Therapy and Theology

Lysa TerKeurst:
Welcome to this episode where we are talking about attachment styles. In this whole series, we're talking about self-awareness. I have to say, when I first heard of attachment styles and started really looking into it, this helped me become self-aware, probably more than anything else.

So I want to get both of your feedback on attachment styles, but mainly, Jim, we're going to lean into you for this episode. So take it away.

Jim Cress:
Well, I would start with, we've done self-disclosure appropriately on this program before, and so my attachment style is an anxious from childhood ... an anxious attachment style, and I guess ancient too. The idea of going around constantly looking, "Am I safe? Do you approve of me? Do you like me?" That ran the show in my life for many, many years. That's just a true confession of my own style.

People will ask, not trying to get too far ahead of it, "Do you think attachment styles can change?" The best research I've read would be, maybe a 30% chance, or 30% of people can. I've said [it] this way, "I don't know if attachment styles really can change. I guess they can, but I know that I can change, and I will, and I have."

The No. 1 thing I've found in the attachment research, if you want your attachment style, unless it's a secure attachment, if you want it to change, is do lots of self-awareness and a lot of therapy usually to work through that. You move from, as I have, from an anxious attachment style that can still rear its ugly head to more of a secure attachment style in functionality.

People will know ... by the way, Dr. John Bowlby, who was really the father and founder of the attachment field, he looked at ... Think about a baby in utero is attached to an umbilical cord, life, and how safe they feel. Then they come out of the womb, and it's like, "Where am I?" We're all a little bit born into trauma, right, and separation after being with mama, separation from mama.

He was this British psychoanalyst, and he talked about really studying infants, and he found out that these caregiver roles, whether it's the parents or caregivers — daycare is a big issue in our time these days — he found that infants would basically go to extreme measures to try to reconnect to mom if mom was in the room or out of the room, or any other caregiver to reestablish contact.

He said it this way; I'm quoting Dr. Bowlby: "The propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals is a basic component of human nature." I don't care. Now I'm 61. I still want to connect. I definitely want to be attached, let alone getting into the Word of God that the two become one flesh.

So there's that ... think of bonding when you look at that. Back in the '70s, this is the next big name in the field: psychologist, Dr. Mary Ainsworth. People who study attachment know the name well. She took Bowlby's research and then expanded it ... what she called her Strange Situation study.

She looked at kids between the ages of these formative early years, between 12 months and 18 months, and just looked at how they simply ... these kids responded to situations where they, again, were left alone for just a moment and then they were reunited as they needed to be, with their mothers especially.

Now, think about the etiology or the origin of attachment styles. From her work, she came up with three major attachment styles. Secure attachment, this is where the child displays distress when separated from the mother but then is easily soothed and returned back to that emotional self-regulation, that steady state, very quickly when reunited with mom. Nothing wrong with being away from mom. Little separation anxiety and then the securely attached child would quickly get realigned.

Dr. Ainsworth then said the second classification would be the resistant attachment style, where the child displays intense distress when mom leaves the room, and then when mom comes back, resists contact with mom, with this idea of being reunited.

Third one would be the avoidant style. The child displays no distress at all. This is the one that's going to scare or concern most of us, the avoidant attachment style. Mom leaves ... fine. Mom comes back ... no real interest in mom's return.

My goodness, if this could start this far back ... in early ... being an infant or a young child or toddler or pre-toddler, and then imagine when you're 40 and you have an avoidant attachment style, which is clinically where we'd see some narcissism, right? That's a really scary thought.

One more is, just to summarize this in more of the popular culture now with four different attachment styles. Then ask yourself, where do you fit with these? One is the secure attachment. That's considered, again, the healthiest of all the attachment styles. So imagine you're secure in and of yourself.

I'm mindful of Blaise Pascal who said all of our problems as people stem from the inability to sit alone with yourself quietly in a room. Are you good to be with yourself, without swiping or looking at Netflix and just dissociating all the time? Secure attachment, that's what would be the healthiest.

Number two, the avoidant attachment. Again, narcissism, sociopathy, being a sociopath. We see a person who seems [like] they have no empathy for other people. That's the kind of insecure attachment, where back in the day, the infant or child doesn't feel safe to explore any of their environments, so they're not going to bond back with the parent.

That's scary to be, again, young and then be at 40. These people are going to have real difficult times staying in, or being in, and connecting authentically in a loving, secure relationship.

