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When healthy attachment is missing, the development of empathy and reflectivity is inhibited. This leads to developmental failures that promote dissociation and internationalization of an unavailable and punitive object where the defense can become aggression and violence. Negative experiences may then become the only way of relating to others.

Allcorn, Seth; Duncan, Carrie M. A Journey into the Heart of Darkness: Psychosocial Insights into Predatory Behavior. The Journal of PSychohistory; New York Vol. 50, Iss. 4 (Spring 2023).

• Could be considered to be the case that narcissists are unwilling to have empathy as opposed to be lacking or unable to have empathy: ”This accumulation of evidence spurred the description of empathic dysfunction to change from the inability to recognize how others feel in the DSM–III classification, to the unwillingness to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others in DSM–IV (APA, 1994). ”
• Little to no impairment of cognitive empathy, but compromised affective empathy. Although the experimental research on empathy and narcissism is limited, generally, it indicates a stronger deficit in emotional rather than cognitive empathy: ”Although results are mixed, there is growing evidence that individuals with pathological narcissism or NPD display significant impairments in emotional empathy, but display little to no impairment in cognitive empathy (Ritter et al., 2011; Wai & Tiliopoulos, 2012; Watson et al., 1984). “
  
• Theme that NPD individuals perceive what others feel, but don’t have emotional empathy: “On the one hand, despite being able to perceive emotions in a manner similar to psychopathy, individuals with NPD may have compromised empathic functioning because of a deficit in emotional empathy (e.g., neurobiological evidence) and a deliberate attempt to avoid feeling vulnerable (e.g., self-report data). On the other hand, it is also possible that those with NPD, like individuals with BPD, experience intense emotions (e.g., anger, shame, fear; Cooper, 1998; Gramzow & Tangney, 1992) that impair their ability to attend and react to other’s emotions (i.e., deficient emotion tolerance and regulation). Ultimately, the examination of psychobiological, behavioral, and neural underpinnings of empathy provides a basis for future research that may identify the specific dysfunction(s) responsible for the potential disingenuous and indifferent inter- and intrapersonal behaviors of narcissistic individuals.”
• Narcissists show empathy for their own interests: ”On the one hand, narcissistic people may be able to appropriately empathize when feeling in control, that is when their self-esteem is enhanced and when displaying empathy is in their best self-interest (Ronningstam, 2009). On the other hand, opportunities for self-enhancement or situations that may expose compromised emotion tolerance can result in self-serving empathic disengagement. To the extent that empathic processing can vary and fluctuate across and even within narcissistic individuals, it may be useful to consider the unique characterizations of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.”
• People with NPD in their grandiose state may, like psychopathic individuals, possess the cognitive capacity to utilize empathy but have a motivation-based desire to disengage from empathic processing
• ”Ultimately, the self-serving focus of grandiose narcissistic individuals may influence fluctuations in empathy ranging from engagement to disengagement that respectively align with whether or not empathy is in service of their goal or interferes with attaining their goal.”
  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4415495/

You won’t see the Narcissist in the therapeutic milieu – they don’t think there is anything wrong with them. When they do get into therapeutic situations with a couples counselor, they try to snow them (the therapist). They want to make themselves look good, even if they are cheating. They are never going to understand there is something wrong with them.
Narcissists crave approval from other people, which is why their outside life looks the way it does, which is many times successful and all together.

Susan Elliott, Author of Getting Past Your Breakup

The neurotic who is cured has really become another man, though at bottom, of course, he has remained the same; that is to say, he has become what he might have become at best under the most favorable conditions. But that is a very great deal.

Freud, S. (1916–1917) Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.

The above quote, read in the language of attachment theory, could refer to earned security.

• Bowlby hypothesized change can occur through new relationships: “Bowlby also hypothesized that change in attachment patterns can occur in later life through the influence of new attachment relationships and the development of formal operational thought. This combination of events allows the individual to reflect on and reinterpret the meaning of past and present experiences (Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1988) – something that can happen in an individual’s self-analysis, within a couple relationship (such as marriage), or as a consequence of psychotherapy.” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284307006_Measurement_of_individual_differences_in_adolescent_and_adult_attachment
• Volitional Change in Adult Attachment: Can People Who Want to Become Less Anxious and Avoidant Move Closer Towards Realizing Those Goals? NATHAN W. HUDSON, WILLIAM J. CHOPIK and DANIEL A. BRILEY
• There are differing opinions on the importance and weight of our early attachment figures and how this influences our developing attachment orientations/internal working models: [researchers] differed in their thinking about the development of attachment relationships across life and the significance of early relationships. Their views ranged from those emphasizing the formative influence of infant-caregiver attachment, to those emphasizing the continued malleability of attachment security in response to life stress, psychotherapy, and the influence of later relationships, to the view that people acquire and maintain multiple representations of relationships over time that shape their overarching attachment orientation in adulthood. Full article: Taking perspective on attachment theory and research: nine fundamental questions (tandfonline.com)

