seventies, psych this is the next big name in the field.
Psychologist doctor Mary Ainsworth people that study attachment knew the name well.
She took Bowlby’s research and then expanded it once she called her strange situation study.
She looked at kids between the ages of these formative early years between 12 months 18 months and just looked at how they simply these kids responded to situations where they again were left alone for just a moment, and then they were reunited as as They needed to be with their mothers, especially.
Now think about the ideology or the origin of attachment styles.
From her work, she came up with 3 major attachments. Styles. Secure attachment.
This is where the child displays, uh, distress when separated from the mother, but then is easily soothed and return back to that emotional self regulation that that steady state very quickly when reunited with mom.
Nothing wrong. We’re being away from mom. Separation anxiety. And then the securely attached child would quickly get realigned.
Doctor Rainsworth then said the second classification would be the resistant attachment style where the child displays intense distress when mom leaves the room.
And then when mom comes back, resist contact with with mom with with this idea of being reunited.
3rd one would be the avoidant style. The child displays no distress at all.
This is the one’s gonna scare or concern most of us. The avoid an attachment style. Mom leaves. Fine.
Mom comes back. No real interest in mom’s return.
My goodness, if this could start this far back in early being an infant or a young child or toddler or pre toddler.
And then imagine when you’re forty and you have an avoidant attachment which is clinically where we’d see some narcissism.
Right? That’s a really scary thought.
And one more is to kinda just summarize this in more of the popular culture now with 4 different attachment styles.
And then ask yourself where do you fit with these? One is the secure attachment.
That’s considered, again, the healthiest of all the attachment styles. So imagine you’re secure in and of yourself.
I’m mindful of Blaze Pascal who said all of our problems as people stem from the inability to sit alone with yourself quietly in a room.
Are you good to be with yourself?
Without swiping, you know, or looking at Netflix and just dissociating all the time. Secure attachment.
That’s what would be the healthiest.
Number 2, the avoid an attachment Again, narcissism, sociopathy, uh, sociopathy being sociopath.
We see a person who seems they have no empathy for other people.
That’s the kind of insecure attachment we’re back in the day the infant or child doesn’t feel safe to explore any of their environment so they’re not gonna bond back with the parent.
That’s scary to be again young and then be at 40.
These people are gonna have real difficult time staying in or being in and connecting authentically in a loving secure relationship.
Number 3. 2 more. Anxious attachment style.
You’re gonna see what I call low self esteem, codependency, neediness, That is the one I’ve had in my life that’s I’ve had a lot of healing of that, but I’m going around there.
And I’m looking constantly for somebody to take care of me or tell me that it’s safe.
It’s almost time desperate for that, especially when under distress. And then the disorganized attachment style.
Some people talk about borderline personality disorder can be there.
That’s in the original style where an infant experienced the lack of emotional responsiveness from their caregivers. Hey.
No one’s there to take care of me.
So instead of showing either avoidant or anxious behaviors, they just show this inconsistent or disorganized behavior or attachment.
Much more could be settled in that, but those are the categories that we see mainly.
Well, I’ve read about 3 of the attachment styles.
I haven’t heard of the resistant, and I haven’t heard of the disorganized report makes total sense.
But when I sat down to look at the the 3 that I was looking at, it was the avoidant, the insecure are anxious and the secure.
Yep. I was having a hard time. And here’s why.
Because in certain seasons of my life, I felt like the description of secure was pretty applicable to me.
But then in other seasons of my life, I felt like I was more anxious.
Mhmm.
And so
Very common.
And then now I feel like I toggle between sometimes anxious attachment style and sometimes secure attachment style.
And so, I mean, I don’t want you totally out me here. I’m gonna ask you.
But I do wanna know, like, what what’s the deal?
A person can have an anxious attachment style.
And be with a certain friend or 2 and feel like look like they have, and studies have been done on this.
A secure attachment style. They could be in a job or a situation where they’re just killing it.
