March 18, 2025 • 18 mins
George Noory and counselor Thais Gibson explore attachment theory, how conditioning in childhood affects romantic relationships and friendships as adults, the four types of healthy and unhealthy attachment styles, and if the subconscious mind can be reconditioned to overcome childhood trauma.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back ty Skipson as an author, counselor speaker leader
in the personal development field. She has been recognized by
Psychology Today, Times, Business News, and many other outlets for
her cutting edge research on the subconscious mind and personal transformation.
One of her books is called Learning Love Best, The
Real Best Best Relationships of your life using integrated attachment theory.
(00:30):
Tyas Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hi, George, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
How did you get involved in this field?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I got involved in this field because I myself had
an insecure attachment style, and so I grew up in
a household where there was a lot of chaos and essentially,
as a result of that, started digging into how to
do relationships in a better way at a pretty young age.
And when I started seeing a whole bunch of transformation
within myself, was really excited to share it with many
(01:00):
other people.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
There are some areas I never knew existed, and still
I did some homework with your work, like attachment theory.
I never even knew what that was.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
And it's such a huge concept.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's one of the things that affects our relationships more
than pretty much anything else. So it's pretty exciting to
dig into.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Let's talk about that. What is it? Give us that definition?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, So, attachment theories essentially the study of how our
conditioning in childhood with our parents or caregivers affects our
adult relationships. So we essentially go through life in our
early childhood and we learn, based on all of the
repeated patterns that we're exposed to, what to expect in relationships,
(01:44):
how to give love in relationships, how to receive love,
what our needs are, how to communicate, and there's so
many of these components, but not everybody learns things in
the same way. So if we end up having a
different attachment style than somebody else, can cause a lot
of challenges. And I almost equate it to if you're
(02:04):
playing a board game with somebody and you sit down
and let's say, George, you have the rules for scrabble
and I have the rules for Monopoly. Even if we
want to have a really fun time playing the board game,
there's just going to be confusion and unnecessary challenges because
we have different rules. And really, if you think about
it that way, your attachment style is the subconscious set
(02:25):
of rules that you learn about how to connect and
be in relationship with anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Can you believe, as I do, that your development as
a child ends up being near your development as an adult,
Isn't it?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I think it's really important to note that everything
is conditioning. So we know from a neuroscience perspective that
your subconscious mind, which is really your conditioned or habituated self,
it can be reconditioned at any point in time if
we get enough repeated exposure to a new way of being,
a new form of communit, medication, or a new habit
(03:01):
can recondition our subconscious. But where we get the vast
majority of our subconscious habits and patterns is literally from
our childhood, and so that really forms the lens that
we see the world through. So while we can have
things that recondition us throughout life in small ways, the
majority of who we are definitely is majorly influenced by
(03:22):
our childhood.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Taysh What creates the serial killer? What happens?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It's a great question.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I mean, really, when you're looking at serial killers, they
tend to fall into something called the dark tetrad. So
the dark tech trat are really these subclinical personality traits,
and they're not always quite strong enough to be observed
as an actual disorder, although we can definitely have as
somebody who's got antisocial personality disorder right is a psychopath
(03:53):
or sociopath. We can definitely see these types of things,
but there's often also overlap with people who may have narcisses,
stick qualities, Machabelian qualities, and as a result, will see
individuals from their conditioning from their early childhood or upbringing
essentially end up in situations where because of trauma or
(04:14):
because of genetic predisposition, you'll see somebody go into different
patterns where maybe they're seeking power, or they're grandiose and
they have entitlement, or they lack empathy, or they really
have no compassion for somebody and they're willing to really
stop at no ends to get to those means, like
they really want whatever the outcome is. So if they're
(04:35):
in a fit of rage, if they don't know how
to regulate themselves, then they may derive some sort of
power or pleasure even from that particular way of living.
