Wired for Love: Are You an Island, Wave or Anchor?

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Learn how your brain is wired for love in this compelling book from Stan Tatkin PsyD.

In his book Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain Attachment Style Can Help You Diffuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship, American author and psychotherapist Stan Tatkin speaks about how a partner’s attachment style can affect the way a person deals with conflict and their ability to form a secure relationship.

Wired for Love is a guide to understanding your partner’s brain and promoting love and trust within a romantic relationship. Stan teaches ten scientific principles you can use to avoid triggering fear and panic in your partner, manage your partner’s emotional reactions when they do become upset, and recognise when the brain’s threat response is hindering your ability to act in a loving way.

By learning to use simple gestures and words, you can learn to put out emotional fires and help their partners feel more safe and secure. The no-fault view of conflict in this book encourages you to move past a “warring brain” mentality and toward a more cooperative “loving brain” understanding of the relationship.

Based in the sound science of neurobiology, attachment theory, and emotion regulation research, this book is essential reading for couples and others interested in understanding the complex dynamics at work behind love and trust in intimate relationships.

In Wired for Love, Stan classes individual attachment styles into 3 categories: islands, waves or anchors. We all fit into one of these categories based on how we tend to respond in our relationships. Here’s a brief summary of the different attachment styles as described by Stan:

Characteristics of islands

People who are islands tend to:

like to be alone, enjoy their own space
have been raised to be self-sufficient and tend to avoid people
learn early on not to depend on people
often feel crowded in intimate relationships
be in a world of their own
self-soothe and self-stimulate
not turn to others for soothing or stimulation
find it hard to shift from being alone to interacting
under express their thoughts and feelings
process a lot internally

Characteristics of waves

People who are waves tend to:

feel a great deal with their emotions
have strong attachments in childhood, but they were inconsistent
have helped soothe a parent or both parents who were overwhelmed
have felt rejected or turned away by one or both parents
focus on external regulation- asking others to help them soothe them
find it hard to shift from interacting to being alone
overexpress and like to talk about all the details
stay in close physical contact with others
often think they are too much and nobody can tolerate them

Characteristics of anchors

People who are anchors tend to:

come from a family where there was an emphasis on the relationship
have experienced justice, fairness and sensitivity in their family
love to collaborate and work with others
read faces, voices and deal with difficult people well

Our attachment styles get hard-wired into our brains from an early age. Understanding your attachment style is not about pathology, but is about helping you to deal with your natural state and improve your relationships. Understanding how you move towards and away from others and how your partner moves towards and away can help you improve your relationship.

The brain can react in 2 major ways when we are relating to others and Stan calls these parts of the brain primitives and ambassadors.

The brain primitives

Primitives within the brain are concerned with

keeping us alive and survival above all else i.e. ‘shoot first, ask questions later’
very fast responses that are automatic and unconscious
reactions that don’t require a lot of resources
memories from the past being triggered by current events
identifying what looks good and what doesn’t look good

The brain ambassadors

Ambassadors require a lot of energy and resources and are related to the higher thinking areas of the brain. These areas require glucose to run effectively and stop working when primitives are activated.

Ambassadors are concerned with:

making rational decisions
thinking from an adult perspective and weighing all the options
logical thought and making sense of difficult situations
all higher functions of the brain including complex negotiating and reasoning

So this all sounds well and good, but one of the main issues when couples fight is that the primitives are activated and overtake the ambassadors. All the logic, reasoning and adult responses can be lost in an instant once the primitive are unleashed. The challenge is to soothe your primitives and activate your ambassadors…easier said than done when you’re brain is telling you your survival is at stake.

Stan’s tips for fighting well in your relationship

fight friendly- say something reparative or friendly within a fight e.g. “I love you, honey”
face your partner directly and make good eye contact while fighting
avoid asking questions but make quick statements that help release tension between you e.g. “honey, let’s grab a bite to eat and come back to this later”
repair your fights quickly to reduce the creation of bad memories that get stored in long term memory

If you’re interested in finding out more about this fascinating theory, check out this audio interview with Stan Tatkin who explains in detail his ideas about attachment styles in couple relationships and how we’re Wired for Love.

Buy Stan’s book Wired for Love on Amazon now by clicking the image below:

Do you need relationship help?

If you need help with your relationship, contact Clinton Power + Associates on (02) 8968 9323 to discuss your situation and find out how we can help.

Clinton Power

Since 2003, Clinton Power has helped thousands of couples and individuals as a counsellor and psychotherapist in private practice in Sydney and online in Australia. Clinton regularly comments in the media on issues of relationships and has appeared on Channel 7, The Sydney Morning Herald, and ABC Radio. Clinton’s eBook, 31 Days to Build a Better Relationship is available for Kindle on Amazon. Click here to take Clinton’s relationship checkup quiz to find out how well you know your partner.

Wired for Love Relationships: Are You an Island, Wave, or Anchor?