Number three, two more, anxious attachment style. You're going to see what I call low self-esteem, codependency, neediness. That is the one I've had in my life. I've had a lot of healing of that, but I'm going around there, and I'm looking constantly for somebody to take care of me or tell me that it's safe. It's almost ... I'm desperate for that, especially when under distress.

Then the disorganized attachment style. Some people talk about ... borderline personality disorder can be there. That's in the original style, where an infant experienced a lack of emotional responsiveness from their caregivers. "Hey, no one's there to take care of me." So instead of showing either avoidant or anxious behaviors, they just show this inconsistent or disorganized behavior or attachment. Much more could be said on that, but those are the categories that we see mainly.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Well, I've read about three of the attachment styles. I haven't heard of the resistant, and I haven't heard of the disorganized before. It makes total sense. When I sat down to look at the three that I was looking at, it was the avoidant, the insecure or anxious, and the secure.

Jim Cress:
The secure, yep.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I was having a hard time, and here's why, because in certain seasons of my life, I felt like the description of secure was pretty applicable to me, but then in other seasons of my life, I felt like I was more anxious. So —

Jim Cress:
Very common.

Lysa TerKeurst:
— Then, now I feel like I toggle between sometimes anxious attachment style and sometimes secure attachment style. I mean, I don't want you to totally out me here on this episode, but I do want to know, what's the deal?

Jim Cress:
A person can have an anxious attachment style and be with a certain friend or two and look like they have — and studies have been done on this — a secure attachment style. They could be in a job or a situation where they're just killing it. They got everything going on. They get in a room, and somehow because [of] the nature of the job or they have the authority or power, they look very secure, or they can have good boundaries and be, "Hey, this is business. We’ve got to get to work," and look like you've got the avoidant attachment style.

Here's the question I'd throw back to you, always throw [it] back to myself: If there was, not just in seasons, chapters, or certain venues or arenas you're in, ask yourself, do you feel, of the ... This is due to the three attachment styles ... Do you feel there is one that, if you were weak ... I get weak some days. Certain times, if my bandwidth is thin, is there one of the attachment styles that you would tend to "go back to" because the research would show, that's usually what's going to happen? Is there one that stands out? Mine's going to be anxious. I know me.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah. I would say, in times of distress or weakness, I definitely get anxious. So does that mean that I really am the anxious attachment style?

Jim Cress:
I don't go to ... Joel, help me here. You know the word “ontology.” That's a theological word that ... that's my being.

Joel Muddamalle:
My being, my essence.

Jim Cress:
That's my ... Yeah. It's not who I really am; it is what was wired in me back there. We got nature and nurture with children, right? Was it something you were born with? Did it happen because of the early caregiving years?

Here's a freebie I tell people. "I double-dog dare you. Go back." You've seen the Trauma Egg I do in my intensives. "Go back if your parents are still alive and say, 'What was going on while I was in utero? Was I wanted? Was I not wanted?'" "Well, I wanted a girl, and you were a boy." I've heard it all.

Was mom under distress? Was there fetal alcohol syndrome? Was there anything else going on that put your parents ... Were they in a hard place in a marriage? Because that bonding in utero, let alone right after you were born. "Nope. Mom was mad, and something else went on."

Parents can often, if you want to know, give you data, like, "Yeah, the actual bonding thing there may have been there." I go back to, again, nature and nurture that I don't know to prove, was I really born with this attachment style? Same way I do with the Enneagram stuff I do, but I would say, as you look back, best you can remember, same for me, same for Joel.

In early life, do you feel like, looking back with your adult mindset, you would've gravitated early in life to one of the three — there are four — but let's say the three attachment styles? Mine's clearly anxious. Do you think yours was anxious early on?

Lysa TerKeurst:
I think, early on for me, my dad was absent, but my mom was so incredibly present. She wanted, I think, a best friend immediately. So she was very quick. I mean, she potty-trained me, and I know you're not going to believe this when I say it, but I have pictures to prove it. She potty-trained me at 8 months old.

Jim Cress:
I believe because you already told me the story.

Lysa TerKeurst:
That's not because, wow, I was really —

Joel Muddamalle:
Could you crawl at 8 months old?

Lysa TerKeurst:
No. She has a picture of me sitting on the table on a little pink potty. I was floppy, and yes, somehow —

Joel Muddamalle:
Eight months is young.

Lysa TerKeurst:
— She still did this. So anyways, I had a very secure attachment with my mom, but —

Jim Cress:
Ever getting noticed and not with dad.