And there's something called sadism, which is really a personality
trait characterized by the enjoyment of inflicting pain and humiliation
(04:56):
and suffering. And of course we could definitely see a
serial killer be highly like to have that quality or
trade as.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well somebody like Ted Bundy who screwed him up his parents.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I mean, you can make an argument that there's
some sort of genetic predisposition in various ways. But really
I'm big on conditioning, and if somebody goes through enough
childhood trauma, then what essentially happens is we adapt. Right, So,
if somebody goes through a whole bunch of trauma growing up,
maybe they don't get you know, a sense of being
seen or heard or important, maybe they get bullied, maybe
(05:29):
there's you know, actual violence in their home or their
childhood or upbringing. Well that's the conditioning that that person
then learns, and so you're very likely to see that
individual as an adult be like, Okay, this is my
subconscious comfort zone, this is what I know. But also
we tend to really want to compensate for the things
that we go through in childhood. So you may see
(05:50):
as an example that Ted Bundy perhaps is going, well,
you know what, I actually want to feel power over
others because I felt so powerless as a child wild
or I want to see other people suffer because I
felt like I suffered so much and I want to
have the upper hand this time.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And so if there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Of trauma, then truly that can cause somebody to adapt
by trying to be the perpetrator instead of the victim.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
At what moment in their life do they flip? Do
they switch? Do they be gilling that?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
A lot of research shows us it's really around that
individuation stage when somebody starts developing their own sense of self.
So going into teenage years, that's when you're going to
start to see a lot of.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
These symptoms take shape.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
But you know, as an example, a lot of these
things start building early roots at a young age. And
as an example, I had a client once when I
was running my private practice back in the day, and
he had an experience where he saw his sister get
run over by a car when he was five or
six years old, and you know, he as an adult
(06:57):
had some really extreme patterns of behavior. We could definitely
say they existed within that dark tetrat of traits. Narcissism, macavalianism, psychopathy,
even sadism, and you can see how, yes, he didn't
start expressing those things until he was a teenager, and
those things weren't as obvious, but there were definitely a
(07:18):
series of seats that planted, and that seemed to be
one of the big first ones. And so it can
really be these extreme experiences somebody is exposed to that
caused somebody to feel powerless or confused, and then of
course they're going to go out of their way to
try to adapt or compensate for that in various ways
as an adult.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
My granddaughter, whom my help raises a little baby girl,
grew up, got married, and has three kids of her own.
She's made me a great grandfather, she's made my mother
a great great grandmother. But she's one of the most
loving individuals I've ever known. And these kids are getting
all of that love. How are they going to turn out?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I mean, they're so much more likely to turn out
in a really beautiful way. And kids, when they are born,
they are seeking really specific things. They're wired for, really
specific things that will make them securely attached. So some
of those specific things are do you have a parent
who when the child is distressed, notices those cues is
(08:20):
attuned to the child is going to go towards them
and try to help the child regulate, and if a
child gets a tremendous amount of love and security and safety.
Something that's really interesting is that our subconscious mind, which
is really our habituated self, our pattern self, it's responsible
for ninety five to ninety seven percent of all of
our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions or
(08:42):
choices on a daily basis. And so we have a
lot of individuals who who think, oh, no, we're our
conscious mind. Whatever we choose is is how we're going
to show up. You know, if we say we're going
to break a habit or change how we show up,
we're just going to follow through. But I mean, you
see all over society that that's simply not the case.
We've all seen people who are like, I'm going to
quit eating chocolate or I'm going to go to the
(09:03):
gym every day and set an intention from their conscious
level of mind, but don't necessarily follow through on an
ongoing basis because it's not patterned in, it's not conditioned
in to become a habit or a part of who
they are. And so if you have somebody who grows
up in this super healthy household, so much of that
ninety five to ninety seven percent of them, the part
(09:25):
of them that's actually really running the show, is going
to show up with really healthy secure patterns. Also be
warm and loving, also be able to communicate openly, feel
safe to rely on other people, allow people to rely
on them, and all of those things will go a
really long way.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Tys Gibson with us. Tell us about your first name.
That's different.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
My first name I was actually named after an opera
called Meditation to Tys by Jules Massonet. So my parents
names are Melanie and Peter, and my name is Tyss
and my sister's name is Shorland. Unique names they came
up with.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Your last book that I have is called Learning Love.
Is that it?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes? I have two books.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
So what it's called the Attachment Theory Guide and the
most recently Learning Love and Learning Love is really about
how all of our condition and growing up has such
a huge impact on the way we tend to navigate
relationships as adults.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And you talk about four special attachment styles. What are they?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yes, So there are four attachment styles I think it's
really important to know that every person has an attachment style,
and the first one is the securely attached style. So
when you said you know your family is going to
end up having this this generation of probably really healthy
kids because of the way that your granddaughter operates, you know,
(10:47):
generally what you're going to see is individuals are more
likely to be securely attached. So securely attached kids grow
up with what we just talked about, a lot of
that warmth, that care, that attonment, and so they learn
all these things as at time, like I can rely
on people, I can let my guard down, I can connect.
