Speaking as an Indian woman who was in relationship with a white guy (almost lost my life and my mind), attachment theory really helped me understand that - unlike what the ex said - the problem was not me. He said I needed to “work on myself”, heal my inner child etc etc. I tried. I gave up work for over a year. Meditated. Did the grief work, the shadow work, the dream work, bioenergetics, focussing, NVC, journaling, inner child healing. It didn’t help. It was all the neoliberal individualistic model - fix yourself, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. It sucked.
Because the problem wasn’t me, it was him. It’s impossible to be well regulated in a chaotic, abusive relationship. When I came across attachment theory, it helped me see my needs for kindness, care, empathy, connection were normal (as per Sue Johnson, EFT founder) and not “crazy” or “needy” or “demanding.” These are the bare minimum things to make a relationship tolerable (à la Dan Wile). I became more firm in my needs, rather than trying to self-soothe and go it alone. As PACT therapist Stan Tatkin says, a one-person psychobiological system is “inherently masturbatory.” Lol. It also helped connect me more with my roots and those of the indigenous people where I now live - both our cultures are very communal and relational and it’s *normal* to get needs met by real fleshy humans rather than the nonsensical hyper-independence, separation-individuation focused self-soothing promoted by western (capitalist) psychotherapies.
I then studied relationship psychology at university postgrad. Read over half a thousand papers on it. As well as more on sexism in intimate relationships. The two things together helped me put together and impression of why hetero relationships were going so wrong, esp where race, age etc were also contributing to power dynamics.
I absolutely love the work of Nora Samaran and Carmen Knudsen-Martin in bringing a power analysis to attachment. I also love Zawn Villines work - she doesn’t explicitly talk about attachment but she does refer to all the same needs; to be seen and heard, to matter, to be respected, valued, cared for, nurtured - in the context of sexist heterosexual relationships.
The key way that attachment theory as a fad has gone wrong is in perpetuating the idea of attachment “styles.” It’s a debate in the literature around attachment as a “trait” vs a “state.” A trait is something that’s a bit more fixed and harder to change - potentially arising from childhood wounds. A state is something that changes depending on circumstances.
I agree with Ayoto that when people become disregulated, something external to ourselves is more likely to blame (unlike New Age propaganda that “you create your own feelings” and “think positive thoughts” and “you create your reality” 🤮). It can be a person close to you who is being super disrespectful, inconsistent, ambivalent, scary, unpredictable that makes you feel crazy and off balance…or it can be the whole global capitalist system that keeps us precarious, constantly in guard and off balance etc.
According to those more in the “attachment as a state” camp, it is fundamentally about trust. “Are you there for me? Can I rely on you when I’m in need? Do you have my back? Will you repair when you’ve hurt me?”
I find it helpful to ask these questions in relationships, friendships, professional collaborations where trust is necessary and some kind of power dynamic might be at play. Often the less powerful party is automatically meeting the other’s needs and being reliable, responsive, committed, and attuned. And the more powerful party is somewhat oblivious, disengaged, self-centred, unreliable. You see this even in bigger international spaces - eg US can be whollly unreliable (show up late to multilateral meetings, keep everyone dangling) while others tend not to.
In “A General Theory of Love,” the authors note that attachment needs remain with us cradle to grave. We do not grow out of them or become any less needy over time - we just have more subtle and sophisticated ways to get needs met than children (crying, tantrums etc). One line is forever burned in my memory: “stability means find people who regulate you well and stay near them.” I’ve since stayed away from flakey, inconsistent, fair weather friends and invested more time in reliable, consistent, responsive ones…and found quiet contentment in doing so.
Secure attachment isn’t a trait that you either “have” or “don’t have” (so no book, course, video can give it to you!) - it is a state of being that is constantly built (and unbuilt) by the people and forces that surround us.
Social Baseline Theory is perhaps a better alternative for those who balk at the dyadic relationship focus of attachment theory.
Thanks for writing this, LoWa. There’s a wealth of lived wisdom here, grounded in both your endurance and your scholarship. The way you’ve mapped personal experience onto deeper structural critique, naming the gaslighting, the power imbalances, and the betrayal of relational needs as “neediness”, is deeply validating. It helps to know how much work has already been done, and that we’re not alone in these realities. The neoliberalism masquerading as spiritual growth is especially insidious, asking us to transcend what we haven’t even been allowed to name. Thank you again for speaking to this with such clarity and care.
