The Reassurance Trap

I'm going to talk about the trap of reassurance today. So, this is particularly for anybody who has an anxious preoccupied attachment. Um, very often you will be so aware that you are seeking reassurance that it feels like it's the most important thing for you. So, I hope today will be useful for you and it will give you a kind of idea of where that deep deep longing for reassurance comes from and also how to work with it.

Um, just by way of an introduction, I am Christine. I am a registered member of the BACP. So that's the British Association of Counselors and Psychotherapists. I work in private practice in the UK and I also work internationally. I um I teach groups and classes internationally. I do those online. Um for any of you who've come through the groups or the classes, hello. It's really wonderful to have you here. Um this is very much for you. You know, I know sometimes we don't get a chance to talk about things in as much detail as I would like or or possibly as you would like because the, you know, can be an hour or an hour and a half depending on whether you're in a class or a group. Uh, so this is really to kind of flesh things out for you and um yeah, just take something that's a bit complex and kind of work it out, kind of look at it logically and uh hopefully give you some information that will be helpful.

Okay, so the trap of reassurance. Now, what do I mean when I say the trap of reassurance? Well, if you are someone with an anxious attachment, if you have anxious preoccupied attachment, also if you have a fearful avoidant attachment, you will know how really important reassurance feels for you. And the reason for this is because you have a core fear of abandonment. So anytime that you see a partner really kind of rejecting, abandoning you, this is particularly true for someone who's anxious preoccupied, somewhat less for someone who's fearful avoidant. But if you are anxious preoccupied, when you see that behavior, you will immediately move towards them for reassurance. Reassurance feels like the most important thing. So any stress in a relationship and it's like a kind of alarm bell goes off and you think, "Oh, I need reassurance." you're immediately moving towards the person. And unfortunately, there is a kind of common belief at the moment in social media that if you are someone who's anxious preoccupied and you get enough reassurance, this is the thing that's going to help you move towards a secure attachment. Now, you can understand completely why you would believe this if you were anxious preoccupied because you'll be aware that when you get reassurance, you feel so much better. So it sort of makes sense when you start when you first start thinking about it. You think, "Oh, you know, I don't feel good. When I get reassurance, I feel better." So it must be that the more reassurance I get, the better I will feel.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. What's happening to you when you're seeking reassurance, and you'll be so aware of this, is that reassurance works for a short time. So what usually happens if you're anxious preoccupied and you're seeking reassurance is that you feel anxious, you seek reassurance and you feel better immediately. Soon as you get it, you feel better. But unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. You really be aware of this because what happens is the next time you are anxious, you're still needing more reassurance. If reassurance worked the first time, and I kind of wish it did for people. I really do. What would happen is you would get reassurance, your confidence would feel better, and so the next time you had a stressful situation, your confidence would be better and therefore you wouldn't need more reassurance. That would be the case if it worked. But actually, it doesn't, does it? That's the problem with it. You get reassurance and then the next time you're stressed, you feel that you need more reassurance. And the reason for this is that the reassurance is a temporary fix. What it's actually doing is it's like a kind of sticking plaster over the core fear of abandonment. The core fear of abandonment basically you're not able to access it. You're not able to process it nor work through it when you're consistently and constantly asking for reassurance because you feel better in the moment. The fear of abandonment just kind of it's almost like you just then aren't kind of conscious of it because you've got co-regulation, you've got reassurance, but the abandonment is still there. And the reason that you are not developing self-confidence, no matter how much reassurance you get, is because you're not self-regulating.

