Books/Resources for learning about Avoidants

Hello all,

I've found this forum really helpful for learning about avoidants and just generally getting some relief from the pain that can result from being in a relationship with one. Mine ended with my ex-avoidant BF ending our engagement over text and 7 months on I'm still trying to heal. Have definitely learned a lot and it's amazing how much of what I've read describes him to a T.

I thought I'd share some of the books/resources I've used to help me wrap my head around the mind screw that can ensue from being with an avoidant. Aside from Jeb's book which is great, here's what I'd also recommend. I've listed a few of the themes each book explores:

1. Love Sense by Dr. Sue Johnson

• the first and foremost instinct of humans is neither sex nor aggression. It is to seek contact and comforting connection.
  
• adult romantic love is an attachment bond, just like the one between mother and child.
  
• emotional dependency is not immature or pathological; it is our greatest strength.
• We are not created selfish; we are designed to be empathetic. Our innate tendency is to feel with and for others.
• we act outside of the above nature when something's gone wrong/missing in our early attachments (can also happen from trauma later in life).

2. Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson

• emotionally focused couples therapy
  
• gets to the emotional underpinnings of your relationship by recognizing that you are emotionally attached to and dependent on your partner much in the same ways that a child is on a parent for nurturing, soothing, and protection.
  
• the health of all relationships boil down to one central line of questioning: Are you there for me? Will you come when I call? Do you have my back?
• Healing happens though (re)establishing emotional connection - can only happen by partners being open, attuned, and responsive to one another
  

3. Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin  (functions as manual for individual couples)

• psychobiological approach to couples therapy.
  
• creating a couple bubble allows partners to keep each other safe and secure.
  
• partners can make love and avoid war when the security-seeking parts of the brain are put at ease.
• partners relate to one another primarily as anchors (securely attached), islands (insecurely avoidant), or waves (insecurely ambivalent/anxious).
• partners who become experts on one another know how to please and soothe each other.
• partners who want to stay together must learn to fight well.

4. Love and War in Intimate Relationships by Stan Tatkin and Marion Soloman   (functions more as a manual for couples therapists)

• as mammals, we have a nervous system that requires the attunement with our caregivers early in life for our brain to develop well its circuits of regulation
• as we leave home, we carry the shadows of these early experiences forward in ways that are often beneath the radar of conscious awareness
• these subtle - and sometimes not so subtle - echoes of the past can entrap us in becoming lost in familiar places as we re-create and inflict past wounds
• organizing brain process called narrative - our early attachment history is directly related to: how we tell story of our life, our sense of self, how we see importance of relationships in our lives and more
  
• brain is plastic - it can change in response to experience throughout lifespan

5. Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

• basic attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant
• attachment needs are not just for children
• codependency in relationships is often a misused term and a bit of a myth, while helpful when dealing with family members with addiction issues it can be misleading and even damaging when applied indiscriminately to romantic relationships
  
• dependency paradox: the more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become
  
• healthy relationships create a secure base from which partners can venture out into the world and take on challenges
• secures can be a good match with any type, avoidants and anxious are better off finding a secure than dating each other as they tend to trigger one another's attachment system

I would also highly recommend anything by partners Harville Henrix and Helen Lakelly Hunt as well as Dan Siegel and John & Julie Gottman.

For any of the authors mentioned, you can search their names in podcasts, there are many great episodes to listen to for free where they discuss the meat of their ideas in interviews. It's a great way to glean some knowledge from their ideas without necessarily committing to buying and reading a whole book that you may not end up finding use from.

I hope some of you are able to find this useful and would like to thank you all for your contributions to this forum, it's really helped me in my struggles.

Rosalie