And interestingly, about fifty percent of the population is securely attached,
(11:08):
and it's interesting to me because that tends to mirror
the divorce rate that we see in North America around
fifty percent. And the other fifty percent of the population
is insecurely attached. And that consists of three insecure styles.
So one, and I think everybody listening can probably think
of somebody in their life that they'll hear in this,
or maybe they'll hear themselves in this one is the
(11:30):
anxious attachment style. So the anxious attachment style usually grows
up in a home where there's a lot of love,
but it's really inconsistent. So it could be that there's parents,
but they're working all the time, they're not always available,
and so this child grows up in this household having
love and connection, but feeling like it's always gone, it's
always taken away, and so they become really preoccupied with
(11:50):
not being abandoned, not having love taken away, And as adults,
they end up being very needy or clingy or anxious
in relationships to hold on very very tightly to people,
but sometimes so tight that they accidentally push people away
because they're pushing for commitment too fast, or they're trying
to get too close too soon, or you know, they're
(12:11):
so attached that it can feel engulfing to other people.
And so that's one of the three attachment styles. It's insecure.
At the other end of the continuum, we have a
dismissive avoidant attachment style. Dismissive avoidance generally end up with
a lot of childhood emotional neglect, so they usually don't
really have a lot of connection growing up. Parents are
(12:33):
maybe unavailable or really busy all the time, and this
child grows up wanting that attunement, wanting that connection and closeness,
yearning for it, but just feeling like it's constantly rejected.
And dismissive avoidance often have like a pretty healthy, stable
childhood from you know, a security standpoint, foods on the table,
(12:53):
you know, they're at school on time, They've got healthy
habits in the home. But often the parents are just
not emotionally a bit well. They're not checked in with
the kids, they're not able to talk about emotions, and
so this individual grows up as an adult and is
really afraid of too much closeness because when they had
a lot of vulnerability and yearned for that closeness as
a child, it felt like it was constant getting rejected.
(13:15):
So dismissive avoidance end up being partners in relationships as
adults who are constantly keeping people at arm's length, constantly
trying to make sure that nobody gets too close, and
they're often quick to leave relationships if somebody's pushing too soon,
or they're often quick to leave relationships as soon as
they think things are too real, the feelings are too strong,
(13:36):
because they're so afraid of that commitment and so afraid
of being engulfed in that closeness but not having their
needs met again. And then the last but not least,
there's a fearful avoidant attachment style. And the fearful avoidant
usually grows up with a lot of chaos or trauma.
So this could be a parent's an alcoholic or an
active addiction.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
This could be a parent is perhaps.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Has narcissistic personality disorder or of mental health issue, and
so this child grows up never knowing what they're going
to get. Sometimes the parent's nice and loving, sometimes the
parent's terrifying and cruel, and so basically this individual yearns
for love and connection but is really scared of it
at the same time. And so as an adult they
(14:18):
end up wanting love, wanting closeness, and trying to engage
in deep connection with others. But then as soon as
there is depth, they tend to really push away as well,
similar to the dismissible avoidance.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
So they almost have both sides.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well, they'll be anxious and they'll be avoidant, and they're
really that hot and cold partner in relationships, and they
fear betrayal. They have a hard time trusting people. They
tend to constantly read between the lines and look for
red flags on anything and everything. They tend to be
really hyper vigilant and good at catching lies or incongruencies.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
But they also tend to be the.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Roller coaster partner in relationships with lots of ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I love these four attachments. Three of them don't shan
very good.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Three of them can be very tricky to be And
you know, as I said, it sort of mirrors the
divorce rate, so we can see that. You know, there's
a really strong impact of your attachment style on your relationships,
on the ability for your relationships to last. And interestingly,
the secure individuals. Securely attached people not only report having
(15:24):
the longest relationships, which to me isn't that strong of
a statistic standing alone, because it's like, you could have
a long relationship, but you could be miserable. But they
actually also report being fulfilled in their relationships. And that's
because they have healthy conditioning. They learn I can lean
on people, they can lean on me, will communicate through conflict,
will solve conflict when it happens. We can be vulnerable
(15:46):
with each other. We can share in our world with
one another, and we can build together. We can go
create in the world with each other and because they
have such healthy conditioning, relationships are more fulfilling. But if
instead you're constantly feeling like nobody's going to abandon you,
like the anxious attachment style, and you're always in fear
of that, or if you're constantly afraid that you're going
to be trapped or engulfed, like the dismissive avoidance, or
(16:09):
you want love but you can never trust it and
so you pinball back and forth like the fearful avoidant.