• Infants can turn away and move away in a cold manner, but their hearts are pumping hot: Avoidant infants who turn or move away from their parents on reunion in the Strange Situation, exhibit physiological arousal (elevated heart rate) rather than inhibition (Biobehavioral organization in securely and insecurely attached infants).
• Avoidants idealize parents, but can’t recall relevant memories – a suppression of realizations that would cause anxiety: “Idealization is coded when respondents provide glowing adjectives about their relationships with parents in childhood, but are unable or unwilling to recall relevant memories. This is consistent with Bowlby’s notion that defensive exclusion (??), followed by partial or complete deactivation of the systems mediating attachment, results in conflicting conscious and unconscious working models of self with attachment figures. Dismissiveness is coded when the respondents recall negative attachment episodes while answering direct questions about separation, rejection and other untoward situations, but render them emotionally “harmless” by discounting their affective importance and influence. We hypothesize that what are being regulated or supressed in such cases are affective components of otherwise relatively accessible working models that might create anxiety if they became full conscious. (Handbook of Attachment Theory. Second Edition. P. 117)

• Need independence: Individuals scoring high in avoidance attachment may be described as those who need more independence and emotional distance from their partners to feel comfortable. (Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model)

• Withdrawal: Avoidants exhibit both fewer approach behaviours and more withdrawal behaviours. Avoidant attachment and hemispheric lateralisation of the processing of attachment- and emotion-related words
• Disengage positive emotions: “They [avoidants] can disengage from positive emotions with effective cognitive resources and were harder to get rid of negative emotions with insufficient resource.” Attention Bias of Avoidant Individuals to Attachment Emotion Pictures
• Avoidance dimension associated with lower inclination to be involved in long-term relationships: “Jackson and Kirkpatrick (2007) argued that avoidance dimension was specifically associated with a lower inclination to be involved in long-term relationship due to their inner motivation to avoid intimacy and perceive close relationships as less gratifying, which led them fly when affective comfort ability diminishes. An indication of this could be grasped in stronger links of avoidance dimension of attachment, as compared to anxiety, with relationship dissatisfaction (Brassard et al., 2009; Molero et al., 2017). Avoidantly attached individuals’ partners, instead, may not perceive the relationship quality as worsened because they have become acquainted with their relational dynamics; thus, avoidant individuals’ relationships are shorter because they themselves put an end to it (Jang et al., 2002).”Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model
• Withdrawal elicits negative emotional reactions from the other partner: “…results show that withdrawal deployed by one individual may elicit a negative emotional reaction in his/her partner (Miga et al., 2010; Feeney and Karantzas, 2017), which, in turn, would explain the demand/aggression response since withdrawal is understood as a defensive strategy of depreciative nature (Creasey and Ladd, 2004).” Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model
• Avoidant withdrawal causes partner demand and then leads to both members perceiving the relationship as of diminished quality: “An unexplored but relevant question to the topic under study regards how highly avoidant individuals’ use of withdrawal conflict strategies is associated with the behavior displayed by their partners (i.e., demand strategy). Instances from the clinical work with couples point out to the relationship between actor’s withdrawal and partner’s demand strategy; specifically, Johnson (2004) observed that individuals’ withdrawal and/or silence during conflict (stonewalling), as response instances of conflict withdrawal, provoked their partners’ response of excessive criticism and demand/aggression. Indeed, conflict withdrawal is perceived by his/her partner as more harmful (Overall et al., 2013; Prager et al., 2019) and may cause him/her increased frustration (Johnson, 2004; Feeney and Karantzas, 2017). Consequently, his/her partner may react in a more aggressive way, which would lead both members to perceive the relationship as of a diminished quality. Eventually, this situation would bring both partners’ needs to be unmet, causing relational distress (Gottman, 1994). Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model
• Conflict-resolution strategies, specifically withdrawal, may be the missing puzzle piece to grasp the mechanisms underlying highly avoidant individuals’ (and their partners’) low relationship satisfaction. Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model
• The consequence of avoidant withdraw/deactivation is a demand/aggression resolution-strategy from the impacted partner: Furthermore, it is not only that avoidant individuals’ biased interpretation makes them feel uncomfortable in situations of high intimacy, which leads to the avoidance behavior (Collins and Read, 1990),but also, they perceive that their partners are unable to adequately respond to their (avoidant people’s) needs, which in turn exerts a negative effect in their relationship satisfaction levels (Collins, 1996). Therefore, a partner’s perceived behaviors would be the response to one’s own behavior (Collins, 1996), the demand/aggression resolution-strategy being the consequence of one’s withdrawal of conflict. Avoidant individuals’ perception of a pressure to engage and getting close to their partner would lead them to using emotion regulation techniques of deactivation, which translates into avoiding the conflict to a higher extent, as shown in Bretaña et al. (2019, 2020) studies on perception of partners. Nevertheless, despite its demonstrated relevance in understanding conflict resolution and relationship satisfaction, the avoidant dimension of attachment has not received enough attention as a key variable, as claimed by Bretaña et al. (2020). Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, the dyadic analysis of both partners’ interrelated links between avoidance attachment orientation and negative conflict strategies has not been conducted so far. Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model
• It is possible for an individual to deactivate attachment, even as he activates other behavioral systems (caregiving behavioral system, the affiliative system, the sexual system, and the exploratory system). Activation of other behavioral systems may be used in order to deactivate attachment: “In considering individuals who are avoidant of attachment, it is helpful to keep in mind these different behavioral systems. Doing so allows us to explain why individuals who are avoidant in one domain of experience may appear so very different in another, why, for example, those who avoid attachment may very well be socially active, sexually passionate, or intellectually deep. In other words, deactivation of attachment does not necessarily mean deactivation of the other behavioral systems. In fact, in therapy we often see passionate, socially engaged, or otherwise deep individuals who will go to great lengths to avoid discussing or thinking about their personal, relational lives.
  Thus, it is possible for an individual to deactivate attachment, even as he activates other behavioral systems. Taking the issue one step further, we can see that activation of other behavioral systems may actually be used in order to deactivate attachment. That is, the individual may make attempts to substitute another behavioral system for attachment. Consider, for example, the client who avoids the development of meaningful intimate relationships by throwing himself into work (exploratory system) over the course of many years. The primary purpose of such diversion is the avoidance of painful attachment-related memories and the feelings arising from the prospect of intimacy, but on the surface, such diversion has the advantage of social acceptability, achievement, and success, all of which tend to eclipse the avoidance.” (Robert T. Muller. Trauma and the Avoidant client. 2010.)
• Avoidants have poor memory collection of adverse childhood experiences/trauma. If present, there is a minimization of negative attachment-related experiences. Deactivation forms as a relationship preserving strategy: “By deactivating attachment, the client shifts attention away from memories of potentially painful relationship episodes with caregivers (George & West, 2001, 2004), thereby avoiding possible threat to the relationship or to the individual’s view of the relationship. In Bowlby’s (1988) view, this was “avoidance in the service of proximity.” Because attachment behavior has as its aim the maintenance of proximity, the function of this avoidance is to disable feelings and ideas that threaten the real or perceived relationship…”
  
  “…forgetting certain kinds of betrayal experiences can be necessary for the individual’s adaptation within a traumatic or emotionally damaging environment. Thus, early on, when Sandra was asked to recount her childhood experiences with her parents, she had great difficulty with the task, stating that she “couldn’t remember a thing from way back then,” a position that was consistent with her general tendency to deactivate attachment. Such instances of inability to recall childhood events are quite common for individuals who are avoidant of attachment (D. Pederson, personal communication, June 2005), with large blocks of time often unaccounted.”(Trauma and the Avoidant Client)
• Avoidants may seek therapy less than preoccupied clients: “While private consulting rooms and National Health Service psychological therapy services (especially the higher intensity provision under the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies programme) attract preoccupied clients and those with unresolved trauma, dismissing individuals are not necessarily beating their way to our consulting room doors. There are a number of reasons for this, including the tendency to minimise distress.I have already explored why disdain or contempt are used as defences against a certain kind of intimacy that exists in the consulting room. Avoidant individuals experience depression, anxiety, loss, stress,and all of the life struggles that therapy can be helpful for, but the highly defended individual looks for other options. In general, self help is more acceptable and in keeping with the injunction to be self-sufficient. There are many resources available on the internet, as well as apps and books that address symptom relief and promote well being(see also Cundy, 2015).”
  