Lysa TerKeurst:
— And not with dad.

Jim Cress:
To me, it's all information, say, let's get this microscopically down, and I know it was this or that. I think it's just all information. I'm not going to let attachment style and attachment theory define me. I'm not going to let my Enneagram number define me. I'm going to say, "Huh, that's information. I tend to probably lean this way."

Lysa TerKeurst:
I really like what you just said just then.

Jim Cress:
Quit defining me in that sentence.

Joel Muddamalle:
The theory part is really important, the theoretical aspect. OK, so I'm going to confess. When we were getting ready to do this episode, I started to research because that's —

Jim Cress:
Of course, you did.

Joel Muddamalle:
— what I do.

Jim Cress:
That's right.

Joel Muddamalle:
So the attachment styles, I'm going to say a couple of things here, because I know for me when I was first looking through this, I was like, this feels overwhelming. Secure attachment, anxious, ambivalent attachment style, avoidant and then disorganized attachment styles.

I found what, maybe is a helpful summary of each of these, but I want to go and pass it by you, Jim. So anxious-ambivalent style could potentially be summarized as a poor view of self and an overinflated view of others, right?

Jim Cress:
Mm-hmm.

Joel Muddamalle:
OK.

Jim Cress:
Very characteristic.

Joel Muddamalle:
An avoidant attachment style: an overinflated view of self, but a poor view of others.

Jim Cress:
And/or, I would say, I would add just anecdotally or almost a nonexistent view of others.

Joel Muddamalle:
See, that's good.

Jim Cress:
Relational objectification. You are just an object to me.

Joel Muddamalle:
Exactly, and then disorganized attachment styles, which from my research said is really a combination of anxious and avoidant together, is both a poor view of self and others.

Jim Cress:
A++.

Joel Muddamalle:
So secure attachment in an ideal world, and I'm making this definition up myself and I'm going to need you to clean it up, is really ... seems to be an ordered view of self.

Lysa TerKeurst:
And others.

Joel Muddamalle:
And others.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Yeah, that's really good. I like defining it that way and breaking it down that way because that's really helpful. At first, when you said the disorganized attachment style, it made me anxious. I was like, "Wait."

Jim Cress:
See, notice there for a moment. Can we pick? Can we have fun?

Joel Muddamalle:
Always.

Jim Cress:
Lysa knows. She knows me so well. Think about the language. Our words frame our reality. "Jim made a statement, and it made me anxious." Remember to take back your dignity there, even on a podcast. It did not make you anxious.

Lysa TerKeurst:
OK, this is good.

Jim Cress:
When this happened, I felt —

Joel Muddamalle:
That felt —

Jim Cress:
Picky words. No, it's very important because I don't want to give my power. It made me. It's like, "Boy, how do I have the power to make you feel that?"

Lysa TerKeurst:
That's such a good —

Jim Cress:
You already know all this. It's like reminding.

Lysa TerKeurst:
But it's just because I hadn't heard of that one, but when you just described it and as you talked about it too, it makes so much sense. So —

Joel Muddamalle:
And I think it's ... Again, I'm going to go nerdy with you for a second. I know you guys love it when this happens.

Lysa TerKeurst:
We love Joel's nerdy.

Joel Muddamalle:
I know. Again, Jim, this is your field, so it's like I'm interviewing the expert in the field. There were two pretty significant research papers or studies that were done. One, I want to say, from the top of my head so this is dangerous, the Dartmouth study and then the Johns Hopkins study, which actually showed and proved that attachment is hard-wired into the human genetic makeup of humanity. Is that a fair —

Jim Cress:
I think that is true because we all started out attached sperm egg, and if you want to ... How far back do you want to go? I mean, things are literally attaching all the way to the umbilical cord, still probably the safest place you've ever been at one level, getting all that nurturing.

Then we come into a world, the first thing you did ... I cut three umbilical cords at Baylor Hospital downtown Dallas for my kids, three. There was a severing of the attachment right away. I like the studies that are out there, but to get totally empirical and come back and go, "I know for a fact that it was hard-wired," ... I just can't make the leap, or won't.

I'd say, "Probably but all I know is," and of course I'm way down the other end of saying, "Let's work to see, functionally — it's happened to me — your attachment style change." I have watched mine and I don't even ... My wife and I said, "We don't even recognize our younger selves when we were first married." Mine was the most insecure, chaotic guy you've ever met. Now it comes out certain times, but it's not the main operating system for me ... is insecurity or an anxious attachment style.

