Myths About Attachment - Dependency
EFT: Attachment Science in PracticeThere are a couple of common misconceptions about attachment, which sometimes get in the way of people really understanding this perspective. One of them is that when you think about it, our field has had a lot of very, very negative labels that we associate with needing other people. Labels like enmeshment, fusion, or codependency. Right? And so we've sort of decided somewhere along the line that there's something called a self-sufficient, completely independent self-defining human being. From an attachment point of view, that is a myth. We are wired for interdependence.
That is biology. That is the way your nervous system is wired. But in order to accept what I just said, you have to have a concept called constructive dependency. All the attachment research says, that secure connection with others, it's the secure connection with others that allows us to be separate on autonomous. It's the securely attached child who's confident and who goes out into the world knowing that if he gets in trouble, he can call and someone will come, that's the child that takes risks. That's the child that's able to be separate and autonomous. So what attachment says is that in constructive dependency, secure connection, and being separate on autonomous are two sides of the same point, they're not a dichotomy.
That is a misunderstanding. What some people call codependency, someone like me would see as extreme anxious attachment.