They got everything going on. They get in a room and somehow because the nature of the job or they have the authority or power, they look very secure, or they can have good boundaries and be, hey.
This is business. We gotta get to work and look like you’ve got the avoidant attachment style.
Here’s the question I throw back to you. Always throw back to myself.
If there was, not just in seasons, chapters, or certain venues, or arenas you’re in, ask yourself, do you feel of the assist you with the 3 attachment styles?
Do you feel there is one that if you were weak I get weeks some days.
Certain times, if my bandwidth is thin, is there one of the attachment styles that you would tend to quote go back to it because the research would show that’s usually what’s going to happen.
Is there one that stands out? Mine’s gonna be anxious. I know me.
Yeah. I would say in times of distress, or weakness, I definitely get anxious.
So does that mean that I really am the anxious attachments
I don’t go to Joe. Help me here. You know the word, ontology.
That’s a theological word that that’s my being. My being best. My odd. Yeah. It’s not who I really am.
It is what was wired in me back there. We got nature and nurture with children. Right?
Was it something you were born with? Did it happen because the early caregiving years?
Here’s a freebie I tell people. I double dog dare you go back.
You’ve seen the trauma egg I do in my intensives.
Go back if your parents are still alive and say, What was going on while I was in you to row?
Was I wanted? Was I not wanted? Well, I wanted a girl and you were a boy.
I’ve heard it all. Was mom under distress? Was there a good night lock all cinder.
Was there anything else going on that put your parents where they in a hard place in a marriage?
Because that bonding in utero, let alone right after you were born. Nope.
Mom was mad and something else went on.
Parents can often, if you wanna know, give you data like, yeah, the actual bonding thing there may have been there.
I go back to getting nature and nurture that I don’t know to prove was I really born with this attachment style same way I do with the enneagram stuff I do.
But I would say As you look back, best you can remember, same for me, same for Joel in early life.
Do you feel like looking back with your adult mindset?
You would have gravitated early in life to 1 of the 3.
There are 4, but let’s say the 3 attachment styles. Mine’s clearly anxious.
Do you think yours was anxious early on?
I think early on for me, um, my dad was absent. And but my mom was so incredibly present.
And, you know, she she wanted, I think, a best friend immediately. And so she was very quick.
I mean, she potty trained me.
And I know you’re not gonna believe this when I say it, but I have pictures to prove it.
She potty trained me at eight months old.
I think because you already told me the story.
And that That’s not because, like, wow. I was really going ahead. Uh, no.
She has a picture of me sitting on the table on a little pink potty.
And I could, like, I was floppy. And, yes, somehow.
8 months is young.
She still did this. So Anyways, that a very secure attachment with my mom. Mhmm.
And they’re again noticed and not with dad.
And not with dad.
So it’s just to me, it’s all information say, Let’s get this mic microscopically down.
I know is this or that. I think it’s just all information. I’m not gonna let attachment style attachment theory.
Define me. I’m not gonna let my enneagram number. Define me. I’m gonna say, oh, that’s information.
I tend to probably lead this way.
I really like what you assess
and quit defining me in that.
Sounds like The theory part is really important, that theoretical aspect. Okay. So I’m gonna confess.
When we were getting ready to do this episode, I started to research because that’s what
I do.
You know? So I, uh, the the attachments, I was, I’m gonna say a couple things here because I know for me, when I was first looking through this, I was like, this feels overwhelming.
Secure attachment access and bivalent attachment style voided and then, uh, disorganized attachment styles.
So I found what I maybe is a helpful summary of each of these, but I wanna go and and pass it by you, Jim.
You know? So anxious ambivalent cell could potentially be summarized as a poor view of self and an overinflated view of others.
Mhmm.
Right? Okay.
An avoidant,
uh, attachment style, an overinflated view of self, but a poor view of other
Mhmm. And or I would I would add to anecdotally or an almost nonexistent view of others.
