Attachment & Relationship Loss by Clare Rosoman
- As couples and relationship therapists, we are all about fostering and developing loving bonds. So, it stands to reason that we can find ourselves in uncomfortable and even shaky territory when we are tasked with helping people to undo attachment bonds. Being with people as they face the wreckage of lost love is hard on our hearts as therapists. I know it is on mine. Thankfully, Sue Johnson has given us the most beautiful model in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for being with people as they face challenging life-events and grapple with the formation, maintenance, and loss of attachment bonds. Let's start by looking at loss and grief and then we will move on to looking at how we help people to process and move through loss and grief.
John Bowlby's 4 Phases of Separation & Loss
- John Bowlby defined healthy grieving as the successful effort to accept both that a change has occurred in our external world and that we are required to make corresponding changes to our internal, representational world and to reorganise, and perhaps reorientate, our attachment behaviour accordingly . Bowlby felt that people need to reorganise their inner world in such a way that they no longer seek out the lost love as a safe haven of comfort or secure base for encouragement . This means that we need to help our clients with two important tasks; to process the pain of the loss and to redefine their loved-one in their mind as no longer being the one they turn to when life gets bumpy. In effect, we are undoing their attachment bond with that special person.
- Bowlby observed that people generally tend to move through four phases as they process separation and loss:
1. Numbing
The first phase is numbing, which is a short-lived phase of emotional disconnection from the reality of the loss. Periods of numbness might be interrupted by flares of emotion; in a way protectively limiting how much of the truth of the loss the grieving person encounters at a time.
2. Yearning & searching
The second phase is yearning and searching, which Bowlby also called protest. This is where someone is driven to search for their lost love, to strive to re-establish the connection, and to prevent similar ruptures from happening again. These galvanizing emotions release energy that is thrown into restoring the bond, which is adaptive when the bond can be restored and maladaptive when it cannot. In this phase, we might see our heartbroken clients attempting to make contact with their ex-partner, “Facebook stalking” them, or asking endless and unanswerable questions about why it didn’t work out.
3. Disorganisation & despair
The third phase is disorganisation and despair where the reality of the loss and futility of searching is realized, resulting in intense sadness and withdrawal. This is a time of depletion and hopelessness where a person is likely to experience, not only sadness, but a terrible sense of confusion as their world is turned upside down. Our heartbroken clients are likely to question the past, the present and the future as their view of their world, their partner and themselves is forever altered.
4. Reorganisation & detachment
The fourth phase is reorganisation and detachment where the individual can accept the loss and detach from the lost person. This frees them from searching for the other as the solution to their pain and allows them to reconnect with themselves and to begin to establish other attachment bonds . This phase represents a reconnection with the self as well as an opportunity for reflection and growth.
- While models like this can orientate us, it is important to recognize that grief is not a linear process but rather an organic flow that can move backwards and forwards as people take in and process such an impactful event. Cultural context is vitally important to be considered in grief, because cultural belief systems teach us about how grief is manifested and expressed, and this must be respected as part of the grieving process.
Processing loss: The impact of attachment strategies
Secure attachment strategies
Research into emotional adjustment after the loss of a romantic relationship shows us that people who use secure attachment strategies tend to face loss with a higher level of resilience and acceptance and that they have a faster emotional recovery than people who use insecure attachment strategies. They are more likely to be unconcerned about seeing their ex-partner again, to feel less blame towards their ex-partner and to feel ready to date more quickly than people who use insecure attachment strategies. People with secure attachment strategies are also more likely to rely on other relationships, such as their family or friends, as safe havens to help them in their emotional adjustment to the loss .
Anxious attachment strategies
Those with anxious attachment strategies are more likely to be tuned into their partner’s availability and to be sensitive to cues of possible rejection, therefore, the loss of an attachment figure is experienced as extremely distressing. Following the end of a relationship, people with anxious attachment strategies are more likely to become preoccupied with thoughts of their ex-partner, to make attempts to repair or reconcile and to continue to use their ex-partner as a source of support. These tendencies seem to play a role in slowing the adjustment process.
Avoidant attachment strategies
Conversely, those who use avoidant attachment strategies might be more at risk of speeding through the grieving process and not processing the loss enough. This might be because avoidant attachment strategies often involve emotional distancing from themselves and their partner, and so they might not form as deep an emotional connection, which could leave them either less emotionally impacted by their loss or less aware of the emotional impact of the loss on their emotional world .
Fearful-avoidant attachment strategies
It is worth noting that the research on the impact of attachment strategies on post-relationship adjustment seems to be limited to looking only at secure, anxious and avoidant attachment strategies. Fearful-avoidant attachment strategies do not appear to be exclusively explored, possibly because these attachment strategies incorporate features of anxious pursuit for connection and avoidant withdrawal from closeness for fear of being hurt. Despite this, we can expect that in grief and loss, people with fearful-avoidant attachment strategies might experience both anxious distress at the loss and withdrawal from the ex-partner in oscillating amounts.
Tasks of Grief
Coping with a loss of this magnitude involves two important tasks: working through the emotions to extract the meaning in them and managing the emotional pain and dysregulation to restore everyday functioning .
