This week, on Best Friend Therapy, we’re talking about attachments.

No, not the Velcro and poppers kind, but the way we *emotionally* attach to other people. We look at the work of psychologists like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, to get a better understanding of the way we develop expectations of other people, and how we might have created emotional defences to protect our vulnerability.

We explain how strategies that set us up for safety in childhood might actually get in our way as adults, when it comes to making successful friendships, romantic relationships and professional connections.

Emma tells us a story about a picnic blanket and Elizabeth reminds us of those mice and their cheese machines that we first encountered in Season One.

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This week's references include:

"A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder" by Colby Pearce: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-Introduction-Attachment-Disorder-Second-dp-1785920588/dp/1785920588/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

The work of John Bowlby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowlby

And Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_situation

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy