Creating Secure Attachment and Safe Relationships with Jennifer Nurick

• Using somatic awareness to self-regulate and mindfully react in moments of emotional intensity. 
• How addressing your younger parts can unburden past traumas that are affecting your relationships.  
• Gain strategies for communicating with partners, fostering intimacy, and managing differences in attachment styles. 

Jennifer Nurick specializes in healing anxious attachment, attachment injuries, and childhood trauma. She is a licensed clinical psychotherapist, couples counselor, energetic healer, director of the International Energetic Healing Association, and founder and host of the Psychotherapy Central podcast.

She is also the author of the recently released book, Heal Your Anxious Attachment, a holistic guide offering a trauma informed approach grounded in neuroscience, mindfulness, and polyvagal theory. Jen has been working in the healing space for over 20 years, combining spiritual psychotherapy, internal family systems, emotional focusing, and EMDR therapy.

She offers transformational courses to help individuals and couples heal trauma and build secure long-term relationships.

Her website: jennynurick.com

Find her on IG: psychotherapy.central

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Website: https://www.jessicahornstein.com

*Music by Sam Murphy*
IG: @sammmmmmurphy

Transcript

Self-Healing, Safe Relationships, and Secure Attachment with Jennifer Nurick

Jessica Hornstein: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the No Not Crazy podcast. Today I am here with Jennifer Nurick. Jennifer Nurick specializes in healing anxious attachment, attachment injuries, and childhood trauma. She is a licensed clinical psychotherapist, couple’s counselor, energetic healer, director of the International Energetic Healing Association, and founder and host of the Psychotherapy Central podcast.

She is also the author of the recently released book, Heal Your Anxious Attachment, a holistic guide offering a trauma informed approach grounded in neuroscience, mindfulness, and polyvagal theory. Jen has been working in the healing space for over 20 years, combining spiritual psychotherapy, internal family systems, emotional focusing, and EMDR therapy.

She offers transformational courses to help individuals and couples heal trauma and build secure long-term relationships. Welcome, Jen. Thank you so much for being here. 

Jennifer Nurick: Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. Great to be here to have a conversation. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yes. I'm really excited for this. I love attachment theory and I would love to know how you came to this work. Maybe that would be a good place to start. 

Jennifer Nurick: I've been doing my own personal healing work since I was in my Early twenties. And I think I was really curious about consciousness to start with. I remember being overseas. I was working overseas, the internet had just started and I went online and I bought, I just searched online for a book.

What book can teach me about meditation? And I found Meditation for Dummies. It was probably the first one, I guess it was one of the first introductory meditation books on the internet. Now there would be a zillion, but back then. Um, and I started, that was really when I started doing my own personal work.

So it's been a very long journey. What led me into work with attachment was really my relationship with my husband. I'm 18 years married. I'll give myself a little clap for that. Um, and happily married and like any marriage, you know, it's. There's, there's, there's, it's a journey, and we had like most couples, a journey to go on, and it's still an evolving journey because we're two humans who are always evolving.

I have more anxious tendencies. My family of origin has a pattern of more anxious attachment tendencies, and my partner has more avoidant tendencies. And so I had a previous relationship with somebody who being, I would say more secure on that attachment spectrum. So it's for people who are kind of learning about attachment.

It isn't kind of a fixed diagnosis, it is something that can absolutely change and it is a spectrum. And when we go into relationship with people with different styles, we can absolutely find, Oh, when I'm with somebody who likes more relational space, I start to feel a bit anxious. And, and my, we might call it my stuff, my stuff starts to come up.

I can feel that I feel less safe in the relationship. Whereas if I'm in relationship with somebody who's more secure or even a little bit anxious themselves as a tendency, I tend to feel safer. So I fell crazy in love with somebody who, when I wasn't really planning to, he was more avoidant. Now, when I look back at that, I kind of go, Oh, yeah, I can see how there's some patterns there from other relationships when I was young.

So it's not a surprise to me now when I look back as a therapist through that therapist lens, I did choose somebody who has some patterns that are similar to my father. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yeah. Yes, I think that's quite a common Story. Maybe for anybody who doesn't know, if you could just give a super quick rundown of the attachment styles you mentioned there.