  (page 91, from Attachment and the Defence against Intimacy by Linda Cundy)

• Avoidant individuals do not provide caregiving behavior when relationship partners are distressed or upset: “Although there may be negative effects of avoidant individuals’ chronic reliance on deactivating and distancing strategies, these effects may not always be apparent, especially in the short-term. More readily apparent are the negative effects of these strategies on the avoidant person’s close relationships and relationship partners. Avoidant individuals’ tendencies to distance themselves from others, affirm their independence, and suppress negative emotion may lead relationship partners to become dissatisfied and relationship quality to deteriorate. For instance, as discussed earlier, a growing body of research suggests that avoidance is negatively related to caregiving behavior, particularly when relationship partners are distressed or upset (B. Feeney & Collins, 2001; Fraley & Shaver, 1998; Simpson et al., 1992). Perhaps as a way to distance themselves from expressions of negative emotion and others’ distress, avoidant individuals seem to be unresponsive precisely when their partners most need their support.“(Avoidant Attachment: Exploration of an Oxymoron. Robin S. Edelstein and Phillip R. Shaver.)
• Avoidant individuals use work as a defensive strategy: “Moreover, avoidant behavior may preclude even the initial formation of close relationships. Avoidant individuals prefer to work alone (Hazan & Shaver, 1990), use work or other solitary activities to avoid social interactions (Hazan & Shaver, 1990; Mikulincer, 1997), and find themselves attracted to potential relationship partners who do not reciprocate their feelings (Aron, Aron, & Allen, 1998). After completing tasks (e.g., self-disclosure exercises) designed to foster closeness in previously unacquainted dyads, avoidant individuals report feeling less close to their partners than do nonavoidant individuals (Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, & Bator, 1997).”
  (Avoidant Attachment: Exploration of an Oxymoron. Robin S. Edelstein and Phillip R. Shaver.)
• Avoidants must use suppressive strategies to regulate their internal emotional states: “In addition, attachment avoidance is associated with a preferential use of (expressive) suppression to regulate emotions (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2007), allowing the individual to keep the attachment system in a low activation state and to prevent others of perceiving their internal emotional states (Vrticka et al., 2012a).” (Neuroscience of human social interactions and adult attachment style)
• Avoidant individuals can have more favorable views of consensual non-monogamy and reported a stronger willingness to engage in such relationships in the future. “Among individuals who had never engaged in CNM, avoidance was robustly linked to more positive attitudes and greater willingness to engage in CNM. However, avoidant individuals were less likely to engage in CNM than in monogamous relationships. Understanding attachment in multiple partner relationships can provide new avenues for exploring the complexities of relationships.” (Attached to monogamy? Avoidance predicts willingness to engage (but not actual engagement) in consensual non-monogamy)
• Avoidant individuals’ distance if their partners appear upset and seek less support when they are anxious themselves: “When fear/anxiety is experimentally induced, for example, highly avoidant individuals who are more distressed seek less comfort/support from their romantic partners, and their highly avoidant partners (who are engaged in a different, non-stressful task) offer less comfort/support if their romantic partners appear more upset [20,21]. “
  Jeffry A. Simpson. Adult Attachment, Stress, and Romantic Relationships. 2018
  

To read

• Physical Distance Between Romantic Partners as a Marker for Attachment in Couples: A Proof of Concept Study
• Support seeking and support giving within couples in an anxiety-provoking situation: The role of attachment styles.
• Working Models of Attachment, Support Giving, and Support Seeking in a Stressful Situation

Individuals scoring high in anxiety attachment would be characterized by an excessive preoccupation and fear of being abandoned by their partner. Frontiers | Avoidant Attachment, Withdrawal-Aggression Conflict Pattern, and Relationship Satisfaction: A Mediational Dyadic Model (frontiersin.org)