All of those attachment patterns are very draining and they're
really tough on people experiencing them.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
What percent of the people are securely attached?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Roughly fifty percent, that's so that's pretty high. It's pretty high.
There's some more recent research it looks like that's actually
downward trending closer to forty. But historically for generations it's
been about fifty. And and that recent cutting edge research
isn't it's more through you know, long standing polling, so
not as in depth research.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I know the other fifty percent that's split up with
those three other sections.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yes, it's about twenty percent anxious, so that anxious, you know,
the fear of abandonment, attachment style than another twenty percent
dis in missive avoidant, so constantly wanting that distance, and
interestingly enough, those two often end up in relationships together.
It's what we call the anxious avoidant trap, where one
person's constantly trying to connect and get closer, the other
(17:13):
person's constantly trying to push the other person away. And
then the fearful avoidant is that remaining ten or so percent.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
How many people have this dark tetra trait?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Oh, my goodness, the dark tetrad is thought to be
actually ten percent, somewhere between seven to ten percent, which.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And it's ten percent too high, right, It is.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Ten percent too high, I mean, especially because the dark tetrad.
You know, individuals with an insecure attachment style, they will
make mistakes in relationships. They'll push people away, or they'll
cling too much, or they'll send mixed signals.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
But they're not as you know.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I often use this quote or this saying that trauma
is contagious. And it's not contagious obviously George in Aderam
theory way, but it's contagious in the fact that whenever
we're in proximity to somebody who's highly traumatized, because our
subconscious is constantly being reconditioned. If we're if we live,
(18:11):
for example, with somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder, you
can bet that you're going to end up taking on
some of that trauma because just by proximity, by being
exposed repetitively to these types of really traumatic behaviors from
the narcissist. It's repetition and emotion that really conditioned.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot
com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back ty Skipson as an author, counselor speaker leader
in the personal development field. She has been recognized by
Psychology Today, Times, Business News, and many other outlets for
her cutting edge research on the subconscious mind and personal transformation.
One of her books is called Learning Love Best, The
Real Best Best Relationships of your life using integrated attachment theory.
(00:30):
Tyas Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hi, George, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
How did you get involved in this field?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I got involved in this field because I myself had
an insecure attachment style, and so I grew up in
a household where there was a lot of chaos and essentially,
as a result of that, started digging into how to
do relationships in a better way at a pretty young age.
And when I started seeing a whole bunch of transformation
within myself, was really excited to share it with many
(01:00):
other people.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
There are some areas I never knew existed, and still
I did some homework with your work, like attachment theory.
I never even knew what that was.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
And it's such a huge concept.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's one of the things that affects our relationships more
than pretty much anything else. So it's pretty exciting to
dig into.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Let's talk about that. What is it? Give us that definition?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, So, attachment theories essentially the study of how our
conditioning in childhood with our parents or caregivers affects our
adult relationships. So we essentially go through life in our
early childhood and we learn, based on all of the
repeated patterns that we're exposed to, what to expect in relationships,
(01:44):
how to give love in relationships, how to receive love,
what our needs are, how to communicate, and there's so
many of these components, but not everybody learns things in
the same way. So if we end up having a
different attachment style than somebody else, can cause a lot
of challenges. And I almost equate it to if you're
(02:04):
playing a board game with somebody and you sit down
and let's say, George, you have the rules for scrabble
and I have the rules for Monopoly. Even if we
want to have a really fun time playing the board game,
there's just going to be confusion and unnecessary challenges because
we have different rules. And really, if you think about
it that way, your attachment style is the subconscious set
(02:25):
of rules that you learn about how to connect and
be in relationship with anybody else.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Can you believe, as I do, that your development as
a child ends up being near your development as an adult,
Isn't it?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And I think it's really important to note that everything
is conditioning. So we know from a neuroscience perspective that
your subconscious mind, which is really your conditioned or habituated self,
it can be reconditioned at any point in time if
we get enough repeated exposure to a new way of being,
a new form of communit, medication, or a new habit
(03:01):
can recondition our subconscious. But where we get the vast
majority of our subconscious habits and patterns is literally from
our childhood, and so that really forms the lens that
we see the world through. So while we can have
things that recondition us throughout life in small ways, the
majority of who we are definitely is majorly influenced by
(03:22):
our childhood.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Taysh What creates the serial killer? What happens?