Thank you Ayoto, I’m humbled you stacked this comment and it’s great to read your writing too - love how you are bridging the psychological, political, interpersonal and even quantum physics!
Kinda jotting reflections as I go. First few paragraphs already got me thinking… how can ideas, something non-physical, be commodified under capitalism? I feel the abstract nature of it makes it an excellent tool for manipulation by forces on top of the (gross) hierarchical ladder.
Your description on attachment theory serving as an opium for our pains acts as a reminder of how religion was advertised as a solution to pain, with heaven being the climax. In today’s case, heaven or enlightenment is a secure attachment. Could this be abstracted to other beliefs like Buddhism, or ideologies than promote a “perfect” utopia?
How you describe a securely attached person actually makes me kinda sad. Why would I want to be perfect in an imperfect world? It’s almost silly to expect perfection when uncontrollable forces like work, economy, relationships, and so on aren’t entirely predictable. Being perfect and fitting that mold feels very… disingenuous? Almost as if we’re undermining the righteous anger and genuine passion each and every person has.
Ever since your original attachment theory post I’ve been focusing less on fitting a mold and I’ve begun to accept myself for who I am. Accepting my “outbursts”, rage, sadness, and anxieties as part of me, and treating my emotions as a beautiful, dynamic fascet of life. It makes me sad to think that categorizing people with labels is the norm (one I’m continuing to unlearn) -isn’t that inhumane? Would I be okay with being given a label that invalidates my traumas, pain, and nuances? No, of course not.
Great read and thanks for allowing us to reflect further Ayoto!
We have so much to rage about, to grieve, to be anxious over. I appreciate your dynamism, and I love that you’re embracing all these facets, each a testament of your life. x
Exactly. I prefer not to attach to an ideology either way. It’s tricky because that itself is an ideology. 😉But if I remain centered in the direct experience before the thought..I can respond authentically (I know - a co-opted word) to the ever shifting conditions of the moment versus from a fixed perspective.
As someone who has worked in care roles, witnessing the commodification of care and how this plays out for individuals marked as Other/deviant from the norm, this article hits hard.
I worked at a high school for 5 years supporting students with various diagnoses, and the push from leadership was always to get the students to class, support them to improve their academic performance, and often to simply *stay* at school (framed as them having various personal “barriers” preventing their access, rather than the institution itself containing the barriers). Students were profiled based on various histories and diagnoses, and the emphasis in their profiles would always be on strategies for regulation, which may include time on their phone or playing video games, with the end goal being increased engagement at school (compliance). Reflecting on this while reading your article, it perfectly sums up the underlying feeling of ickiness accompanying these processes and procedures. The fluffy and soft liberal language disguising processes of avoidance and manipulation. School, generally, is a key site of institutionalization and behavior shaping/modification, and while I think that individuals benefits from being able to access more ease and joy in their lives, and perhaps there are strategies that emerge from Attachment Theory which can support this, I agree that it often neglects the broader picture. That it’s reasonable to be distressed when you are forced into a classroom of 32 other students in a building which itself is architecturally designed in a way that is hostile to sensory overwhelm, being told what to do and how to behave. Just some immediate thoughts -- your article really resonated.
This is going to be a lengthy reply so I apologise in advance.
I feel like you may be conflating two separate things. You talk about the industry of healing trying to sell people a sense of wellbeing which may not exist for them for good reason; in essence gaslighting them.
It reminded me of this, by Kai Cheng Thom:
“I think the major difference between a social justice and a white/colonial lens on trauma is the assumption that trauma recovery is the reclamation of safety—that safety is a resource that is simply 'out there' for the taking and all we need to do is work hard enough at therapy.
I was once at a training seminar in Toronto led by a famous & beloved somatic psychologist. She spoke brilliantly. I asked her how healing from trauma was possible for ppl for whom violence & danger are part of everyday life. She said it was not.
Colonial psychology & psychiatry reveal their allegiance to the status quo in their approach to trauma: That resourcing must come from within oneself rather than from the collective. That trauma recovery is feeling safe in society, when in fact society is the source of trauma.
Colonial somatics & psychotherapies teach that the body must relearn to perceive safety. But the bodies of the oppressed are rightly interpreting danger. Our triggers & explosive rage, our dissociation & perfect submission are in fact skills that have kept us alive.
The somatics of social justice cannot (I believe) be a somatics rooted in the colonial frameworks of psychology, psychiatry, or other models linked to the dominance of the nation-state (psychology was not always this way, but has become increasingly so over time).