So two ways to regulate as human beings, we can co-regulate and we can self-regulate. And obviously if you are someone who's anxious, you're seeking co-regulation. You're seeking reassurance. That's what that's what co-regulation is. It's reassurance. What you're not doing is self-regulating. And in order to have confidence, in order to feel power and feel agency, feel strong and feel capable in the world, what you need is self-regulation skills. Otherwise, you find that your self-esteem stays low and you stay dependent on co-regulation. You stay dependent on someone else's reassurance. And that's really what happens if you're anxious, preoccupied. You've got kind of half of the puzzle really in terms of what you need to have secure attachment. You're very good at asking for reassurance. You know how to do that. But the piece that's missing is the self-regulation skills. And there is a good reason for that. The reason that you're not able to self-regulate is because in some key way you have experienced abandonment. And when you experience abandonment as a child, you're frightened and you're overwhelmed by being on your own. So you haven't had a chance. you haven't had the possibility of developing those self-regulation skills because being abandoned feels so frightening because it has genuinely been really frightening. So when you experience that in childhood, you become completely reliant on someone else soothing you and someone else taking care of you and supporting you. And so all along, all through childhood and into adulthood, the ability to manage your own feelings unfortunately doesn't develop. And when you're an adult and you'll be so aware of this, like I said, anytime that you feel stressed, that feeling of panic and anxiety rises up in you, you feel unable to cope. You feel powerless. You feel helpless. You feel overwhelmed. You think, "I can't manage this. I need reassurance." And of course, as soon as you get reassurance, that panic disappears. But the problem is the underlying abandonment is not being worked through. It's not being worked on. So if you want to change your attachment style, if you want to be less dependent, it's really really important that you learn the self-regulation skills because seeking constant reassurance is keeping you stuck in anxious attachment. It's never ever unfortunately going to get you to secure attachment by asking for more and more reassurance. Like I said, I kind of wish that it did work. Then people wouldn't have to do any therapy. I'd have to do something else and not work in this field. But it would it would be really good in a way, you know, if you're anxious and the more reassurance that you got, the better you would feel, the you know, the stronger you would be in yourself. You'd feel secure. But it never ever works. And I know that this can be quite difficult for my clients to kind of fully make sense of because it's kind of it's kind of feels counterintuitive. Oh, what? I'm not supposed to have reassurance. I'm supposed to self-regulate, but that doesn't make me feel good. Surely, I should need more reassurance and then I'll be okay.

But I wonder if it can help sort of see the logic by thinking of it in terms of someone who is dismissive avoidant. Because what happens with the dismissive avoidant is that you are very good at self-regulation but you can't co-regulate. So it's the opposite pattern for someone who's anxious. Now if I describe what it's like for a dismissive avoidant who thinks that if I just self-regulate I'll get to secure attachment, you can see probably that it just genuinely doesn't make sense. So, if I believed as a as a dismissive avoidant, all I've got to do is self-regulate and that's going to get me to secure attachment. You can see how it just the logic doesn't kind of follow because it would look like this. I'm dismissive avoidant. All I want to do is self-regulate, which means that when I am stressed, I move away from relationship. And if I just do that enough, I'll get to secure attachment. You see, it it doesn't make sense. In fact, it's ridiculous. There's absolutely no way that a dismissive avoidant could get to secure attachment by just constantly leaving relationships. And yet, the dismissive avoidant often feels like all I need to do is self-regulate and then I'll be okay. Well, they would be okay in the sense that they would be self-regulated, but they would be completely on their own. They would not be working out how to be intimate in relationship. They wouldn't be learning co-regulation, which is the thing that helps them actually move towards secure attachment. So for the dismissive avoidant, if I'm just self-regulating, what will happen if I never co-regulate is I'll just I'll just be alone. That is in no way going to move me towards a secure attachment. The work for me if I'm dismissive avoidant is to absolutely learn how to co-regulate and be vulnerable and share my emotion, be connected to a p person, you know, learn how to have intimacy, not to stay on my own, you see. So when you kind of think about it in those terms, you can see, ah, yeah, it actually doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. And I hope that that will help you make sense of the reassurance pattern that staying in reassurance and just seeking reassurance is not ever unfortunately going to get you to secure attachment. You have to develop those self-regulation skills.

Um, and there can be a way I find with my anxious clients that especially because this kind of this paradigm, this idea is in social media that you just need to find someone who's secure that secure person will give you enough reassurance and then you will be secure. That's out there and it really unfortunately is not doing anyone any favors because it's just not accurate. All that that would mean if you found someone who gave you lots of reassurance is that you would stay stuck in dependency. you would never ever get to secure attachment. So, what do you do? What can you do to move yourself towards secure attachment? Well, it's all about self-regulation skills. This is the thing to really focus on. And there there are different ways to think about self-regulation. There are currently lots of really good self-regulation skills out there. You know, um there's box breathing, there's counting, there's kind of noticing what's in your environment. These are all kind of meant um as you know they're good tools to kind of in the moment ground you make you feel kind of oh here I am in the moment I can cope it's all right I just have to focus on the moment I don't have to catastrophize I don't have to ruminate I can just be in the present moment and these self-regulation skills that are kind of they're they're out there and I kind of I talk about them as being kind of generic self-regulation skills they have their place they're really good in the moment but they are not therapeutic tools in terms of the abandonment that you've experienced that still has to be processed. So, your self-regulation skills that you've got, great, use them. I hope that they work for you and I'm I'm delighted that people are aware of them. But in terms of the therapeutic process, what you're going to need are tools that really deal with the underlying abandonment because the self-regulation skills that are kind of generic, they take you out of the fear in the moment, which is great. But as I said, the abandonment is still there to be processed.

