Here are the three things that come to my mind instantly when a client brings up attachment styles:

Muffins – Mind Maps – Nonsense

Muffins

I have a degree in clinical psychology. Back at university, each Friday night, the last class for the week was on attachment theory. We had two full semesters of attachment theory. 

Each Friday night, I used to buy a pack of four moist chocolate chip muffins—100% chocolate with extra chocolate chips. There were four girls in our usual row for that class, and we shared the pack of muffins. 

Leah, one of the girls, told me years later that each time she thinks of Prof W. and Attachment Theory, she immediately remembers the delicious chocolate muffins. 

Mind Maps

Are the second thing that comes to mind when I think about Attachment Theory. Mind maps are the only notes I took in psychology lectures—one A4 page per lecture, per topic.

My mind-mapped (not sure if that is a word, I make up words a lot, not ok, I know…) notes always followed the same logic.

Centre page, I wrote the topic, date and title of the lecture. 

Around that, in bubbles, I would note the old, outdated theories we still needed to know about. This was a frequently asked exam question. 

Next bubble: the current but different theories, coming from the different approaches of psychology. Important names, researchers in each group, specific experiments and their results. If you knew these by heart, you were sure to pass the exams.

All this was done to conclude that there is no single answer to the topic, but rather that all theories and approaches are equally valid and flawed, so we ultimately adopted the multifactor model. 🤓 

Which, for me, reverted to my constant question on Psychology: why do we define categories, put people in them, just to conclude that the categories are fluid anyway…

It felt like a cat catching its tail. I quit after completing my Bachelor’s degree and went on to study Physics. 

Nonsense

Please do not misunderstand; learning about attachment styles and conducting research on it, as Ainsworth and Bowlby did, is not nonsense. These are researchers who have made significant contributions to the field of psychology. 

But, did they have a good attachment style themself?

Nobody knows. And that is good, because it is their private life. We know them for their research. In observing, analysing, categorising, focusing and discussing problems as psychologists love to do…

Their objective was not to find the right man.

Here is how overanalysing and psychologising get in the way of your actual success in love.

Let me call her Veronica, an IT specialist, who wanted to find the right man. 

I met her when I was studying physics.  She began dating someone who had everything she was looking for in a man. She was hopeful about him, and everything she told me from his side sounded promising. 

That’s when she began reading up on attachment styles and analysing her attachment style. 

Not knowing I was a clinical psychologist by degree, she told me all about the different attachment styles while we sat on a bench in the park. 

The one she thinks is hers, but she also understands that she has a combination of all of them, which gave me unpleasant flashbacks to my minimaps, which always concluded in this way.🤓 

Veronica had become an expert on the theory of attachment styles. 

Meanwhile, things between her and the man she was dating did not work out. Even though, or perhaps because, she had become an expert on her attachment style. 

When she began analysing his attachment style and trying to work on his childhood wounds, he had had enough.

Do you see why my third association was nonsense? 

The only thing you need to know about attachment styles, when dating to find the right man, is this.

!! Knowing about something in theory gives little to no guarantee of how successful your dating will be. !!

My consulting fees are high because I am qualified, have real-life experience, and, most importantly, I deliver life-changing transformations and consistent results for my clients. The minutes count, divide 550 Euros by 60 minutes. 

When a client brings up attachment styles, I do not go down that road. 

I remind my clients that we are here to find the right man and experience, love, romance and polarity. 

Women who manage to do this are not in their head, analysing and categorising problems or overthinking theories, such as attachment styles. 

I ensure that my clients understand the distinction between knowing something in theory and experiencing it firsthand.

And then I ask them to make a choice. 

Do you want to be smart and learn about psychology, possibly pursuing a degree?

Or do you want to be the woman who finds the right man in about 6 months to 2 years through my Signature System, Upshot-Dating?

To be this woman, you do not need to know about attachment styles. 

Instead, you need to be courageous, get out of your head, drop into your body and deal with how you feel. 

This will connect you, from your heart to his. ❤️❤️

If Veronica had done this, things would have worked out between her and the man she was seeing. 

Conclusion: 

When you are dating, you do not need to know anything about attachment theory to find the right man. 

It may even get in the way of it. 

Instead, learn to EMBODY (another word for be) the woman men fall for. 

Anina, clinical psychologist and trained counsellor, certified dating and relationship coach and muffin lover.