Speaker 4 (03:28):
It's a great question.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I mean, really, when you're looking at serial killers, they
tend to fall into something called the dark tetrad. So
the dark tech trat are really these subclinical personality traits,
and they're not always quite strong enough to be observed
as an actual disorder, although we can definitely have as
somebody who's got antisocial personality disorder right is a psychopath
(03:53):
or sociopath. We can definitely see these types of things,
but there's often also overlap with people who may have narcisses,
stick qualities, Machabelian qualities, and as a result, will see
individuals from their conditioning from their early childhood or upbringing
essentially end up in situations where because of trauma or
(04:14):
because of genetic predisposition, you'll see somebody go into different
patterns where maybe they're seeking power, or they're grandiose and
they have entitlement, or they lack empathy, or they really
have no compassion for somebody and they're willing to really
stop at no ends to get to those means, like
they really want whatever the outcome is. So if they're
(04:35):
in a fit of rage, if they don't know how
to regulate themselves, then they may derive some sort of
power or pleasure even from that particular way of living.
And there's something called sadism, which is really a personality
trait characterized by the enjoyment of inflicting pain and humiliation
(04:56):
and suffering. And of course we could definitely see a
serial killer be highly like to have that quality or
trade as.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well somebody like Ted Bundy who screwed him up his parents.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I mean, you can make an argument that there's
some sort of genetic predisposition in various ways. But really
I'm big on conditioning, and if somebody goes through enough
childhood trauma, then what essentially happens is we adapt. Right, So,
if somebody goes through a whole bunch of trauma growing up,
maybe they don't get you know, a sense of being
seen or heard or important, maybe they get bullied, maybe
(05:29):
there's you know, actual violence in their home or their
childhood or upbringing. Well that's the conditioning that that person
then learns, and so you're very likely to see that
individual as an adult be like, Okay, this is my
subconscious comfort zone, this is what I know. But also
we tend to really want to compensate for the things
that we go through in childhood. So you may see
(05:50):
as an example that Ted Bundy perhaps is going, well,
you know what, I actually want to feel power over
others because I felt so powerless as a child wild
or I want to see other people suffer because I
felt like I suffered so much and I want to
have the upper hand this time.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
And so if there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Of trauma, then truly that can cause somebody to adapt
by trying to be the perpetrator instead of the victim.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
At what moment in their life do they flip? Do
they switch? Do they be gilling that?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
A lot of research shows us it's really around that
individuation stage when somebody starts developing their own sense of self.
So going into teenage years, that's when you're going to
start to see a lot of.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
These symptoms take shape.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
But you know, as an example, a lot of these
things start building early roots at a young age. And
as an example, I had a client once when I
was running my private practice back in the day, and
he had an experience where he saw his sister get
run over by a car when he was five or
six years old, and you know, he as an adult
(06:57):
had some really extreme patterns of behavior. We could definitely
say they existed within that dark tetrat of traits. Narcissism, macavalianism, psychopathy,
even sadism, and you can see how, yes, he didn't
start expressing those things until he was a teenager, and
those things weren't as obvious, but there were definitely a
(07:18):
series of seats that planted, and that seemed to be
one of the big first ones. And so it can
really be these extreme experiences somebody is exposed to that
caused somebody to feel powerless or confused, and then of
course they're going to go out of their way to
try to adapt or compensate for that in various ways
as an adult.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
My granddaughter, whom my help raises a little baby girl,
grew up, got married, and has three kids of her own.
She's made me a great grandfather, she's made my mother
a great great grandmother. But she's one of the most
loving individuals I've ever known. And these kids are getting
all of that love. How are they going to turn out?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I mean, they're so much more likely to turn out
in a really beautiful way. And kids, when they are born,
they are seeking really specific things. They're wired for, really
specific things that will make them securely attached. So some
of those specific things are do you have a parent
who when the child is distressed, notices those cues is
(08:20):
attuned to the child is going to go towards them
and try to help the child regulate, and if a
child gets a tremendous amount of love and security and safety.