That’s good.
Relational objectification. You are just an object.
Exactly. And then disorganized attachment styles, which from my research said, is really a combination of anxious and avoidant together, is both a poor view of self and others.
Mhmm.
Like, that’s
A plus plus.
And then so secure attachment in an ideal world And I’m making this definition on myself, and I’m gonna need you to clean it up, is really seems to be an ordered view of self.
And others. And others. Yeah. An order key of something others.
I like defining it that way and breaking it down that way because that’s really helpful.
And at first, when you said the disorganized attachment style, it made me anxious. So I was
like Well, see, notice notice there for a moment. Can we pick? Can we have fun?
Always.
Melissa knows. She knows me so well. Think about the language. Our words frame our reality.
You Jim made a statement, and it made me anxious.
Remember to take back your dignity there even on a podcast. It did not make you anxious.
Okay. This is good.
When this happened, I felt angry.
I mean, picky words, oh, it’s very important because I don’t wanna get my power. It made me.
It’s like, woah, how do I have the power to make you feel that?
Such a good
You already know all this. It’s like reminding.
But it’s just because I hadn’t heard of that one, but when you just described it and as you talked about it too, it makes so much sense.
Yep. So
And I think I think it’s so, again, I’m gonna go nerdy with you for a second.
I know you guys love when this happens. We love Joyce nerdy.
I know. So And, again, Jim, this is your field.
So it’s like, you know, I’m interviewing the expert in the in the field.
There were 2 pretty significant research papers or studies that were done.
1, I wanna say, I’m tell some tell my husband’s dangers. The Dartmouth study and then the John Hopkins study.
Which actually showed and proved that attachment is hardwired into the human genetic makeup of humanity. Is that
a fair I think that is true because we all started out attached sperm egg.
And if you wanna go, how far back do you wanna go?
Yeah.
I mean, there’s a it’s things are literally attaching all the way to the umbilical corps.
Still probably the safest place you’ve ever been at one level and then all that nurturing.
And then we come into a world.
The first thing you did, I cut 3 umbilical Cords at Baylor Hospital Downtown Dallas. So my kids, 3.
And there is there was a severing of the attachment right away.
I I like the studies that are out there, but to get totally empirical and come back and go, I know for a fact that it was hardwired I just can’t make the leap or won’t.
I’d say probably. Mhmm. But all I know is and of course, I’m way down the other end of saying, let’s work to see functionally It’s happened to me.
Your attachment style change. I have watched mine.
I don’t even my wife and I say, we don’t even recognize our younger selves we were first married.
Mine was the most insecure chaotic guy you’ve ever met.
Now it comes out certain times but it’s not the main operating system for me is insecurity or an anxious attachment style.
So I think this is fascinating because I’m gonna do I’m gonna do some theologizing with both of you, my friends here.
I find it fascinating that in the creative narrative that when god creates, he’s creating groups of things.
Mhmm. Consistently. It’s the stars as groups. It’s, um, the ocean and the land.
It’s it’s grouped bodies of water. It is land animals and sea animals grouped bodies of what.
And then interestingly, when he creates man, man’s alone.
And at every stage, like, good, good, good, good, good, not good.
What is not good, the individuality of man?
And so I’m just gonna, like, read from, like, one of the most famous I feel like this is, like, the one that we go to all the time in therapy and theology, but, uh, it says, so the lord caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept.
And god took one of his ribs. So tell him about attachment and detachment here.
So god took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place.
Then So he takes out something, then the lord got out of this thing that he took out.
He made for the man. Um, he he had taken from the man into a woman and then brought her to the man.
Now we’ve talked about this. I’ve talked about this in Nazim about the rib, the rib in Hebrew there.
It’s actually not just, uh, the word for rib.
It’s actually Shalaa, which means the side of something a pillar foundation and structure.
So even from an imagery standpoint Yeah. I mean, this is fascinating. It is.
