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In this episode, I share Gordon Neufeld’s 6-phase attachment model, and how it can help us connect to our kids more deeply. Neufeld is a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist and a leading interpreter of attachment science. Healthy attachment is crucial to the unfolding of human potential, from birth to death.
What’s Covered in This Episode
- WHAT’S ATTACHMENT? Simply put, it’s the science of relationship.
- THE 6-PHASE MODEL: Neufeld has proposed a six-phase attachment paradigm that is useful for understanding how attachment unfolds very gradually. The phases ascend from the simplest way of attaching to the most complex. Those phases are physical proximity (connecting through the 5 senses), sameness (finding similarities), belonging (being part of), significance (to be special to), love (emotional intimacy), and being known (psychological intimacy; sharing our true selves). If all goes well, children can move through these phases one year at a time, so that by age 6 or 7, they can be securely attached. (However, it’s never too late to reach our attachment potential.)
- INSIGHT: Each succeeding phase of attaching becomes the answer to the separation experienced in the previous phase.
- BIG PICTURE: Why is this yearning for attachment within every human being from the beginning of life to the very end? No discussion of human flourishing is complete without a discussion of the transcendent. What is God revealing to us here?
Resources
Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld. One of the most important parenting books to be released in many decades. “Hold On to Your Kids explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to ‘reattach’ to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. “
The Importance of Attachment TVO (video) interview with Gordon Neufeld. 17 minutes long.
Image credit: Anna Kraynova (dreamstime.com)