So, how do you do that? That needs a different set of tools. Those are the therapeutic tools that you're going to use. And those tools, what I do with clients is I ask them a few questions about what is the abandonment like for you. Okay? How do you experience abandonment? Because everybody has a different experience of abandonment in childhood. We're not all of the same. Now, there are usually three ways in which people experience abandonment. you have a sense of lack of internal safety, a terror of not being lovable, or a terror of not being good. These are usually the preoccupations that you have if you're anxious preoccupied. Um, if you've been to my classes on moving from an anxious preoccupied attachment style to an earnsecure attachment style, you'll know that I use the work of Clauddio Nuranho and the way that he identifies core fears. So that's really what I'm looking for when I'm kind of talking to clients and saying, "Okay, so so what is it that you that you kind of really experience in abandonment? Is it like I said, I feel completely unsafe? I feel unlovable. I feel like I'm a bad person." Or is this how you're experiencing abandonment? Um and depending on how a client answers that then we have an idea of okay so when you are feeling abandoned we need to kind of speak directly to these particular core fears when I when I talk about core fears I mean the kind of the the core ways that you experience abandonment is it the lack of safety the fact that you feel that you're unlovable the fact that you feel bad and very often it's all three very often you will notice when you feel any kind of stress that you go into self attack. If you're anxious, preoccupied, I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm not good. I'm so unsafe. And this is where the terror comes from because you're going into that self attack. This is why it feels completely unbearable. You know, I have clients who have an anxious preoccupied attachment and they go into complete self-hate, intense self-hate as soon as they feel stressed. And this is where it's coming from. It's coming from that experience of abandonment and the particular way in which you've experienced abandonment.

So, what do you do in order to work with this? Well, when I see when I kind of figure out with a client what they're experiencing, let me talk about the kind of the feeling of lack of safety. We can we can do that. Um, what we're going to have to do is when they are feeling abandoned or when they are feeling stressed, they're going to be aware that they feel complete lack of safety internally. It feels absolutely terrible. Now it's really important to start building into self. I feel safe. I can take care of myself. I have agency. I have power. But you'll be really aware that if you try to do this straight away when you feel stressed, if you do don't do any preparatory work, you you know, your inner critic will immediately say, "I'm not safe. I'm not safe. I'm not safe." You know, that's ridiculous. I'm not safe. So, it's important when you start this work to start building in moments of safety. from the very very beginning of of doing this work and I suggest to clients okay so when you are doing your day when you're kind of going around your day just I don't know going for a walk at lunchtime or something if you if you notice that you have a tiny moment of safety a tiny moment of calm maybe there's sun and it's certainly at the moment it's um it's February in the UK it's it's not particularly sunny but say there's a kind of ray of sunshine on a on a February dark day and you kind of have that moment of like oh the sun is out. Oh, how lovely. Spring is going to be here soon. And you notice that in that moment you feel happy. You feel alive. That kind of moment, you need to hold on to it. Okay? And really kind of feel the preciousness of that moment because in that moment you are feeling safe. And what happens when you feel that you have no internal sense of safety? You forget moments of safety. So when you are stressed, everything feels overwhelm overwhelming. Everything feels terrible. So really notice a moment of safety. Really notice if that moment of kind of joy, that feeling of your body relaxing, that you're feeling good. And when you get home, write down that you've had that. Okay? And then the next time you have a moment of s of I was going to say a moment of sadness. It's not what you want to be writing down. That that kind of moment of kind of peace or calm, preciousness. You may read a good book. You may really enjoy that you you've read a really good book. You may suddenly in the morning be making yourself coffee and suddenly have a moment of thinking, "Oh, I feel good. I I feel good." Now, obviously, many people with this Scorfe are waking up in dread. So, those moments of of feeling good are they're often kind of quiet. They're often small moments and you can kind of almost dismiss them. So, it's about noticing them. It's about noticing that you have them and almost stringing them together. So, if you kind of have they're like beautiful jewels that you kind of string together on a necklace. And what you're wanting to do is make those moments kind of larger in your mind, more precious in your mind. Because what happens with this particular core fear when you experience like a lack of safety is that you are magnifying the negative moments in your mind. You're making everything feel really really intensely difficult and stressful because you're remembering all the difficult emotions. So with this particular core, you really have that sense of, oh, I've got to kind of work against that in a way, work against that internal feeling of lack of safety by kind of creating these perfect moments of safety that I have. And like I said, stringing stringing them together like they're jewels.