The somatics of social justice cannot be aimed at restoring the body to a state of homeostasis/neutrality. We must be careful of popular languaging such as the 'regulation' of nervous system & emotion, which implies the control and domination of mind over emotion & sensation.
Because we are not, in the end, preparing the body to 'return' to the general safety of society (this would be gaslighting). we are preparing the body, essentially for struggle—training for better survival & the ability to experience joy in the midst of great danger.
In the cauldron of social justice healing praxis, we must aim for relationality that has the potential to generate social change, to generate insurrection. we must be prepared to challenge norms. acknowledge danger. embrace struggle. take risks.
And above all, we must not overemphasize the importance of individual work (which is important indeed) to the detriment of a somatics that also prepares us, essentially, for war. somatics that allow us to organize together. fight together. live together. love each other.”
I want to assure you that this ethos is at the core of all the work that I do as a therapist, and I know I am not alone. I am empowering my clients to be braver, not safer.
I want them to feel empowered to advocate for themselves and to create change, and to challenge issues of injustice, and institutions and systems that keep people disenfranchised and enslaved and disempowered – and that includes the white Imperialist healing industry as well.
There may be some rogue therapists who use their knowledge to control their clients, or disempower them, or keep them stuck in an endless loop of therapy that is selling them something that is unattainable, but I would hope that these are the minority, and it is those individuals that we should hold to account, not attachment theory. I feel you have conflated these issues. Rogue therapists such as those might use ANY approach to manipulate their clients, knowingly or unknowingly, and correlation does not equal causation.
I fundamentally disagree with your paragraph: “It means that you are predictable, that your nervous system does not overreact, that you are well-adjusted, well-regulated, easy to love, easy to work with, easy to be around. It means that you do not burden others with your volatility, your grief, your rage. It means you are stable. Manageable. Safe.”
That is NOT what it means to become more securely attached, at all. Anyone who believes that has misunderstood attachment theory. In fact it means the opposite. It means being able to accept that life is unpredictable, and that your nervous system will react in all sorts of ways, and that you will often be ill-adjusted, dysregulated, difficult to love, difficult to work with, difficult to be around, and YET YOU STILL KEEP GOING. It means you can bounce back, and keep connecting; that your nervous system is in a constant state of flux and that sometimes you will go into shutdown and withdrawal, sometimes you will go into fight / flight / freeze / fawn action modes, and sometimes you will want to connect authentically, and that these states are ALL valid, with no better or worse. It means that you CAN burden others with your volatility, your grief, your rage, and that you can realise it is not a burden at all, but a means of connecting more deeply. It means allowing yourself to be unstable, unmanageable, unsafe, and to love those parts of yourself, and allow them to be loved by others, and to keep connecting. This is the evolutionary purpose of attachment.
Let me ask you this – would you rather be in a relationship with somebody who can engage in cycles of rupture and repair with you, and who works towards resolutions, has the capacity to hold accountability and to reflect and forgive, to share in a deep sense of connectedness and vulnerability, or with someone who avoids all conflict and then threatens to discard you at the earliest signs of difficulty or disagreement?
If your answer is the former rather the latter then you must recognise the benefits of working towards secure-functioning relationships, and how attachment theory as a framework can help us do this, both individually and systemically. By trying to empower, not control.
I appreciate this discussion, but implore you to think again about all you have written here. Adopting the position that “attachment theory is evil” is simply the flipside of the very coin you are critiquing.
It must be unsettling, watching the framework slip.
Not just here. Not just me. But everywhere.
You built the language so carefully, so gently, that you assumed it would always hold. That people would always return to it. That, if nothing else, they would believe in you—the guide, the explainer, the one who offers reassurance that, yes, things can be mended, that everything can be understood if we just use the right words.
But something is shifting. Not just in this conversation, not just in theory, but in the world. The old tricks—the soft corrections, the gentle redirections, the insistence that if we just looked a little harder, we’d see that healing was always the goal—don’t land the way they used to.
Because people are noticing. They’re noticing how certain ideas always seem to circle back to control. They’re noticing how co-opted liberation is just another form of containment, dressed in softer language. They’re noticing the quiet, careful ways people like you redirect critique, making it seem as though the only failure is in understanding, never in the system itself.
You keep speaking as though you are holding something together. But what if there is nothing to hold? What if people are no longer interested in the words you offer?
What if they’re already gone?