• The anxiety dimension concerns the extent to which the attachment system is activated by environmental and interpersonal stressors. Anxious infants and adults are overly concerned with fears of abandonment and rejection, and as a result tend to be especially vigilant regarding the whereabouts of attachment figures (Ainsworth et al., 1978; J. Feeney, 1998). Adults high on the anxiety dimension are more easily distressed by brief separations from attachment figures (J. Feeney & Noller, 1992; Fraley & Shaver, 1998) and often do not feel that their needs for closeness are satisfied by relationship partners (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).

https://adultattachment.faculty.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2015/09/Edelstein_2004_Avoidant-Attachment_Exploration-of-an-Oxymoron.pdf

• The second dimension, anxiety, assesses the degree to which individuals worry about being underappreciated or abandoned by their romantic partners. Highly anxious individuals are heavily invested in their relationships, and they yearn to get closer to their partners emotionally to feel more secure. Anxious individuals harbor negative self-views and guarded but hopeful views of their romantic partners [13,14]. These conflicted perceptions lead anxious individuals to question their worth, worry about losing their partners, and remain vigilant to signs their partners might be pulling away from them [15]. Thus, they are motivated to increase their deficient sense of felt security [12], which leads them to act in ways that sometimes smother or drive their partners away [16]. Because anxious persons do not know whether they can count on their partners, their working models amplify distress, making them feel even less secure. Accordingly, anxious people tend to use emotion-focused/hyperactivating coping strategies when distressed [6], which sustain or escalate their concerns/worries and often keeps their attachment systems chronically activated [17].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4845754/#!po=14.7059

Definitions

• Excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) behavior is defined as “the relatively stable tendency to excessively and persistently seek assurances from others that one is lovable and worthy, regardless of whether such assurance has already been provided” (Joiner, Metalsky, Katz, & Beach, 1999, p. 270).

Ideas

• DEPRESSED SEEK REASSURANCE BUT DOUBT WHAT THEY RECEIVE: Coyne (1976) proposed an interpersonal theory of depression, postulating that mildly depressed people tend to seek reassurance from others to assuage feelings of guilt and low self-esteem. Others initially provide such support, but the depressed person often doubts the authenticity of the support and repeatedly seeks assurance. As a result, the depressive people are rejected by others, which worsens their symptoms. 1.
• INDIVIDUALS USE ERS TO MANAGE DISTRESS AND DOUBTS OF LOVABILITY: From an attachment framework, then, ERS behaviour can be conceptualized as a strategy that individuals may use to manage distress and assuage any doubts about their lovability, worthiness (i.e., self-esteem), future prospects, and safety (i.e., anxiety). Indeed, research supports the notion of ERS as a coping strategy in response to interpersonal threats, stress, or anxiety. 2I
• Research has repeatedly shown an association between attachment anxiety and higher levels of overall and daily ERS (Abela et al., 2005; Davila, 2001; Evraire & Dozois, 2014; Evraire et al., 2014; Katz, Petracca, & Rabinowitz, 2009; Shaver et al., 2005).
• individuals who engage in ERS do so because of an IWM reflecting a fear of abandonment/rejection or insecurity in relationships. 2
• ERS DECREASES TRUST AND INCREASES FEARS: Furthermore, it is clear that although individuals likely engage in ERS to assuage relationship insecurities, ERS seems to decrease levels of trust and likely increase fears about the relationship. As such, clinical interventions targeted towards ERS can focus on this theme with the hopes of helping individuals develop more effective strategies for decreasing their relationship insecurities.
• INCOMPATIBILITY OF ANXIOUS AND AVOIDANT: Knowing that individuals with an avoidant attachment style down-regulate attachment feelings and behaviors by distancing themselves from their partners, it makes intuitive sense that having a partner constantly asking for reassurance would be aversive to avoidant individuals, given that seeking reassurance is incongruent with their own strategy of coping with distress. 2
• ANXIOUS INDIVIDUALS HAVE TROUBLE STOPPING ERS, EVEN AFTER RECEIVING REASSURANCE: For instance, despite their solicitation of and openness to feedback, individuals with an anxious attachment style often do not believe the reassurance they receive from close others and thus continue to engage in ERS (Evraire & Dozois, 2014).

Resources

1. Abe, Kazuaki. 2020. Searching for Positive Aspects of Excessive Reassurance-Seeking
2. Evraire, Lyndsay & Dozois, David & Wilde, Jesse. 2022. The Contribution of Attachment Styles and Reassurance Seeking to Trust in Romantic Couples

Trust that one’s partner has their best interests at heart is one of the most important and highly valued qualities in romantic relationships, predicting many positive individual and relational outcomes.

