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EFT Strategies

This document discusses attachment strategies used by members in relationships to deal with conflict and frustration of needs. It outlines two main strategies - anxious preoccupied clinging and detached avoidance. Anxious partners are more prone to anger while avoidant partners experience intense hostility and attribute this to their partners. Avoidant partners also tend to avoid seeking or giving support when attachment needs arise. These insecure habitual engagement patterns involve specific behavioral responses to regulate emotions and protect oneself from rejection and abandonment. Attachment style impacts marital satisfaction, as those with insecurely attached spouses report lower satisfaction.

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Allen Patrick
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101 views1 page

EFT Strategies

This document discusses attachment strategies used by members in relationships to deal with conflict and frustration of needs. It outlines two main strategies - anxious preoccupied clinging and detached avoidance. Anxious partners are more prone to anger while avoidant partners experience intense hostility and attribute this to their partners. Avoidant partners also tend to avoid seeking or giving support when attachment needs arise. These insecure habitual engagement patterns involve specific behavioral responses to regulate emotions and protect oneself from rejection and abandonment. Attachment style impacts marital satisfaction, as those with insecurely attached spouses report lower satisfaction.

Uploaded by

Allen Patrick
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How and what strategies members use to deal with conflict and the frustration of

needs. How do members respond to requests for support and comfort?


Attachment responses are organized along two dimensions, anxiety and avoidance.​ ​W​hen the
connection with an irreplaceable other is threatened but not yet severed,​ the attachment
system may become hyperactivated or go into overdrive​. ​Attachment behaviors become
heightened and intense​ ​as anxious clinging, pursuit, and even a​ggres​sive attempts to control
and obtain a response from the loved one escalate. ​From this perspective, most c​riticism,
blaming, and emotionally loaded demands in distressed relationships are attempts to deal with
and resolve attachment hurts and fears.

The second strategy for dealing with the lack of safe emotional engagement, ​especially
when hope for responsiveness is tenuous,​ is to attempt to deactivate the attachment system
and suppress attachment needs​. ​The most commonly observed ways of doing this are to ​focus
obsessively on tasks, and limit or avoid distressing attempts at emotional engagement with
attachment figures​. ​These two basic strategies— ​anxious​ preoccupied clinging and ​detached
avoidance—can develop into habitual styles of engagement with intimate others​.​ Angry
criticism, viewed through the attachment lens,is most often an attempt to modify the other
partner’s inaccessibility, ​and as a protest response to isolation and perceived abandonment by
the partner.​ ​Avoidant withdrawal may be seen as an attempt to contain the interaction and
regulate fears of rejection and confirmation of fears about the unlovable nature of the self.

A third i​nsecure ​strategy has been identified that is essentially a combination of seeking
closeness and then fearful avoidance of closeness when it is offered. This strategy is usually
referred to as disorganized; this strategy is associated with chaotic and traumatic attachments.
In a​nxious partners are more prone to strong anger,​ whereas ​avoidants seem to experience
intense hostility and to also attribute this hostility to their partners.​ ​Moreover, ​avoidant partners
tend to feel hostile when the other partner expresses distress or seeks support​. Research
suggests that ​avoidant partners can be socially skilled in general but avoid seeking or giving
support when attachment needs arise within them or their partner.​ ​Avoidant partners also tend
to be more prone to promiscuous sexuality​, ​anxiety and avoidance foster a rigid hypervigilant
attitude to novelty and uncertainty and an equation of letting own one’s guard with helplessness​.

These factors are ​preludes to narrow rigid patterns of interaction and a constriction of the
flexible openness necessary for closeness and connection.​ ​These ​insecure habitual forms of
engagement involve ​specific ​behavioral responses to regulate emotions and protect the self
from rejection and abandonment.​The term a​ttachment styles, implies an individual
characteristic, is used interchangeably withthe word attachment strategies, which is more
context specific. ​ The description of these strategies fits with descriptive research on ​marital
distress, for example, the delineation of the blame–pursue followed by defend–distance pattern
as a prelude to relationship breakdown. ​A​ttachment style affects marital satisfaction.​ ​Individuals
with insecurely attached spouses report lower satisfaction.

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