The Two Attachment Strategies You’ve Never Heard Of with Dr. Carol George
Why do some people shut down in relationships, while others cling tightly in fear of losing connection?
Attachment theory has long identified four core attachment strategies across the lifespan:
Secure → Secure
Anxious-Ambivalent → Preoccupied
Anxious-Avoidant → Dismissive
Disorganized → Unresolved/Dysregulated
(often referred to as fearful avoidant)
But what if “dismissive” and “preoccupied” are not simply personality styles… but adaptive responses to unresolved pain?
In my conversation with Carol George — a pioneer in attachment research — she introduces two profound branches that emerge from unresolved/dysregulated attachment:
Dismissive: Failed Mourning
Preoccupied: Suffering
This conversation explores attachment not as pathology, but as survival, not as weakness, but as the nervous system’s attempt to protect us from grief, fear, loss, and disconnection.
Resources:
Tailoring Treatment to Attachment Patterns by Karen Pando-Mars
Secure Relating: Holding Your Own in an Insecure World by Sue Marriott & Ann Kelley
Connect with Dr. Carol George: Email: cygeorge@comcast.net
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for individual therapy or professional mental health care.
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While you’re here, why not check out Kim’s book?
But Your Mother Loves You is the witty and candid tale of how a renowned psychotherapist moved from “not good enough” to “the right person” despite childhood neglect and a toxic relationship with her mother.
Everyone knows at least one person who demonstrates toxic love, someone who consistently jabs a straw in others and sucks the life right out of them. Without an in-depth understanding of how to navigate these relationships, most people continue to emotionally regress and remain paralyzed in familiar, pain-soaked patterns. But Your Mother Loves You helps readers overcome this cycle of toxicity.
Kim Honeycutt shares the real-life experience of how a shame-based, self-destructive little girl grew up to be a recovered alcoholic, entered the world of psychology as a professional, and created her own strategies to address and conquer toxicity.
This story, both witty and practical, is told through the lens of personal life experience and expert psychological strategies combined with Godly intervention. Readers learn how to either walk away from or walk with a toxic loved one without losing themselves. Covered in both vulnerability and clinical information, But Your Mother Loves You provides a step-by-step approach on how to stop toxic love and the subsequent self-abuse.