The Price of Distrust: Trust, Anxious Attachment, Jealousy, and Partner Abuse

This page is still under construction

• Trust difficulty is often a result of past experiences of betrayal.

Definitions

• Trust: Within the context of romantic relationships, trust has been conceptualized in the literature as the confidence that an individual’s partner will be concerned about and responsive to their needs, desires, and goals, along with faith in the future of the relationship (Mikulincer, 1998).

Themes of Romantic Jealousy

• Jealousy results from a perceived threat to one’s romantic relationship. 1
• This perceived loss or threat comes from the perception of a potential romantic attraction between one’s partner and a rival (G. White & Mullen, 1989). 1
• cognitive jealousy and behavioral jealousy have been found to be negatively associated with relationship satisfaction and commitment (Andersen, Eloy, Guerrero, & Spitzberg, 1995; Aylor & Dainton, 2001; Bevan, 2008). 1
• For anxiously attached, fear of abandonment and insecurity in one’s relationship elicits a tendency to seek information. 1
• anxious individuals’ propensity to self-protect may ultimately serve to harm their relationship, both through the very mechanisms they are using (e.g., snooping, partner abuse) and the subsequent distance created between themselves and their partner.

Ideas

• Anxiously attached individuals are less likely to trust others in general and may chronically make suspicious attributions; they are also more sensitive to rejection cues and also more likely to snoop on their partner. Thus, a lack of trust in the partner combined with anxious attachment may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies that serve to reinforce maladaptive beliefs and expectations about the partner’s level of trustworthiness. To the extent that an individual responds to their partner in a hypersensitive, defensive, and destructive manner on a perceived negative trust experience, they may actually emotionally distance themselves from their partner, which encourages the very experience the anxious person is trying to avoid (lower satisfaction and intimacy, possible dissolution of the relationship). In some ways, this seems inevitable, considering the likely conversations that might follow when one discovers his or her partner going through their wallet, purse, or cell phone. At best, this will likely create disharmony and ill feelings in the recognition that one is not trusted. 1
• Moreover, partner expressions of offense at being monitored may be perceived by the suspicious partner as confirmation of justification for suspicion. 1

Resources

1. The Price of Distrust: Trust, Anxious Attachment, Jealousy, and Partner Abuse

Previous research in relationship satisfaction
has indicated that when one member of the couple has
high avoidant attachment and another has high anxious
attachment, the relationship may be difficult to maintain

Bibliography

• Dimensions of Adult Attachment, Affect Regulation, and Romantic Relationship Functioning. Brennan, K. A., Shaver, P. R. (study examines avoidant and anxious attachment somewhere)

Issues regarding sexual desire are among the most commonly
reported complaints among couples.”

Sexual Desire Discrepancy: A Position Statement of the European
Society for Sexual Medicine

This page is still under construction

Definitions

• Sexual desire is the (subjective) experience of being attracted to or pushed towards objects or behaviors with potential rewarding effects. ⁹
• Sexual desire discrepancy (SDD) was first defined by Zilbergeld and Ellison (1980)to describe when 2 partners in an intimate relationship desire different levels or a different frequency of sexual activity.
• Basson (2000, 2001) also distinguished betweenspontaneous and responsive sexual desire, where sponta-neous desire is the drive that is more characteristic inearlier relationships and responsive sexual desire is more consistent with longer-term relationships

Themes

• Sexual desire in long term relationships
• Impact on relationships
• Strategies used by couples
• inevitability: individual levels of sexual desire ebb and flow for several reasons over the course of one’s life