Jennifer Nurick: Yeah, absolutely. So attachment theory evolves from research that was done back in the 60s with John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. They were really curious about they did an experiment, they call it the strange situation where we have some toddlers in a room, one toddler, one mother, they would watch them play. Okay. They would, then they would have a structured, , shift. So the mother would leave and they would watch what the child did. Then a stranger would come in, they would watch what the child did. Then the stranger would leave and the mother would come back. And they noticed that different children behaved really differently.

Some children, when the mother left, would, you know, call for the mother, would cry, would become quite anxious. Some children when the mother left had no real, did hardly even seem to notice, and treated the stranger the same as they treated the mother. Some children were quite wary of the stranger. So there were very different behaviors, and they put them into two categories.

One was secure and one was insecure. And then in the insecure bracket, they divided it into three. One being anxious, which is when I like to be closer to my secure person. So if we think about a child. At the beginning, we need a lot of support from our carers. I mean, probably until the age of maybe even 16, if we're left in a forest, we're going to die.

But definitely up until the age of at least kind of seven, eight, we need to stay close to our person to survive. So there is a natural, biological pull to stay close to the people who love us for safety. Now, if my carer is sometimes present and sometimes not present in the way that I need them to be, I might kind of, um, start to feel quite anxious about that and stay close to them, or it might be that something else in my surrounding is dangerous, and so I stay close to my safe person.

Or another way it can come about is if let's say I had some major surgery as an infant and maybe that continued on and maybe my immune system was a bit low and my carer was very concerned about my well-being and scared about me in a park and scared about me with other kids and what could possibly happen there is that I learned that I'm not very robust, that I'm not safe, and I need to stay close to my carer, number one, to keep myself safe, but maybe perhaps number two, or even number one, to keep my carer calm.

So it can actually happen in a few different ways. Avoidance style is where a carer isn't very present for different reasons and it could be, maybe working two jobs, maybe emotionally quite shut down, just not very attuned, and maybe got a lot going on, depression, lots of different things.

But I reach out as a child, I reach out, I reach out, and nobody's really reaching back. And so I learned to just stop reaching out. Um, and I become very independent very early. Um, and it can even be where, so looking through a parts lens, which is something I do a lot, we develop this part that shuts down even sometimes our feeling of our own need.

So there's not, not only is there no point in me reaching out, but there's no point in me even feeling the need for love or the need to be soothed or the, or even hungry because those needs are not met. So, we can develop a big kind of a numbing or shutting down part that can become problematic later when we want to, when we want to be intimate and we want to be close because lots of avoided people.

I work with a lot of avoidant people in their style there. I call it an adaptation because it's very much an adaptation from childhood. It's not something that we kind of decide it's because of the environment, children will just adapt to get their needs met and whatever adaptation works best. And the third one, and I've just gone on a bit here.

is disorganized attachment, which is where the carer is the source of food and the source of some safety but can also be a source of terror. So, I have this biological need to be close to them to be safe, but I also have this biological need to get away from them to be safe. And it creates a lot of confusion in the inner system.

Um, a lot of confusion around, is this person safe or is this person unsafe? And the reality is, is that they have parts that are safe, and they have parts that are very unsafe. And so that's a different attachment style and a much smaller percentage of the population. 

Jessica Hornstein: I love that you make a point of calling it an adaptation or to point that out because I think that really helps to destigmatize it, it made a lot of sense to respond the way you did at a certain point in time. Absolutely. And so, it's not something. Wrong with you inside. It was a really smart thing to do in a certain way. The name of the podcast, right—No, Not Crazy. I mean, so we can feel like, a little bit crazy as we grow up and we're in these, these relationships and these situations and we think, what is going on with me? And so, I think attachment offers at least one really helpful lens onto a lot of those responses.

Jennifer Nurick: Absolutely. I love that you point that out. Um, and it can be very difficult when people with one of those adaptation, look around at friends and think, well, this doesn't happen to my friends and it doesn't happen to me in friendships. But as soon as I get into an intimate relationship, Jen, I'm, I'm like this crazy person. I don't even recognize myself. And often people come to me saying, I read it. I've read all of your material online. I've been reading other people's stuff and what a relief, actually. It's a huge relief and such a relief to know that I can work with this. Sometimes it's that thing about once I have a name for it and I have a lens to understand myself.

