The Attachment Effect: Exploring the Powerful Ways Our Earliest Bond Shapes Our Relationships and Lives

by Peter Lovenheim

Overview

"Every reader will find this book about attachment enlightening."
—Dr. Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight

"Does a magnificent job of revealing how attachment manifests at the workplace, in friendships, religion, and even politics.”
 —Amir Levine, M.D., author of Attached

A revealing look at attachment theory, uncovering how our early childhood experiences create a blueprint for all our relationships to come
 
Attachment theory is having a moment. It’s the subject of much-shared articles and popular relationship guides. Why is this fifty-year-old theory, widely accepted in psychological circles, suddenly in vogue? Because people are discovering how powerfully it sheds light on who we love—and how.

Fascinated by the subject, award-winning journalist and author Peter Lovenheim embarked on a journey to understand it from the inside out. Interviewing researchers, professors, counselors, and other experts, as well as individuals and couples whose attachment stories illuminate and embody the theory's key concepts. The result is this engaging and revealing book, which is part journalism, part memoir, part psychological guide—and a fascinating read for anyone who wants to better understand the needs and dynamics that drive the complex relationships in their lives.

Topics include:
 • What it means to be securely and insecurely attached
 • How our early childhood experiences create a blueprint for future relationships—and how to use those insights to gain self-awareness and growth
 • Why anxious and avoidant attachment types tend to attract each other, and how to break the negative cycle
 • How anyone can work to become "earned secure" regardless of their upbringing and past relationships.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143132424
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/05/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	197,648
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Peter Lovenheim is an author and journalist whose articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Parade, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. He teaches nonfiction writing at The Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland. His previous book is In the Neighborhood, winner of The First Annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize.

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Copyright © 2018 Peter Lovenheim.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword Professor Harry Reis xiii

Introduction xvii

Part I What Is Attachment?

Chapter 1 When the Tiger Conies: Origin of the Attachment System 3

Chapter 2 Five Adjectives: Measuring Adult Attachment 25

Chapter 3 When Mother Returns: Attachment Styles in Children 47

Chapter 4 In the Scanner: Attachment and the Brain 65

Part II Attachment throughout Our Lives

Chapter 5 A Date for Coffee: Attachment and Dating 83

Chapter 6 Raising a Human Being: Attachment and Parenting 105

Chapter 7 Dancing Close: Attachment, Marriage, and Couples Counseling 122

Chapter 8 Sassy and Classy: Attachment and Friendship 135

Chapter 9 Getting Old: Attachment and Aging 147

Part III Attachment All Around Us

Chapter 10 Securing a Position: Attachment in the Workplace 163

Chapter 11 Before the Buzzer: Attachment and Sports 175

Chapter 12 Following the Leaders: Attachment and Politics 191

Chapter 13 Thou Art with Me: Attachment and Religion 211

Epilogue 223

Acknowledgments 235

Glossary 239

Appendix: Attachment Quiz 243

Resources 247

Notes 253

Index 269

About the Author 277

Editorial Reviews

04/30/2018
Lovenheim (In the Neighborhood), a journalist and writing professor, brings together personal exploration and social analysis for a thoughtful but overly inward-focused look at the implications of attachment theory. Developed by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, it posits infants as “hardwired… to search for and attach to a competent, reliable caregiver,” with the success or failure of that endeavor having lifelong effects. Lovenheim describes first learning about the theory from an academic colleague and being inspired to undergo a diagnostic Adult Attachment Interview (and thus identifying his own anxious, as opposed to secure or avoidant, attachment style). Lovenheim is insightful if repetitive in chapters applying different attachment personality types to adult relationships, such as between best friends or romantic couples. However, Lovenheim’s account of experiencing a crisis in a section on attachment theory and religion wanders into self-indulgent territory, and the “10 Lessons of Attachment” given in the epilogue comes off as a half-hearted attempt to add a self-help component to the text. Lovenheim’s focus on himself as subject conveys less universality than seemingly intended and fails to connect the reader deeply to the author’s personal stake in an academic school of thought. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Every reader will find this book about attachment enlightening -- and above all, moving. The author takes a personal approach and shows how learning about the new science of attachment helps him understand himself and his life – in fact, the lives of all of us. An easy, absorbing read!"
--Dr. Sue Johnson, author of Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships and Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

“I’ve always thought that attachment principles play a crucial role not just in childrearing and romantic relationships, but in other aspects of our lives. Then along comes this book, which illustrates how attachment affects pretty much everything! Written beautifully and most important, accessibly, The Attachment Effect does a magnificent job of revealing how attachment manifests at the workplace, in friendships, religion, and even politics.”
 --Amir Levine, M.D., bestselling author of Attached

 "This remarkable book can be read in several ways. Each makes us more informed and better off. As an overview of a major body of research and social psychological theory; as a source of improved understanding of ourselves--and to better attach to others."
 --Amitai Etzioni, author of The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society and University Professor at the George Washington University

"This richly informative, deeply researched, touchingly personal, and always readable book about the meaning and uses of attachment theory explores the hows and whys of our complicated connections with each other. It offers valuable insights into what makes a relationship fail or succeed,  and how a better understanding of our attachment style might help to rescue a floundering relationship.”
--Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses

“Cogent, informative, well written….artfully lays out how styles of attachment shape behavior in many different settings and people (including the author himself).”
--Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor emerita of Women's Studies and Human Development at Cornell, and author of Fasting Girls and The Body Project

"With remarkable frankness and rare insight into his own experiences and those of many others he interviewed, Peter Lovenheim shows in The Attachment Effect how we can improve all our relationships--from work to romance, parenting to politics, youth to aging--even if events beyond our control during infancy started us off on the wrong track. An incisive work that can guide everyone to have a better relationship with every individual who matters in their lives."
--Nicholas Gage, author of Eleni and A Place for Us

“Accurate, engaging, and beautifully written…it is rare for a book to be this much fun while also being so instructive and thought provoking. I loved reading it!”
--Phillip R. Shaver, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, University of California Davis, coauthor of Attachment in Adulthood and coeditor of The Handbook of Attachment

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