Joel Muddamalle:
So I think this is fascinating because I'm going to do some theologizing with the both of you, my friends here. I find it fascinating that in the creative narrative that when God creates, He's creating groups of things consistently.

It's the stars as groups; it's the ocean and the land. It's grouped bodies of water. It is land animals and sea animals ... grouped bodies of water. Then, interestingly, when He creates man, man's alone. At every stage, like good, good, good, good, not good. What is not good? The individuality of man.

So I'm just going to read from one of the most famous texts. I feel like this is the one that we go to all the time in Therapy & Theology; it says the Lord caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept, and God took one of his ribs — talking about attachment and detachment here — so God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place then (Genesis 2:21).

So He takes out something, then the Lord got out of this thing that He took out, He made for the man ... [from what] He had taken from the man, [He made] into a woman and then brought her to the man. Now, we've talked about this. I've talked about this ad nauseam about the rib, the rib in Hebrew. There it's actually not just the word for rib, it's actually tsela, which means the side of something, a pillar, a foundation and structure. Even from an imagery standpoint, I mean this is fascinating —

Jim Cress:
It is.

Joel Muddamalle:
— that in order for the man to have — in human relationships ... we're going to talk about God later — in human relationships, in order to be whole in the ideal of Eden, he actually has to become halved so that the opposite whole could come into existence. Then the only way for the two halves to actually truly become whole is for them to be attached back together.

So then the text says in Genesis 2:24-25, "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds" (CSB) — we can highlight [or] circle that word.

Jim Cress:
So there's detachment prescribed, to detach so that you can —

Joel Muddamalle:
Attach, OK? And they become one flesh.

Jim Cress:
There you go.

Joel Muddamalle:
OK? So the one flesh thing in ancient Near Eastern language and Hebrew is very significant. It's one flesh, one bond. I mean, this idea of union together. OK? The “bond” word is incredibly interesting. In Hebrew, it's davaq. It deals with a type of connection or attachment that is intimate or generally friendly.

The other time ... This word shows up a lot of times, but we don't have enough time to even unpack all this. I wish we did. But Ruth, Orpah and Naomi in Ruth 1:14, when they're getting ready to separate, here's detachment-attachment. Again, they wept ... the two daughters-in-law, they weep loudly.

Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, and she detaches from the family, but Ruth davaq, Ruth clung to Naomi and stays with her. She stays attached in that familial bond. So we really see this profoundly in Scripture as well.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I'm so glad you brought this part up because ... I know we only have a few minutes left, but I want to know how do the attachment styles affect relationships?

Jim Cress:
Good question.

Lysa TerKeurst:
Are there certain attachment styles that really don't attach? Are there certain styles that attach better than others? So I've got a great curiosity around this.

Jim Cress:
Sure. So it would seem quite logical, and it is quite true that two people with a secure attachment are probably going to have the best chance to be able to have a healthy attachment, bonding and oneness.

I've said, again, it's almost a trivial throwaway line. Until you get really better, not perfect, but better to be alone with yourself, like yourself, be good, have good emotional self-regulation, self-awareness, and you're not just, oh, desperate to connect, you're probably not ready to reenter or enter a more ... relationship like a marriage or dating. It doesn't mean perfection.

So if you get two people who are in that healthy, secure bonding, OK, what can be terrible, I believe, personally it's going to be hard with anyone with an avoidant attachment style for anybody to bond. How do you bond? We tend to bond deeply with our same level of health, but if you get someone who has an anxious attachment style, to try to ... And there's, "Do you love me? Do you care for me?" with an avoidant person that almost looks like a sociopath or a narcissist; that's going to be a real problem.

I think it could be like, the problem with possibly two anxious attachment styles coming together. It's a tick on a dog mentality. A tick gets on a dog and sucks the life out of them. The problem with two anxious attachment people is you have two ticks and no dog.

I mean, "I need the life, and I need you to tell me I'm OK." It's Jerry Maguire, the movie. "You complete me." No, you don't, not fundamentally. I think some of this. Then looking at some of the, if I may, the psychopathology of it, like someone with an avoidant person. A lot of narcissists there, and they just don't do empathy, if you're wanting even in a healthy way some empathy.

Doesn't mean — and the research would back this up — it doesn't mean you can't bond with people like that, with different attachment styles. I care only a little bit of your attachment style, how you were born. How do you want to work on that, being that 30% club in the research that attachment styles can change? Hey, I don't know for sure if they change, but I change and I grow.

