Attraction is organized by familiarity, and familiarity does not discriminate between healthy and unhealthy dynamics. A person whose earliest model of love included emotional unavailability will find emotionally unavailable partners familiar, and familiarity registers in the nervous system as attraction. A person whose earliest model of love included control will find controlling partners compelling, not because they enjoy being controlled but because the dynamic activates the attachment system in a way that a healthier dynamic does not. The mismatch between what is good for the person and what feels right to the person is at the center of most toxic partner selection.
For adults near Boca Raton who are caught in this mismatch, Dr. David Steinbok's psychodynamic approach provides a way to understand the familiarity principle without being controlled by it. The therapeutic relationship offers an experience that may initially feel unfamiliar, a consistent, reliable, emotionally attuned connection, and that unfamiliarity is part of what expands the patient's relational template over time.