Healthy grief is thought to balance these two tasks and to move flexibly between them so that emotions can be attended to, and life-transitioning can be accomplished. This is the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement.
The emotional work of processing the loss includes thinking about the lost partner, reflecting on the relationship and how it ended, remembering the good times, and learning from the not-so-good times, and being with the pain of the loss. The practical work of processing the loss includes coping with day-to-day life and adjusting the practical aspects of your life to the loss. This might involve making decisions about living arrangements, changes to finances, managing co-parenting of any children, changing employment status, or the building of new social connections.
The EFT therapist can offer informed and practical assistance along this path by helping our clients to understand how their attachment strategies might impact how they approach these two important tasks. We can help them to keep an eye on both the emotional and the practical tasks of grieving so that neither area is neglected. We know that becoming engulfed in painful emotion for extended periods of time is going to impact a person’s ability to function in life and we know that suppressing painful emotions is effortful and wearing on a person’s wellbeing . We can help our clients to achieve adaptive flexibility by helping them to “turn up the heat” if they notice a reluctance in either task, or “turn down the heat” if either task is becoming too much. This fosters a growing awareness of flexibly meeting the challenge of grief.
The emotional work of processing the loss includes thinking about the lost partner, reflecting on the relationship and how it ended, remembering the good times, and learning from the not-so-good times, and being with the pain of the loss. The practical work of processing the loss includes coping with day-to-day life and adjusting the practical aspects of your life to the loss. This might involve making decisions about living arrangements, changes to finances, managing co-parenting of any children, changing employment status, or the building of new social connections.
The EFT therapist can offer informed and practical assistance along this path by helping our clients to understand how their attachment strategies might impact how they approach these two important tasks. We can help them to keep an eye on both the emotional and the practical tasks of grieving so that neither area is neglected. We know that becoming engulfed in painful emotion for extended periods of time is going to impact a person’s ability to function in life and we know that suppressing painful emotions is effortful and wearing on a person’s wellbeing . We can help our clients to achieve adaptive flexibility by helping them to “turn up the heat” if they notice a reluctance in either task, or “turn down the heat” if either task is becoming too much. This fosters a growing awareness of flexibly meeting the challenge of grief.
Learning from loss: The opportunity in suffering
A life-altering event such as a loss of a close relationship can present a remarkable opportunity for growth through self-reflection, connection to core needs, and re-evaluation of our direction in life. Along with normalizing the need for loving bonds and validating the pain associated with the loss of an attachment bond, EFT therapists can assist people to see themselves as an attachment being and to reflect on the lessons they learned in their earliest attachment relationships. We can help people to see how these experiences influence how they show up in close relationships, what expectations they bring with them, what feels threatening for them, how they signal their needs, and how they regulate their emotions when activated. When someone can come to understand themselves through an attachment lens, then they can look at their recent lost relationship with new eyes.
One of the most amazing opportunities that can come from a life-altering experience such as a loss is the growth that can come from self-reflection and connection to one’s own core needs and values.
When growth can come from suffering, this is exciting work that is full of hope!
- We can support the process of growing self-awareness and the earning of security with self and others by helping our clients to notice how they interact with their own emotional world.
- We can assist people in being with themselves and tapping into their own internal wisdom.
- We can help people to shape a life informed by their core needs and values and to intentionally lead with security into their next loving relationship.
- We can arm them with knowledge about relational cycles and how to recognize the patterns that can take people out of connection.
- We can help people to take all their wonderful learnings into new relationships that are rich and fulfilling.
When growth can come from suffering, this is exciting work that is full of hope!
For more information on the concepts raised in this article please refer to Dr Clare Rosoman’s book An Emotionally Focused Guide to Relationship Loss: Life After Love by Routledge.
- References:
- Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Volume 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. New York: Basic Books.
- Bowlby, J. & Parkes, C.M. (1970). Separation and loss within the family. In E.J. Anthony & C. Koupernik (Eds.), The Child in his Family: International Yearbook of Child Psychiatry and Allied Professionals, 197-216. New York: Wiley.
- Fraley, R. C., & Shaver, P. R. (1999). Loss and bereavement: Attachment theory and recent controversies concerning “grief work” and the nature of detachment. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 735-759). New York: Guilford
- Madey, S.F. & Jilek, L. (2012). Attachment style and dissolution of romantic relationships: Breaking up is hard to do, or is it? Individual Differences Research, 10(4), 202-210
- Davis, D., Shaver, P.R. & Vernon, M.L. (2003). Physical, emotional and behavioural reactions to breaking up: The roles of gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 7, 871-884.
- Davis, D., Shaver, P.R. & Vernon, M.L. (2003). Physical, emotional and behavioural reactions to breaking up: The roles of gender, age, emotional involvement, and attachment style. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 7, 871-884.
- Stroebe, M & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23, 197-224.
- Gross, J.J. & Levenson, R.W. (1997). Hiding feelings: The acute effects of inhibited negative and positive emotion. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106 (1), 95-103.
- Rosoman, C. (2022). An Emotionally Focused Guide to Relationship Loss: Life After Love. New York: Routledge.
To learn more about Clare's work see her profile