The other thing that I suggest to clients is that they write down everything that they have done that has been brave and courageous. I want them to be boastful. Okay, it's really really important to be boastful here to challenge that feeling of I have no competency, I have no agency, I'm useless, I'm pathetic. So, so important that you start kind of working against that. So, write down everything that you possibly can about how brave you are, what skills you have, how amazing you are, how wonderful you are, how lovely you are, you know, and you'll feel usually you feel pretty bad about doing this. you have that sense of, oh, I'm going to be arrogant. This is terrible. I promise you, you're not going to be arrogant. You're not. You're not. And also, you're never going to become a narcissist, which is something else that clients have said to me, oh, I'm going to become narcissistic if I do this work. It's like, no, no, no, no. I promise you, you're not going to become narcissistic. You're just building your self-esteem. So, it's it's really about reminding yourself of your competency. One of the things that happens when you're anxious, preoccupied, is that you stay in touch with your vulnerability, but you lose a sense of your competency. You lo lose trust in your competency. If you're dismissive, avoidant, it's the opposite. You hold on to your sense of competency, but you lose your sense of vulnerability. So, that's a different process to work with. With anxious preoccupied, you're going to be working on remembering your competency. And this is some something that your counselor or your therapist can do for you. I'm often sort of reminding clients and saying to clients, no, I remember when you were able to do this because what happens when you're stressed is you immediately go to that place of I'm powerless. I'm helpless. I'm not safe. I need reassurance. I need I need another person to kind of take care of me because I can't do it on my own. So, this is about absolutely reminding yourself that you have courage and you do have a lot of courage. You know, you do. It's often completely in your blind spot. So again, you know, the professional that you're working with can help you and remind you of your courage because it's it's a very interesting thing for anxious preoccupied that the self-hate is really it's almost protective in a way because there's this feeling of I mustn't be strong because then I'm not going to get enough reassurance. I'm not going to be seen as someone who's deserving of reassurance. So, you're kind of really in a way you're you're working you're working I I was going to say working against that. I don't know if that's fully accurate, but you'll hit that. You will definitely hit that when you start to self-regulate. And you may have feelings of this is not fair. It's not fair that I have to do this work. And you're right, it's not fair. It's really not. You know, it's not fair that in childhood you were abandoned and now you have to learn these skills that weren't taught to you. You weren't supported in the way that it was important that you should have been supported in childhood. So, there can be like a real resistance to doing the self-regulation work. If you experience that, don't give yourself a hard time. Okay? It's it's completely understandable that you would feel that. There can be a resistance to doing it in therapy. There can be you can start to sulk. And again, if you if you recognize yourself in this, again, be really kind to yourself. You know, don't give yourself a hard time about sulking about this. You have that sense of like, this is not fair. It's not fair. Why should I do this work? Why can't I just get reassurance from somebody else? You know, why why can't that be possible for me? It's hard enough. And I really, really understand that. And also, I don't judge that. So, if you're aware of it, it's like it's it's it's really it's part of the process. It's painful. It's really painful to have to start self-regulating. But nonetheless, when you do this work, when you're able to self-regulate, that kind of sense of I need the other person to take care of me, and you can feel yourself being deskilled when you're seeking a lot of reassurance under stress. You feel your self-esteem lower even more. And that's because if you're if you're not self-regulating under stress, you're not able to kind of access confidence. You're not able to kind of really take care of yourself. And that absolutely ends when you have your good self-regulation skills and action. And also you come out of sometimes it's it's it's naivity that you have if you're anxious preoccupied because you have that sense of like longing for the other person and you're trusting the other person and you're not trusting yourself. There can be intense naivity. It's a kind of it's a hangover from childhood really. Now, as an adult, naivity is something that it's actually it's important to put away in a way. It didn't sound very good, but it's important to put it away in a way. And but what what I mean by that is when you are naive to reality, you can be hurt and you can be harmed. That kind of incredible trust that you have in another person if you're anxious, preoccupied. Actually, what's important is that you really start to kind of assess a person thoughtfully and with consideration. so that you don't become dependent on someone who may hurt you. This is often why with this particular experience of abandonment, you feel that you are hurt and rejected and you may experience betrayal and it can come from this intense naivity around I just long for reassurance. I hope that everybody's a good person. I really want them to be a good person. I will consider that they are a good person. You know, this can often be coming from from that kind of deep deep sense of really longing for somebody to take care of you and be a good person. So, this this kind of um sense of working on the self-regulation skills that you have, it's very important to help with that in case you're you're resonating with that.

Okay, I think that's everything that I've got. Oh, it's probably all I've got time for today and I realize I've kind of gone on for a long time. Um now the other um key ways that it's really important to start regulating um obviously around love and that that you might that you may feel that you're not lovable and also around I'm not good enough. Um I cover those in the class um in the anxious preoccupied class. Um and I hope I hope the information there will be useful as well. Thanks everybody. Thank you so much for watching.