Marriage and family therapist working from attachment theory and emotionally focused therapy. Author of Secure Love and the person behind The Secure Relationship.
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4 of Julie Menanno's claims fit 4 mental models. Most often: Attachment patterns, The pain beneath the symptom, Second-order thinking.
How a person learned to seek safety shows up most when the emotional stakes are highest, and what looks like a character flaw is often a learned alarm.
Their wordsAttachment patterns tend to show themselves where the risk feels greatest.
Mental modelThe pain beneath the symptom
Their wordsWhen you get angry fast, it usually is not because you are "too much." It is often because your nervous system learned to live on alert.
Mental modelThe pain beneath the symptom
Their wordsUnderneath anger is sadness over all your cumulative experiences in life of not being responded to, past and present. The sadness around powerlessness. Unresolved grief.
Mental modelsSecond-order thinking, The pursue-withdraw cycle
Their wordsBut avoidance does not actually resolve anything, so feelings build underneath the surface.
The behaviour on the surface is often the visible part of something else: anger over grief, resentment over hurt, addiction over pain. Treating only the surface treats an effect.
Mental modelAttachment patterns
Their wordsUnderneath anger is sadness over all your cumulative experiences in life of not being responded to, past and present. The sadness around powerlessness. Unresolved grief.
Mental modelAttachment patterns
Their wordsWhen you get angry fast, it usually is not because you are "too much." It is often because your nervous system learned to live on alert.
Ask "and then what?": follow a decision past its first effect to the ones that come after.
Mental modelsAttachment patterns, The pursue-withdraw cycle
Their wordsBut avoidance does not actually resolve anything, so feelings build underneath the surface.
One partner moves toward, the other away, and each move feeds the other. The cycle sustains itself without either person being at fault.
Mental modelsSecond-order thinking, Attachment patterns
Their wordsBut avoidance does not actually resolve anything, so feelings build underneath the surface.