There's a lot more compassion and then a lot of agency of, ah, okay. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yeah. Yes. So how can we, if we're now adults, and we're in, we're in a relationship or we're thinking about being in relationships or we've been in relationships , how can we, assess, , where we fall in that spectrum?

And I know, As you pointed out, it can be a fluid thing depending, on who, who the person opposite you is. but what are sort of the hallmarks, I guess, of how that may play out within relationships as an adult? 

Jennifer Nurick: Great question. So, number one, there's research that shows quite extensive research now that shows that these patterns do carry over into adult relationships, which kind of makes sense because when we're attaching to our person growing up as adults, we then have in the way that our culture does it anyway.

So, I'll just speak for kind of Western structures. This is a similar thing. We're kind of attaching to that one person and they become kind of our secure home base. So, if I'm in a car accident, the first person that I would call would be my husband if I’m distressed, um, the first person I would call is my husband and then we would hope to have other people around.

So, if they're not available or they don't have capacity, we can call other people for support. So how would I know that it's happening for me in relationship? So with anxious attachment, let me speak to someone who's strongly on that end of the spectrum, right? So sometimes it might be as strong as, My husband's going away for work and I know he's going away for work. So I know that it's, he's not leaving me. He's not abandoning me. He has a work thing that I've known about for a week, and I felt fine about for a week. But then the moment he starts packing his bag, I start to feel that anxiety and I feel it in my chest, like a panic. I feel nauseous in my stomach. And then I start to have these like crazy thoughts of.

Maybe he's going to meet someone while he's away. Maybe he doesn't really want to be with me. So, when we have the anxious style, uh, our sort of imprinting around self is that deep down, I'm not worthy of love and attention and affection because that person has been kind of unstable. That's what I've learned about myself.

And I've also learned about model of other that I can't really depend on them to be there for me. So, there's this sense. Even if my husband is the most trustworthy, most committed, committed partner. There will still be this angst around their going away. So, it's around this relational distance.

It can happen. You might feel it at a party. Let's say you're at a bar and your, your partner's speaking to another woman. Um, and having similar feelings inside 

Jessica Hornstein: I'm curious, does anxious attachment always come from that insecurity about yourself, as you said sort of that feeling of like, am I really lovable or the self-worth, because I feel like sometimes you see it.

Not necessarily so much of, of how you feel about yourself, but maybe having developed over time from being disappointed in other people and experiences you've had that it's more about like a, like sometimes can be about a lack of faith really in other people's capacity.

Yeah. Would that also be, a piece of that sometime for some, I mean, I understand obviously it could be different for different people, but it's not always a self-worth thing or it can be both. 

Jennifer Nurick: With anxious attachment, it's usually a little bit of both. The model of self has been impacted and model of other. Okay. Yeah. It's usually a little bit of both, but you might find that the proportions of that swing around and you'll absolutely find, I could have quite a secure attachment pattern from my family of origin. And then I might go into an abusive relationship, where it's been very unsafe, a lot of mixed messages. And I could come out of that relationship with one of the insecure attachment styles. So, they can develop as adults as well. 

Jessica Hornstein: Right. Right. Well, and of course, we also probably can play a part in perpetuating it, right? Because, you know, we may end up choosing unavailable or avoidant partners, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy of, right, somebody not being there for you in the way you want.And so it confirms your beliefs, right? 

Jennifer Nurick: And there I, I get really curious about our systems opportunity for healing. Like we step into that repeated scenario of, and there's part of us going here I am again, I can't believe it. I've chosen the same kind of person again. That's just like my mother, this evokes exactly the same feelings.

So, there's an opportunity there. It's like part of the system is looking for redemption because if I can make this person see me and love me and care for me in the way that I needed my mother to, then I am lovable. I am lovable. And that's the redemption that those younger parts of our system are really yearning for.

And that can be incredibly painful because that's relying on someone else to do something. So, it can be painful. Um, but good to have that lens of, okay, I'm back here again. What can I do differently within me and do differently within the relationship that can bring about growth and healing and resolution to this unfinished business? Because that's what it is. 

Jessica Hornstein: So it's not it's not a hopeless situation if you're an anxious attacher in a relationship with somebody avoidant, let's say you're, you're saying that there are ways to work within that. 