Then [in] John 17 ... Jesus’ only real prayer that you may be one, and we become in oneness, together with the power of the Holy Spirit. With that, I think that will potentially trump and override all attachment styles —

Joel Muddamalle:
Yeah, and that's an important one, Jim. I would just add ... this is where, I think, often what we've found is that therapy and theology run as a train on tracks together, typically.

Jim Cress:
Yes, that's right.

Joel Muddamalle:
There are principles that are leading together, and yet there are certain times when there are psychological or therapeutic principles that might be driven from a perspective that is detached from the reality of the gospel and the resurrection of Jesus conquering sin and death.

So while there might be some theorists out there who may be like, "Oh man, you can never change your attachment style." Well, I would say, yeah, but nobody ever thought that somebody could conquer sin and death through death itself, and yet the tomb is empty. Jesus is alive, reigning, and sitting at the right hand of the Father.

In that sense, when we become a new creation, we are actually exchanging fallen and broken ways of attachment to be reconnected to the One who is trustworthy and faithful. In a lot of the gospel, it's a totally different scenario for those of us who put our faith and our trust in Jesus.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I love that. Of course, the purpose of this series is not to say, "Ooh, you're in that kind of relationship? Good luck." The purpose of the series is really to increase our own self-awareness, because when we are more aware of our tendencies ... and that's how I like to look at any of these kinds of things and attachment styles. "I have a tendency toward this."

Jim Cress:
There you go.

Lysa TerKeurst:
"But with good work, I can possibly move more toward secure." I remember just as an example of this, Jim, we've worked together for so long, and you have seen me through so many hard days.

When I experienced the death of my marriage, which is something that was probably one of the greatest traumas — it may have been the greatest trauma of my life, because it was stretched out so long, and it's not the outcome that I wanted.

I remember, I experienced the death of my marriage, and I'm on this healing journey. I'm seeing you quite often. I remember one time I was in a season of pretty intense loneliness, and you said to me, "Lysa, I think you need to learn to sit in the loneliness or sit in the silence and learn to be OK with yourself."

Jim Cress:
You didn't like that.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I did not like that at all.

Jim Cress:
About the third time that's happened with us, but yeah.

Lysa TerKeurst:
I was like, "That's what I paid for you to tell me today?" I remember going home and thinking, OK, if the sign of emotional health is that I can sit alone in a room with myself, I'm going to prove how healthy I am.

I couldn't do it. I could not do it. I would try. I would sit there for a few minutes and I would be like, "This is the worst." It was almost like, "OK, well, I'm just going to pick up social media for a second," or "OK, I'll do that after I go watch this show," or "I've got to turn on some music. I’ve got to call a friend." None of those things are inherently bad —

Jim Cress:
That's right.

Lysa TerKeurst:
— but the awareness that you created in me is I needed to learn to be OK with myself. It really served me well because I spent two years saying, "I will never, ever, ever have a future relationship. There's just no way."

I think during those two years of me saying, "No, not ever," what was really happening is I was healing to the point that I was freed up to not need someone else to help me get better, but I got better so that I was completely freed up to want the right kind of person and the right kind of relationship.

Jim Cress:
With attachment, if I may, with the risk of ... Not at all trying to be clever here. I believe what happened there, if I may just use the nomenclature, is you went back into what could have felt like a tomb. It was not a tomb; it was a womb. You were not like Nicodemus in John 3, or the idea of salvation, but you went back into a womb, started attaching with yourself, and — I know you too well — to attach with God and other good friends.

Out of that, you were born anew therein to go into the next season of your life. That's a sense of many wombs, I believe. We call them tombs, and it's like, "No, it's a womb," to come back and say, "I need to be reborn here in this way and find out I can develop a secure attachment with myself." The next program coming up, "Not just with myself but with God."

Lysa TerKeurst:
That's so good. So whether you're in a situation that is like mine or maybe it's completely different, I think us having this kind of information ... maybe you're in a marriage that's struggling. Well, why not use this information to be able to determine, "Hey, this is something we need to work on together." It's more of a discovery than a detriment.

Jim Cress:
Yes.

Lysa TerKeurst:
When you're able to discover, it's like when we start to realize that we need to heal and we actually start to deal with the issues at hand, then that's where real progress can be made.
So no matter what situation you're in, maybe you're having a hardship with your parent or your child or a spouse or a friend, or whatever season it is that you're in, use this information to help you become more self-aware, because again, when we know better, we do better.