Something that's really interesting is that our subconscious mind, which
is really our habituated self, our pattern self, it's responsible
for ninety five to ninety seven percent of all of
our beliefs, our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions or
(08:42):
choices on a daily basis. And so we have a
lot of individuals who who think, oh, no, we're our
conscious mind. Whatever we choose is is how we're going
to show up. You know, if we say we're going
to break a habit or change how we show up,
we're just going to follow through. But I mean, you
see all over society that that's simply not the case.
We've all seen people who are like, I'm going to
quit eating chocolate or I'm going to go to the
(09:03):
gym every day and set an intention from their conscious
level of mind, but don't necessarily follow through on an
ongoing basis because it's not patterned in, it's not conditioned
in to become a habit or a part of who
they are. And so if you have somebody who grows
up in this super healthy household, so much of that
ninety five to ninety seven percent of them, the part
(09:25):
of them that's actually really running the show, is going
to show up with really healthy secure patterns. Also be
warm and loving, also be able to communicate openly, feel
safe to rely on other people, allow people to rely
on them, and all of those things will go a
really long way.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Tys Gibson with us. Tell us about your first name.
That's different.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
My first name I was actually named after an opera
called Meditation to Tys by Jules Massonet. So my parents
names are Melanie and Peter, and my name is Tyss
and my sister's name is Shorland. Unique names they came
up with.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Your last book that I have is called Learning Love.
Is that it?
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yes? I have two books.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
So what it's called the Attachment Theory Guide and the
most recently Learning Love and Learning Love is really about
how all of our condition and growing up has such
a huge impact on the way we tend to navigate
relationships as adults.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And you talk about four special attachment styles. What are they?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yes, So there are four attachment styles I think it's
really important to know that every person has an attachment style,
and the first one is the securely attached style. So
when you said you know your family is going to
end up having this this generation of probably really healthy
kids because of the way that your granddaughter operates, you know,
(10:47):
generally what you're going to see is individuals are more
likely to be securely attached. So securely attached kids grow
up with what we just talked about, a lot of
that warmth, that care, that attonment, and so they learn
all these things as at time, like I can rely
on people, I can let my guard down, I can connect.
And interestingly, about fifty percent of the population is securely attached,
(11:08):
and it's interesting to me because that tends to mirror
the divorce rate that we see in North America around
fifty percent. And the other fifty percent of the population
is insecurely attached. And that consists of three insecure styles.
So one, and I think everybody listening can probably think
of somebody in their life that they'll hear in this,
or maybe they'll hear themselves in this one is the
(11:30):
anxious attachment style. So the anxious attachment style usually grows
up in a home where there's a lot of love,
but it's really inconsistent. So it could be that there's parents,
but they're working all the time, they're not always available,
and so this child grows up in this household having
love and connection, but feeling like it's always gone, it's
always taken away, and so they become really preoccupied with
(11:50):
not being abandoned, not having love taken away, And as adults,
they end up being very needy or clingy or anxious
in relationships to hold on very very tightly to people,
but sometimes so tight that they accidentally push people away
because they're pushing for commitment too fast, or they're trying
to get too close too soon, or you know, they're
(12:11):
so attached that it can feel engulfing to other people.
And so that's one of the three attachment styles. It's insecure.
At the other end of the continuum, we have a
dismissive avoidant attachment style. Dismissive avoidance generally end up with
a lot of childhood emotional neglect, so they usually don't
really have a lot of connection growing up. Parents are
(12:33):
maybe unavailable or really busy all the time, and this
child grows up wanting that attunement, wanting that connection and closeness,
yearning for it, but just feeling like it's constantly rejected.
And dismissive avoidance often have like a pretty healthy, stable
childhood from you know, a security standpoint, foods on the table,
(12:53):
you know, they're at school on time, They've got healthy
habits in the home. But often the parents are just
not emotionally a bit well. They're not checked in with
the kids, they're not able to talk about emotions, and
so this individual grows up as an adult and is
really afraid of too much closeness because when they had
a lot of vulnerability and yearned for that closeness as
a child, it felt like it was constant getting rejected.