This is not about me. It never was. It is about the quiet, growing recognition that the old ways of keeping people inside—through reassurance, through guidance, through the performance of pseudo-wisdom—are no longer enough. The world is slipping out of its grasp. The language is losing its power.
You feel it, don’t you?
That’s why you’re still writing while apologising.
Wow. I can’t explain how freeing this was to read. Thank you for this. My only question is, are there parts to the theory that are good to be applied when looking to be more regulated given our societal positions?
The trap is lodged within the discourse. Regulation is a petition. a bid of legibility inside a system designed to keep us in line within the industrial structure. we don’t have to obey it. we can sit with it. turn it over. hold it. throw it. play with it.
and regulated in relation to what?
a subject is never free floating. it is ALWAYS structured by the gaze. by the demand. by the Other.
to call for regulation presupposes a standard. a fantasy of the well-adjusted subject. but whose fantasy is that? who benefits from your coherence? when the colonized swallos the language of its oppressor, it isn’t just speech that they are learning. it is subjugation. stability is a construct. the price is silence
regulation? is what they tell you to seek when they’ve decided you cannot win. survival is a brutal, indifferent business.
who decided disregulation was a problem? who decided the fix was personal? capitalism requires crisis, Ruthie Gilmore would say. Regulation is the domestication of distress.
So what is the use of Attachment Theory? If it helps you to see the patterns, fine. If it helps you to survive, fine. but if it keeps you looking inward when the issue is out there, if it turns your suffering into self-improvement project instead of a structural indictment, then this is not medicine. this is management.
the question is never, can this framework help? No, the question is always, what does it demand in return?
It’s important to not be overly cynical about the motivations of individual Attachment Theory practitioners. To assume a complete lack of integrity is an overstep (in my opinion of course) that doesn’t serve. The initial analysis was illuminating, inviting critical thinking, and framing the therapeutic structure in a novel way. Buyer beware of yet another popular offering in the wellness industrial complex. The danger in these ideological arguments seems to evolve, however, so that the crack where the light comes in becomes a bit blinding. I enjoy being able to more deeply understand (as per Ayoto’s creative analysis) why I might feel oddly annoyed, repeatedly taking a step back from the marketing. Yet the beauty of Unsubscribe exists. I do think human beings have some shared basic needs and some shared patterns in seeking fulfillment which can actually be helpful to identify. I adore the addition of nuance in different lived experiences and the problems offered by and to the sometimes too simple formulations. Hope you don’t mind this sharing. You seem open. Maybe even secure :)
The light only blinds those who have stayed too long in the cave. The problem isn’t the intensity of critique—it’s critique being sanded down into polite, market-friendly hesitations. The wellness-industrial complex thrives on precisely that kind of ‘balanced’ framing, where systemic ideology gets downgraded into a buyer-beware consumer warning, and structural analysis is reduced to a ‘nuanced’ preference.
That’s the intellectual defanging that keeps people engaged just enough to feel smart—but never uncomfortable enough to question the foundations.
If that feels like too much, the Unsubscribe button works very well. ;)
Elo, no problem—age doesn’t always bring clarity. The irony of your comment is that it performs exactly what it pretends to critique: a surface engagement that gestures at nuance while avoiding the depth required to sustain it. You begin with a polite disavowal of cynicism, positioning yourself as the voice of measured reason, before retreating into the well-worn liberal defense of “shared human needs” as a counter to ideological critique. But what are those needs, exactly? And who decides them? The history of psychology is precisely the history of defining such needs in ways that are convenient to power, stabilizing social orders under the guise of universality.
It’s telling that your response circles back to the personal, not the structural—an assumption about what I “enjoy” rather than an engagement with what was said. There’s a distinct anxiety in that move, a need to trivialize critique as contradiction rather than addressing its substance. “Enjoy capitalism while hating capitalism” is the kind of limp, half-digested quip that suggests you have never actually read Marx, let alone engaged with the contradictions of capital seriously. If you had, you might realize that critique and participation are not opposites but conditions of survival within an economic system that extracts from all of us, regardless of our politics.
So let’s not mistake detachment for insight. The real tragedy is not being too critical—it’s mistaking a lack of commitment for wisdom. That, more than anything, is what keeps the system intact.
Speaking as an Indian woman who was in relationship with a white guy (almost lost my life and my mind), attachment theory really helped me understand that - unlike what the ex said - the problem was not me. He said I needed to “work on myself”, heal my inner child etc etc. I tried. I gave up work for over a year. Meditated. Did the grief work, the shadow work, the dream work, bioenergetics, focussing, NVC, journaling, inner child healing. It didn’t help. It was all the neoliberal individualistic model - fix yourself, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. It sucked.
