What Attachment Style Are You? How To Know, Why It Matters, and How To Change It If You Need To | Amir Levine
6/15/20261 hr 5 min
Your health, relationships, and self-esteem all hinge on your attachment style. Here's how to know if you're anxious or avoidant — and how to get more secure.
Dr. Amir Levine is a Columbia-trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist and coauthor of the multi-million-copy bestseller Attached, which brought attachment theory into mainstream conversation and remains the #1 book on Amazon in Relationships more than a decade later. His new book Secure expands this work into emotional regulation and everyday well-being.
In this episode we talk about:
- What attachment theory is
- The four attachment styles — anxious, avoidant, secure, and fearful avoidant — and how to identify which one you are
- Why your attachment style is not fixed and how it can change
- What happens in your brain when you're ignored or excluded
- How being securely connected can extend your life
- The five pillars of a secure life
- How to right-size a relationship with someone unreliable
- Small, seemingly insignificant daily interactions as vehicles for change
- Two rules of secure engagement that can defuse almost any argument
- Why anxious and avoidant attachment styles each have genuine superpowers
- How to build your "attachment topography"
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Harris· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Hey, welcome to the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. I think about this all the time. Uh, we live in a world where we're told that the route to happiness is through the accumulation of money and likes on Instagram, i.e. individual achievement. But in fact, we know, uh, from the science and, and just through the basics of ev- evolution that w- we are wired to derive our happiness through the quality of our relationships, but nobody's selling us that on, on Instagram. Uh, today, though, we've got a fascinating conversation that is gonna provoke you to think about what is your attachment style? Like, how do you relate to other people, and how can you tweak that so that your relationships are better, which will improve your health, both your mental and physical health? My guest is, uh, the great Dr. Amir Levine. Uh, he wrote a huge bestseller called Attached, and he's now followed up with a book called Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life. We will be right back with Dr. Amir Levine right after this quick break. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. We've got this awesome new series launching soon on my new-ish meditation app, Ten Percent with Dan Harris. Many people ask me, "How do I get started in Buddhism? How do I learn more about it? How do I go deeper?" So we are now gonna provide a solution. Every week this summer, for eight weeks, every Sunday, the great Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg is gonna host a live session