That in order for the man to have in human relationships.
We’re gonna talk about god later, but in human relationships, in order to be whole and the ideal of Eden, he actually has to become haft so that the opposite hole could come into existence.
And then the only way for the 2 halves to actually truly become whole is for them to be attacked back together.
So then the text says in Genesis 224 through 25, this is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds.
We can
highlight Circular. Pretscribe
Right.
To detach so that you can
attach. Okay. And they become one flash.
There you go. K.
So the one flash thing in ancient Eastern language and Hebrew, it is very significant. It’s one flash. One bow.
I mean, this this idea of of union together.
Okay?
But the bond word is incredibly interesting. In Hebrew, it’s debacle.
It means uh, it deals with a type of connection or attachment that is intimate or generally friendly.
And the other time this word shows a lot of times, but we don’t have enough time to even unpack all this.
I wish we did. But Ruth Orpa and Naomi in Ruth 114. When they’re getting ready to separate.
Here’s detachment attachment. Again, they wept this, the the 2 daughter in law’s.
They weep loudly, and Orpa kissed her mother-in-law. And she detaches from the family.
But Ruth, debacle, Ruth clung to Naomi and stays with her.
She she stays attached, uh, in that familial bond. And so we really see this profoundly in scripture as well.
I’m so glad you brought this part up because and I know we only have a few minutes left, but I wanna know how do the attachment styles affect relationships.
Like, are there certain attachment styles that really don’t attach? Are there certain styles that attach better than others?
And so I’ve got a great curiosity around this.
Sure. So it would seem quite logical, and it is quite true that two people with uh, a secure attachment is probably gonna have the best chance to be able to have a healthy attachment, bonding, and oneness I’ve said, again, it’s almost a trivial throwaway line.
Uh, you know, until you get really better, not perfect, but better to be alone with yourself, like yourself, be good to have good emotional self regulation, self awareness, and you’re not just, oh, desperate to connect.
You’re probably not ready to reenter or enter a more, uh, relationship like a marriage or dating.
Doesn’t mean perfection. So if you get, uh, two people who are in that that healthy secure bonding, okay, what can be terrible I believe personally, it’s gonna be hard with anyone with an avoidant attachment style for anybody to bond.
How do you bond with and we tend to bond deeply with our same level of health.
But if you get someone who is a anxious attachment style to try to And there’s do you love me?
Do you care for me when an avoidant person almost looks like a sociopath or a narcissist?
That’s gonna be a real problem.
I think it could be like the problem with possibly true anxious attachment styles coming together.
It’s a tick on a dog mentality. A tick gets on a dog and sucks the life out of them.
The problem with 2 anxious attachment people is you have 2 ticks and no dog.
I mean, there’s I need the life and I need you to tell me I’m okay.
It’s Jerry McGuire of the movie. You know, you complete me. No. No. You don’t. Not fundamentally.
So I think some of this and then looking at some of the, if I may, the the psychopathology of it, like someone with an avoid in person, a lot of narcissists there, and they just don’t do empathy.
And if you’re wanting even in a healthy way some empathy, doesn’t mean and the research would back this up.
It doesn’t mean you can’t bond with people like with different attachment styles.
I care only a little bit of your attachment style how you were born.
How do you wanna work on that? Being that 30% club in the research that attachment styles can change. Hey.
I don’t know for sure if they change, but I change.
And I grow And then John 17, that Jesus is the only real prayer that you may be one, and we become in oneness together with the power of the Holy Spirit With that, I think that will potentially trump and override all attachment styles of what Yeah.
And that’s an important one, Jim.
And I would just add this is where I think often what we found is that therapy and theology run as a train on trucks together, typically.
That’s right.
There there are principles that are leading together.
And yet there are certain times when there are psychological or therapeutic principles that might be driven from a perspective that is detached from the reality of the gospel and the resurrection of Jesus conquering sin and death.