Because the problem wasn’t me, it was him. It’s impossible to be well regulated in a chaotic, abusive relationship. When I came across attachment theory, it helped me see my needs for kindness, care, empathy, connection were normal (as per Sue Johnson, EFT founder) and not “crazy” or “needy” or “demanding.” These are the bare minimum things to make a relationship tolerable (à la Dan Wile). I became more firm in my needs, rather than trying to self-soothe and go it alone. As PACT therapist Stan Tatkin says, a one-person psychobiological system is “inherently masturbatory.” Lol. It also helped connect me more with my roots and those of the indigenous people where I now live - both our cultures are very communal and relational and it’s *normal* to get needs met by real fleshy humans rather than the nonsensical hyper-independence, separation-individuation focused self-soothing promoted by western (capitalist) psychotherapies.
I then studied relationship psychology at university postgrad. Read over half a thousand papers on it. As well as more on sexism in intimate relationships. The two things together helped me put together and impression of why hetero relationships were going so wrong, esp where race, age etc were also contributing to power dynamics.
I absolutely love the work of Nora Samaran and Carmen Knudsen-Martin in bringing a power analysis to attachment. I also love Zawn Villines work - she doesn’t explicitly talk about attachment but she does refer to all the same needs; to be seen and heard, to matter, to be respected, valued, cared for, nurtured - in the context of sexist heterosexual relationships.
The key way that attachment theory as a fad has gone wrong is in perpetuating the idea of attachment “styles.” It’s a debate in the literature around attachment as a “trait” vs a “state.” A trait is something that’s a bit more fixed and harder to change - potentially arising from childhood wounds. A state is something that changes depending on circumstances.
I agree with Ayoto that when people become disregulated, something external to ourselves is more likely to blame (unlike New Age propaganda that “you create your own feelings” and “think positive thoughts” and “you create your reality” 🤮). It can be a person close to you who is being super disrespectful, inconsistent, ambivalent, scary, unpredictable that makes you feel crazy and off balance…or it can be the whole global capitalist system that keeps us precarious, constantly in guard and off balance etc.
According to those more in the “attachment as a state” camp, it is fundamentally about trust. “Are you there for me? Can I rely on you when I’m in need? Do you have my back? Will you repair when you’ve hurt me?”
I find it helpful to ask these questions in relationships, friendships, professional collaborations where trust is necessary and some kind of power dynamic might be at play. Often the less powerful party is automatically meeting the other’s needs and being reliable, responsive, committed, and attuned. And the more powerful party is somewhat oblivious, disengaged, self-centred, unreliable. You see this even in bigger international spaces - eg US can be whollly unreliable (show up late to multilateral meetings, keep everyone dangling) while others tend not to.
In “A General Theory of Love,” the authors note that attachment needs remain with us cradle to grave. We do not grow out of them or become any less needy over time - we just have more subtle and sophisticated ways to get needs met than children (crying, tantrums etc). One line is forever burned in my memory: “stability means find people who regulate you well and stay near them.” I’ve since stayed away from flakey, inconsistent, fair weather friends and invested more time in reliable, consistent, responsive ones…and found quiet contentment in doing so.
Secure attachment isn’t a trait that you either “have” or “don’t have” (so no book, course, video can give it to you!) - it is a state of being that is constantly built (and unbuilt) by the people and forces that surround us.
Social Baseline Theory is perhaps a better alternative for those who balk at the dyadic relationship focus of attachment theory.
Thanks for writing this, LoWa. There’s a wealth of lived wisdom here, grounded in both your endurance and your scholarship. The way you’ve mapped personal experience onto deeper structural critique, naming the gaslighting, the power imbalances, and the betrayal of relational needs as “neediness”, is deeply validating. It helps to know how much work has already been done, and that we’re not alone in these realities. The neoliberalism masquerading as spiritual growth is especially insidious, asking us to transcend what we haven’t even been allowed to name. Thank you again for speaking to this with such clarity and care.
Thank you Ayoto, I’m humbled you stacked this comment and it’s great to read your writing too - love how you are bridging the psychological, political, interpersonal and even quantum physics!
Thanks so much for sharing this Ayoto. LoWa draws so many ideas together so clearly.