(13:15):
So dismissive avoidance end up being partners in relationships as
adults who are constantly keeping people at arm's length, constantly
trying to make sure that nobody gets too close, and
they're often quick to leave relationships if somebody's pushing too soon,
or they're often quick to leave relationships as soon as
they think things are too real, the feelings are too strong,
(13:36):
because they're so afraid of that commitment and so afraid
of being engulfed in that closeness but not having their
needs met again. And then the last but not least,
there's a fearful avoidant attachment style. And the fearful avoidant
usually grows up with a lot of chaos or trauma.
So this could be a parent's an alcoholic or an
active addiction.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
This could be a parent is perhaps.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Has narcissistic personality disorder or of mental health issue, and
so this child grows up never knowing what they're going
to get. Sometimes the parent's nice and loving, sometimes the
parent's terrifying and cruel, and so basically this individual yearns
for love and connection but is really scared of it
at the same time. And so as an adult they
(14:18):
end up wanting love, wanting closeness, and trying to engage
in deep connection with others. But then as soon as
there is depth, they tend to really push away as well,
similar to the dismissible avoidance.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
So they almost have both sides.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Well, they'll be anxious and they'll be avoidant, and they're
really that hot and cold partner in relationships, and they
fear betrayal. They have a hard time trusting people. They
tend to constantly read between the lines and look for
red flags on anything and everything. They tend to be
really hyper vigilant and good at catching lies or incongruencies.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
But they also tend to be the.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Roller coaster partner in relationships with lots of ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I love these four attachments. Three of them don't shan
very good.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Three of them can be very tricky to be And
you know, as I said, it sort of mirrors the
divorce rate, so we can see that. You know, there's
a really strong impact of your attachment style on your relationships,
on the ability for your relationships to last. And interestingly,
the secure individuals. Securely attached people not only report having
(15:24):
the longest relationships, which to me isn't that strong of
a statistic standing alone, because it's like, you could have
a long relationship, but you could be miserable. But they
actually also report being fulfilled in their relationships. And that's
because they have healthy conditioning. They learn I can lean
on people, they can lean on me, will communicate through conflict,
will solve conflict when it happens. We can be vulnerable
(15:46):
with each other. We can share in our world with
one another, and we can build together. We can go
create in the world with each other and because they
have such healthy conditioning, relationships are more fulfilling. But if
instead you're constantly feeling like nobody's going to abandon you,
like the anxious attachment style, and you're always in fear
of that, or if you're constantly afraid that you're going
to be trapped or engulfed, like the dismissive avoidance, or
(16:09):
you want love but you can never trust it and
so you pinball back and forth like the fearful avoidant.
All of those attachment patterns are very draining and they're
really tough on people experiencing them.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
What percent of the people are securely attached?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Roughly fifty percent, that's so that's pretty high. It's pretty high.
There's some more recent research it looks like that's actually
downward trending closer to forty. But historically for generations it's
been about fifty. And and that recent cutting edge research
isn't it's more through you know, long standing polling, so
not as in depth research.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I know the other fifty percent that's split up with
those three other sections.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yes, it's about twenty percent anxious, so that anxious, you know,
the fear of abandonment, attachment style than another twenty percent
dis in missive avoidant, so constantly wanting that distance, and
interestingly enough, those two often end up in relationships together.
It's what we call the anxious avoidant trap, where one
person's constantly trying to connect and get closer, the other
(17:13):
person's constantly trying to push the other person away. And
then the fearful avoidant is that remaining ten or so percent.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
How many people have this dark tetra trait?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Oh, my goodness, the dark tetrad is thought to be
actually ten percent, somewhere between seven to ten percent, which.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And it's ten percent too high, right, It is.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Ten percent too high, I mean, especially because the dark tetrad.
You know, individuals with an insecure attachment style, they will
make mistakes in relationships. They'll push people away, or they'll
cling too much, or they'll send mixed signals.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
But they're not as you know.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
I often use this quote or this saying that trauma
is contagious. And it's not contagious obviously George in Aderam
theory way, but it's contagious in the fact that whenever
we're in proximity to somebody who's highly traumatized, because our
subconscious is constantly being reconditioned. If we're if we live,
(18:11):
for example, with somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder, you
can bet that you're going to end up taking on
some of that trauma because just by proximity, by being
exposed repetitively to these types of really traumatic behaviors from
the narcissist. It's repetition and emotion that really conditioned.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot
com for more
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
Host
George Noory
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.