And so while there might be some theorists out there, they’ll be like, oh, man, you can never change your attachment style.
Well, I would say, yeah. But nobody ever thought that somebody could conquer sin and death through death itself. Mhmm.
And yet the tomb is empty. Mhmm. Jesus is alive, raining, and sitting at the right hand of the father.
So in that sense, when we become a new creation
Yeah.
We are actually exchanging fallen and broken ways of attachment to be reconnected to the one who is trustworthy and faithful.
And so in light of the gospel, it’s a totally different scenario for those of us that put our faith in our trust in Jesus.
I love that. And, of course, the purpose of this series is not to say, oh, you’re in that kind of relationship.
Good luck.
Yeah.
You know, the the purpose of the series is really to in increase our own self awareness because when we are more aware of our tendencies, and that’s how I kinda like to look at any of these kinds of things and attachment styles.
Like, I have a tendency toward this.
There you go.
But with good work, I can possibly move more toward secure.
Mhmm.
And I remember just as an example of this, um, Jim, we’ve worked together for so long, and you have seen me through so many hard days.
Um, and, you know, when I experienced the death of my marriage, which is something that was probably one of the greatest traumas it may have been the greatest trauma of my life because it was stretched out so long.
And, and it’s not the outcome that I wanted.
And so I remember I experienced the death of my marriage, and I’m on this healing journey.
I’m seeing you quite often. And I remember one time I was in a season of pretty intense loneliness.
And you said to me, Lisa, I think you need to learn to sit in, like, the loneliness or sit in the silence and learn to be okay with yourself.
You didn’t like that.
I did not like that at all.
It’s about the third time that’s happened with us, but, yeah.
I was like, that’s what I paid for you to tell me today, like, that I remember going home and thought, okay.
The sign of emotional health is that I can sit alone in a room with myself.
I’m gonna prove how healthy I am. I couldn’t do it. I could not do it. I would try.
I would sit there for a few minutes, and I would be like, this is the worst.
And I had It was almost like, okay. Well, I’m just gonna pick up social media for a second.
Or, uh, okay. I’ll do that after I go watch this show, or you know, I’ve gotta turn on some music.
I gotta call a friend, and none of those things are inherently bad.
That’s right.
But the awareness that you created in me is I’ve needed to learn to be okay with myself, and it really served me well because I spent 2 years saying I will never ever ever have a future relationship.
Like, there’s just no way And I think during those 2 years and me saying, no, not ever, what was really happening is I was healing to the point that I was freed up to not need someone else to help me get better, but I got better so that I was completely freed up to want the right kind of person and the right kind of relationship.
And with attachment, if I may, at the risk of not at all trying to be clever here.
I believe what happened there, if I may just use the nomenclature you went back into what could have felt like a tomb.
It wasn’t. It was not a tomb. It was a womb.
And you were not like nicodemus and John III or the idea of Salvation.
You went back into a womb, started attaching with yourself, and I know you too well.
I’m attached with god and other good friends.
And out of that, you were born anew there in to go into the next season of your life.
And that’s a sense. There are many wombs heavily. We call them tombs and it’s like, no.
It’s a womb to come back and say I need to be reborn here in this way and find out I can be develop a secure attachment with myself and the next program coming up, not just with myself, but with god.
That’s so good. And so Whether you’re in a situation that is like mine or maybe it’s completely different, I think us having this kind of information maybe you’re in a marriage that’s struggling.
Well, why not use this information to be able to determine, hey.
This is something we need to work on together. And it’s more of a discovery than a detriment.
Yes.
And so when you’re able to discover, it’s like when we start to realize we need to heal and we actually start to deal with the issues at hand, then that’s where real progress can be made.
So no matter what situation you’re in, maybe you are having a hardship with your parent or your child or a spouse or a friend or, you know, whatever season it is that you’re in, use this information to help you become more self aware.
Because, again, when we know better, we do better.