Thank you so much for taking to share all this. It draws together so many important ideas but also experiences
Kinda jotting reflections as I go. First few paragraphs already got me thinking… how can ideas, something non-physical, be commodified under capitalism? I feel the abstract nature of it makes it an excellent tool for manipulation by forces on top of the (gross) hierarchical ladder.
Your description on attachment theory serving as an opium for our pains acts as a reminder of how religion was advertised as a solution to pain, with heaven being the climax. In today’s case, heaven or enlightenment is a secure attachment. Could this be abstracted to other beliefs like Buddhism, or ideologies than promote a “perfect” utopia?
How you describe a securely attached person actually makes me kinda sad. Why would I want to be perfect in an imperfect world? It’s almost silly to expect perfection when uncontrollable forces like work, economy, relationships, and so on aren’t entirely predictable. Being perfect and fitting that mold feels very… disingenuous? Almost as if we’re undermining the righteous anger and genuine passion each and every person has.
Ever since your original attachment theory post I’ve been focusing less on fitting a mold and I’ve begun to accept myself for who I am. Accepting my “outbursts”, rage, sadness, and anxieties as part of me, and treating my emotions as a beautiful, dynamic fascet of life. It makes me sad to think that categorizing people with labels is the norm (one I’m continuing to unlearn) -isn’t that inhumane? Would I be okay with being given a label that invalidates my traumas, pain, and nuances? No, of course not.
Great read and thanks for allowing us to reflect further Ayoto!
We have so much to rage about, to grieve, to be anxious over. I appreciate your dynamism, and I love that you’re embracing all these facets, each a testament of your life. x
Exactly. I prefer not to attach to an ideology either way. It’s tricky because that itself is an ideology. 😉But if I remain centered in the direct experience before the thought..I can respond authentically (I know - a co-opted word) to the ever shifting conditions of the moment versus from a fixed perspective.
As someone who has worked in care roles, witnessing the commodification of care and how this plays out for individuals marked as Other/deviant from the norm, this article hits hard.
I worked at a high school for 5 years supporting students with various diagnoses, and the push from leadership was always to get the students to class, support them to improve their academic performance, and often to simply *stay* at school (framed as them having various personal “barriers” preventing their access, rather than the institution itself containing the barriers). Students were profiled based on various histories and diagnoses, and the emphasis in their profiles would always be on strategies for regulation, which may include time on their phone or playing video games, with the end goal being increased engagement at school (compliance). Reflecting on this while reading your article, it perfectly sums up the underlying feeling of ickiness accompanying these processes and procedures. The fluffy and soft liberal language disguising processes of avoidance and manipulation. School, generally, is a key site of institutionalization and behavior shaping/modification, and while I think that individuals benefits from being able to access more ease and joy in their lives, and perhaps there are strategies that emerge from Attachment Theory which can support this, I agree that it often neglects the broader picture. That it’s reasonable to be distressed when you are forced into a classroom of 32 other students in a building which itself is architecturally designed in a way that is hostile to sensory overwhelm, being told what to do and how to behave. Just some immediate thoughts -- your article really resonated.
This is going to be a lengthy reply so I apologise in advance.
I feel like you may be conflating two separate things. You talk about the industry of healing trying to sell people a sense of wellbeing which may not exist for them for good reason; in essence gaslighting them.
It reminded me of this, by Kai Cheng Thom:
“I think the major difference between a social justice and a white/colonial lens on trauma is the assumption that trauma recovery is the reclamation of safety—that safety is a resource that is simply 'out there' for the taking and all we need to do is work hard enough at therapy.
I was once at a training seminar in Toronto led by a famous & beloved somatic psychologist. She spoke brilliantly. I asked her how healing from trauma was possible for ppl for whom violence & danger are part of everyday life. She said it was not.
Colonial psychology & psychiatry reveal their allegiance to the status quo in their approach to trauma: That resourcing must come from within oneself rather than from the collective. That trauma recovery is feeling safe in society, when in fact society is the source of trauma.
Colonial somatics & psychotherapies teach that the body must relearn to perceive safety. But the bodies of the oppressed are rightly interpreting danger. Our triggers & explosive rage, our dissociation & perfect submission are in fact skills that have kept us alive.
The somatics of social justice cannot (I believe) be a somatics rooted in the colonial frameworks of psychology, psychiatry, or other models linked to the dominance of the nation-state (psychology was not always this way, but has become increasingly so over time).
The somatics of social justice cannot be aimed at restoring the body to a state of homeostasis/neutrality. We must be careful of popular languaging such as the 'regulation' of nervous system & emotion, which implies the control and domination of mind over emotion & sensation.
