Anxious attachment creates a relational experience organized around the fear of loss. The anxiously attached person monitors the relationship constantly for signs that the partner is pulling away. A delayed text message can trigger panic. A partner's request for alone time can feel like the beginning of the end. The need for reassurance is not a character flaw. It is the output of an attachment system that was calibrated in childhood to detect relational threat, and that system is exquisitely sensitive. The sensitivity exhausts both the person experiencing it and the partner on the receiving end.
Dr. David Steinbok works with adults in Boca Raton dealing with anxious attachment. As an insecure attachment therapist, his psychodynamic approach provides a stable, consistent therapeutic relationship in which the anxious response can be examined as it arises rather than after it has already caused damage in an outside relationship.