Jennifer Nurick: Absolutely. I wouldn't say with all relationships, I think that if you're fairly anxious and you're with somebody who is really far down on the other end of the avoidance scale. Not all relationships are going to work, not work and be happy and fulfilling for both people. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yeah. 

Jennifer Nurick: So, I mean, I'm living evidence that it's, that it is possible that it is absolutely possible. Um, did I work at it? Yeah. And did my husband work at it? Yeah, we both did. We both moved his preference for relational space would be more distance. My preference for relational space is closer. And so, especially in that first two years, there was this dance where we had to assess kind of, and then find our comfortable place. And whenever you're in a, uh, a dyadic kind of two person relationship, it'll, it'll always be kind of unstable because you're either moving closer or further apart all of the time, day to day and month to month and year to year. Anyone who's been in a long-term relationship. It's kind of a dance. 

Jessica Hornstein: I think, I think one of the challenges for anxious attachers, is, this struggle with, you know, everything feels like a threat or so many things can feel like a threat, and how do we balance that part where it's appropriate to, to say, to observe what's going on with yourself, just to say to yourself, like, the example you gave. My husband is just going on this business trip that I've known about for a week. It's okay. That feeling inside is just my anxious attachment rearing its, its head.

But we don't want people to always use that, right? Because sometimes they're, um. Is something actually going on? And so, I mean, how do we balance sort of that is this real or imagined? Because I see people grappling with that so much. You're either trying to talk yourself out of all your feelings or you're blaming yourself, and , I mean, it's not a matter of constantly saying, Oh, that's just my anxious attachment talking, right? 

Jennifer Nurick: Through my lens, the work is two parts, and I divided my book into two parts. One is around work with self, and I take it through body, mind, spirit. So that's kind of our personal work. And then the other is in relationship, because in essence, attachment happens in relationship. And part of the beautiful work we do in the first part is helping to recreate a different attachment experience in childhood.

Um, there's some resourcing of parents work so that there's a, an experience of some, just some different experiences, some secure attachment experiences in childhood. And the second part, yeah, is in, is in relationship. So, For me, it's a little bit of both. It's a little bit of reconnecting in with the body and sort of, being able to feel the sensations and emotions in the body and be with yourself in a different way, being with your own panic and anxiety in a different way.

And there's a piece that is relational. So how do I know if my husband really is chatting to other people online. So that's a, that's a, that's a relational issue. If that was coming up for, for me or for a couple, ideally you would go and do some couple therapy where you sit with your partner and I love emotionally focused couples therapy. That's the kind of couple therapy I practice with some internal family systems. So some parts work woven through it, um, and a little bit of energetic work woven through it. With emotionally focused couples therapy, that's a Sue Johnson modality who recently actually passed away. Um, her, the whole modality is structured around reforming attachment bonds, recreating trust and getting to know each other in and even with couples who are very open and very transparent with each other. Still, in those spaces, very different things can come out things that maybe one person doesn't really feel safe to have said. Sometimes even things that you didn't even know were sitting there can kind of come out in the couple therapy. 

I find that's very helpful for building trust and for helping those more anxious parts in the anxious person to settle. What happens as well is that the other person gets to understand our anxious system a lot more, and so when we're more avoidant, the capacity to stand in someone else's shoes is sometimes lacking, not always, but that process can really help the other person see the world through the anxious perspective.

And then their behavior can sometimes change. And as a couple, I've seen couples do beautiful work around this, where. Yeah. They start like a prep, almost like a ritual. So, if they know that he's going away for work, they'll start a ritual kind of when they know that it's going to happen, there'll be a build up to, okay, what, what are we needing?

What does the relationship need? What are you needing? Not that you're the problem, but actually what does our relationship need to have this? Um, I see it like chewing gum, kind of to be able to stretch apart and then be able to come back. But we stake it when we're apart, we have these like gooey connections.

So, we're staying connected. We're not kind of going off in our own gumballs. We're still connected. We're like this gummy glue, and then we're going to come back together again. And how do we do that in our relationship in a way that. That the avoidant can manage and how do they do it in a way that supports the person who is thinking about and holding their loved one in their heart a lot and holding some anxiety. 