Because we are not, in the end, preparing the body to 'return' to the general safety of society (this would be gaslighting). we are preparing the body, essentially for struggle—training for better survival & the ability to experience joy in the midst of great danger.
In the cauldron of social justice healing praxis, we must aim for relationality that has the potential to generate social change, to generate insurrection. we must be prepared to challenge norms. acknowledge danger. embrace struggle. take risks.
And above all, we must not overemphasize the importance of individual work (which is important indeed) to the detriment of a somatics that also prepares us, essentially, for war. somatics that allow us to organize together. fight together. live together. love each other.”
(I also recommend Kai Cheng's talk on 'The Communal Organism', as it sounds like you are advocating something similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMi25v4Q_nY )
I want to assure you that this ethos is at the core of all the work that I do as a therapist, and I know I am not alone. I am empowering my clients to be braver, not safer.
I want them to feel empowered to advocate for themselves and to create change, and to challenge issues of injustice, and institutions and systems that keep people disenfranchised and enslaved and disempowered – and that includes the white Imperialist healing industry as well.
There may be some rogue therapists who use their knowledge to control their clients, or disempower them, or keep them stuck in an endless loop of therapy that is selling them something that is unattainable, but I would hope that these are the minority, and it is those individuals that we should hold to account, not attachment theory. I feel you have conflated these issues. Rogue therapists such as those might use ANY approach to manipulate their clients, knowingly or unknowingly, and correlation does not equal causation.
I fundamentally disagree with your paragraph: “It means that you are predictable, that your nervous system does not overreact, that you are well-adjusted, well-regulated, easy to love, easy to work with, easy to be around. It means that you do not burden others with your volatility, your grief, your rage. It means you are stable. Manageable. Safe.”
That is NOT what it means to become more securely attached, at all. Anyone who believes that has misunderstood attachment theory. In fact it means the opposite. It means being able to accept that life is unpredictable, and that your nervous system will react in all sorts of ways, and that you will often be ill-adjusted, dysregulated, difficult to love, difficult to work with, difficult to be around, and YET YOU STILL KEEP GOING. It means you can bounce back, and keep connecting; that your nervous system is in a constant state of flux and that sometimes you will go into shutdown and withdrawal, sometimes you will go into fight / flight / freeze / fawn action modes, and sometimes you will want to connect authentically, and that these states are ALL valid, with no better or worse. It means that you CAN burden others with your volatility, your grief, your rage, and that you can realise it is not a burden at all, but a means of connecting more deeply. It means allowing yourself to be unstable, unmanageable, unsafe, and to love those parts of yourself, and allow them to be loved by others, and to keep connecting. This is the evolutionary purpose of attachment.
Let me ask you this – would you rather be in a relationship with somebody who can engage in cycles of rupture and repair with you, and who works towards resolutions, has the capacity to hold accountability and to reflect and forgive, to share in a deep sense of connectedness and vulnerability, or with someone who avoids all conflict and then threatens to discard you at the earliest signs of difficulty or disagreement?
If your answer is the former rather the latter then you must recognise the benefits of working towards secure-functioning relationships, and how attachment theory as a framework can help us do this, both individually and systemically. By trying to empower, not control.
I appreciate this discussion, but implore you to think again about all you have written here. Adopting the position that “attachment theory is evil” is simply the flipside of the very coin you are critiquing.
It must be unsettling, watching the framework slip.
Not just here. Not just me. But everywhere.
You built the language so carefully, so gently, that you assumed it would always hold. That people would always return to it. That, if nothing else, they would believe in you—the guide, the explainer, the one who offers reassurance that, yes, things can be mended, that everything can be understood if we just use the right words.
But something is shifting. Not just in this conversation, not just in theory, but in the world. The old tricks—the soft corrections, the gentle redirections, the insistence that if we just looked a little harder, we’d see that healing was always the goal—don’t land the way they used to.
Because people are noticing. They’re noticing how certain ideas always seem to circle back to control. They’re noticing how co-opted liberation is just another form of containment, dressed in softer language. They’re noticing the quiet, careful ways people like you redirect critique, making it seem as though the only failure is in understanding, never in the system itself.
You keep speaking as though you are holding something together. But what if there is nothing to hold? What if people are no longer interested in the words you offer?
What if they’re already gone?