Ideas

• “it is remarkable that low and high sexual desire are typically approached from an individualistic perspective that reduces the problem to the individual desire levels of the partners, thereby disregarding the dyadic interaction in which it develops.” 7.
• From this follows that the experience of sexual feelings is a consequence of an incentive energizing the sexual system. Feelings of sexual desire and excitement result from the awareness of the sexually excited state of the body and the brain. Hence, the experience of sexual desire can only come about through sexual excitement. Contrary Kaplan’s proposal sexual desire does not precede sexual excitement; excitement precedes sexual desire. ⁹
• More recently, it has been proposed that sexual desire in a relationship should be conceptualized, studied, and treated as a relative and dyadic concept,rather than an individual characteristic or trait. Instead of pathologizing the low-desire partner and using the high-desire partner as a benchmark, it has been proposed to reframe sexual desire problems as a mismatch in desire. ⁷
• “and although sexual desire is related to the frequency of sexual behavior, it can be problematic to rely on sexual frequency as a proxy for sexual desire (Brotto, 2010). Sexual desire is not a purely behavioral construct (Brotto, 2010; Clement, 2002; Mark, 2015). Using sexual frequency as a proxy for sexual desire removes the important contextual components of sexual desire, such as the relationship dynamic (Mark, 2015), distress (Clement, 2002) and the relevance of sexually diverse relationships where the frequency of sexual activity is not a marker of desire or quality (Blair & Pukall, 2014). In addition, sexual desire is not necessary for sexual activity (Brotto, Heiman, & Tolman, 2009), and sexual behavior is often engaged in for reasons other than sexual desire (Basson, 2000; Cain et al., 2003; Meston & Buss, 2007; Muise, 2017) or with the absence of sexual desire altogether (Beck, Bozman, & Qualtrough, 1991).” ¹⁰
• Realistic expectations that sexual desirewill ebb and flow throughout the relationship has been shown in multiple studies to impact the maintenance of sexual desire in long-term relationships. 10
• Autonomy. Maintaining a level of autonomy in arelationship and being able to continue to have an identity that is separate from the couple identity has been shown to contribute to the maintenance of sexual desire in the context of a long-term relationship 10
• Individuals high in avoidant attachment tend to be at risk for maintaining sexual desire in long-term relationships. 10

Reading

1. Strategies for Mitigating Sexual Desire Discrepancy in Relationships – 2020
2. Maintaining sexual desire in intimate relationships: the importance of approach goals – (“Results showed that approach relationship goals buffered against declines in sexual desire over time and predicted elevated sexual desire during daily sexual interactions.”) – 2008
3. Sexual Desire Discrepancy as a Feature, Not a Bug, of Long-Term Relationships: Women’s Self-Reported Strategies for Modulating Sexual Desire – 2014
4. Does a Long-Term Relationship Kill Romantic Love? – (keen to read this: “A review of taxonomies, theory, and research suggests that romantic love, without the obsession component typical of early stage romantic love, can and does exist in long-term marriages, and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high self-esteem.”) – 2009
5. Heterosexual Men’s Sexual Desire: Supported by, or Deviating from, Traditional Masculinity Norms and Sexual Scripts? – “It is suggested that researchers, therapists, and sex educators be mindful that men face pressures to exhibit sexual desire in stereotypically masculine ways and that outward demonstrations of sexual interest may not always be accurate representations of men’s true experiences.” – 2017
6. Treatment of Desire Discrepancy: One Clinician’s Approach – 2020
7. Sexual Desire Discrepancy: A Position Statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine – 2020
8. Leiblum S. Treating sexual desire disorders. New York. NY:Guilford; 2010
9. Desire emerges from excitement: A psychophysiological perspective on sexual motivation – 2007
10. Maintaining Sexual Desire in Long-Term Relationships: A Systematic Review and Conceptual Model – 2018

Which flaws in Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s empirical,conceptual, and theoretical work have attachment scholars acknowledged and decided to reject or to modify? And, what is attachment theory today?

Vicedo, Marga. (2018). On the history, present, and future of attachment theory. Reply to Robbie Duschinsky, Marinus van IJzendoorn, Sarah Foster, Sophie Reijman & Francesca Lionetti ‘attachment histories and futures.’. European Journal of Developmental Psychology. 17. 1-9. 10.1080/17405629.2018.1502920.

This page is still under construction

Attachment theory has received many criticisms over the last several decades.

Thompson, R. A. (2017). Twenty-First century attachment theory: Challenges andopportunities. In H. Keller & K. A. Bard (Eds.), The cultural nature of attachment(pp. 301–319). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

At first sight it seems curious that many hostile academic discussions of attachment research, such as those of Vicedo (Chapter 1) and anthropologist critics (Chapter 2), possess the same three qualities: they mistake technical for ordinary language (e.g. regarding the
meaning of ‘sensitivity’); recent attachment research is ignored in favour of classic statements by Bowlby; and the findings of meta analyses are neglected. However, these qualities are less mysterious in light of Keller’s reflection (Chapter 2) that such critiques of attachment research are, at least in part, a proxy for criticism of the uses of attachment discourse in child welfare contexts.