This is not about me. It never was. It is about the quiet, growing recognition that the old ways of keeping people inside—through reassurance, through guidance, through the performance of pseudo-wisdom—are no longer enough. The world is slipping out of its grasp. The language is losing its power.
You feel it, don’t you?
That’s why you’re still writing while apologising.
I hope that we can all usher out those old ways of keeping people inside and embrace new frameworks, together, feeling not unsettled but liberated!
Wow. I can’t explain how freeing this was to read. Thank you for this. My only question is, are there parts to the theory that are good to be applied when looking to be more regulated given our societal positions?
The trap is lodged within the discourse. Regulation is a petition. a bid of legibility inside a system designed to keep us in line within the industrial structure. we don’t have to obey it. we can sit with it. turn it over. hold it. throw it. play with it.
and regulated in relation to what?
a subject is never free floating. it is ALWAYS structured by the gaze. by the demand. by the Other.
to call for regulation presupposes a standard. a fantasy of the well-adjusted subject. but whose fantasy is that? who benefits from your coherence? when the colonized swallos the language of its oppressor, it isn’t just speech that they are learning. it is subjugation. stability is a construct. the price is silence
regulation? is what they tell you to seek when they’ve decided you cannot win. survival is a brutal, indifferent business.
who decided disregulation was a problem? who decided the fix was personal? capitalism requires crisis, Ruthie Gilmore would say. Regulation is the domestication of distress.
So what is the use of Attachment Theory? If it helps you to see the patterns, fine. If it helps you to survive, fine. but if it keeps you looking inward when the issue is out there, if it turns your suffering into self-improvement project instead of a structural indictment, then this is not medicine. this is management.
the question is never, can this framework help? No, the question is always, what does it demand in return?
Very well put, I completely follow. Thank you again for sharing this with us. I really needed this today.
You're very welcome Rickey
It’s important to not be overly cynical about the motivations of individual Attachment Theory practitioners. To assume a complete lack of integrity is an overstep (in my opinion of course) that doesn’t serve. The initial analysis was illuminating, inviting critical thinking, and framing the therapeutic structure in a novel way. Buyer beware of yet another popular offering in the wellness industrial complex. The danger in these ideological arguments seems to evolve, however, so that the crack where the light comes in becomes a bit blinding. I enjoy being able to more deeply understand (as per Ayoto’s creative analysis) why I might feel oddly annoyed, repeatedly taking a step back from the marketing. Yet the beauty of Unsubscribe exists. I do think human beings have some shared basic needs and some shared patterns in seeking fulfillment which can actually be helpful to identify. I adore the addition of nuance in different lived experiences and the problems offered by and to the sometimes too simple formulations. Hope you don’t mind this sharing. You seem open. Maybe even secure :)
The light only blinds those who have stayed too long in the cave. The problem isn’t the intensity of critique—it’s critique being sanded down into polite, market-friendly hesitations. The wellness-industrial complex thrives on precisely that kind of ‘balanced’ framing, where systemic ideology gets downgraded into a buyer-beware consumer warning, and structural analysis is reduced to a ‘nuanced’ preference.
That’s the intellectual defanging that keeps people engaged just enough to feel smart—but never uncomfortable enough to question the foundations.
If that feels like too much, the Unsubscribe button works very well. ;)
No problem, young man. Do you and enjoy capitalism while hating capitalism. Makes for an interesting read sometimes.
Elo, no problem—age doesn’t always bring clarity. The irony of your comment is that it performs exactly what it pretends to critique: a surface engagement that gestures at nuance while avoiding the depth required to sustain it. You begin with a polite disavowal of cynicism, positioning yourself as the voice of measured reason, before retreating into the well-worn liberal defense of “shared human needs” as a counter to ideological critique. But what are those needs, exactly? And who decides them? The history of psychology is precisely the history of defining such needs in ways that are convenient to power, stabilizing social orders under the guise of universality.
It’s telling that your response circles back to the personal, not the structural—an assumption about what I “enjoy” rather than an engagement with what was said. There’s a distinct anxiety in that move, a need to trivialize critique as contradiction rather than addressing its substance. “Enjoy capitalism while hating capitalism” is the kind of limp, half-digested quip that suggests you have never actually read Marx, let alone engaged with the contradictions of capital seriously. If you had, you might realize that critique and participation are not opposites but conditions of survival within an economic system that extracts from all of us, regardless of our politics.
So let’s not mistake detachment for insight. The real tragedy is not being too critical—it’s mistaking a lack of commitment for wisdom. That, more than anything, is what keeps the system intact.