Jessica Hornstein: I was really interested to read in your book about people pleasing, because I always have thought of that as really an anxious behavior, because the fear of losing somebody, so you're just going to yes them. And I read in your book that, in fact, avoidants do this quite a bit as well, sort of as a conflict. Yeah, that was, that was really interesting to me that there are, there are some crossover things, I guess, and similarities because we think of it as, you know, these diametrically opposed positions, I guess. And in fact, there can be very similar behaviors. 

Jennifer Nurick: Yeah, essentially they're both protective strategies. I need to keep myself safe, so I get anxious and want to be close to stay safe and the other person's is, I want to stay safe and so I stay distant to stay safe. And absolutely, often when conflict comes up in the relationship, the avoidant pattern is more to withdraw, to step back. To say, yes, yeah, yeah, whatever you need. Okay. Yep. Yep. That's fine. And then of course, resentment starts to build up because they're deep down, they're feeling unheard and unseen. And like their needs are not as important as the other person who will often escalate when their needs are not met, whereas the avoidant will tend to shut down over there.

Jessica Hornstein: Right. So interesting. You touched a little bit on the emotionally focused therapy and I was wondering if we could dig in a little more to the way you integrate somatics and other modalities or techniques in working with attachment. 

Jennifer Nurick: I love emotionally focused couple therapy. It's one of my passions as is internal family systems because I just see it in my own, my own being, you know, I might, I might feel my husband pull back and then I'll feel a younger part. And, and, and I know in my own system that I have two flavors of younger parts. I have a bunch of teenagers whose default is I'm angry.

And then I have a bunch of younger ones. You know, kind of for up to about, um, way up to about 10, 12 who are sad. And so, they'll either be one of those flavors. My system's preference is for angry first, and it can take me a while to, um, to dig down into the sad. So, in, when we're doing EFT couple therapy, we're really looking at the cycle of conflict or the cycle that we get trapped in.

It might not even come out as conflict because some couples, especially if you've got a withdrawer and a withdrawer, they might not have a lot of actual conflict, but just not a lot of juice in their relationship. So we're really looking at, okay, when you come in and leave the house really messy and you throw all your work stuff everywhere and all your fishing stuff is all over the floor, I feel like you're just expecting me to pick it all up and you're expecting me to kind of sort it all out. And I get, I get angry. So, an angry part comes up. What does my partner do? My partner gets defensive. Yeah. And when they get defensive, then I escalate even more. So, I get louder. And what do they do?

They, um, so I'm asking my partner this and, and he might say, well, I withdraw even more. I just want it all to stop. And I will do anything at that stage to make it stop because I want to keep the relationship safe. And your escalation to me feels and looks really dangerous. And it's scary for me. I don't know what to do. And I, and maybe even, I can't feel my own body anymore. Maybe I can't even think straight. Often they get like a scrambled. I can't even think straight. So they're just trying to keep themselves in the relationship safe. And they think they'll do that by shutting down. And the other person's over here going, But all I need you to do is just even just tell me how you're feeling.

And they say, well, I can't tell you how I'm feeling. And that's actually because they don't know. Often they can't feel it. They have no connection. And often deep down, if the anxious person were to be still and to say how they're feeling, often they're super flooded and they're feeling a lot of different things. And it's often, I'm angry and I'm sad and I'm annoyed and I'm frustrated. And I feel like I want to just, you know, give up on the relationship and, and they can often be feeling quite a lot. So, there's a dynamic that plays out that EFT helps to track. And we start to get really clear about what the triggers are and what step one is and what that dance is between the couple.

And we help the couple see it really clearly. So that as they start to step into step one, Rather than me as the pursuer, which would be more the anxious style rather than me starting with, you've left all your fishing stuff on the floor, you've left everything everywhere, I've spent all day cleaning the house, you don't care about me, you don't, you're just expecting me to pick it up.

Rather than starting at 10 out of 10, I might start with, Sweetheart, I'm guessing that you've come home and that you're like super tired and you just want to get these dirty clothes off and you just want to put all this fishing stuff down. And I really get that. I have a part of me that's really reacted to it and is feeling really kind of sad and, and an angry part.

And I really just need to hear that when you shower that you're going to just pick it all up and take care of it now that as a, as a, as a step one allows my partner to say, Oh, you're totally right. I'm so exhausted. Yeah, I'll absolutely just let me have a shower and I'll pick it up. Now their response might be different.

It could be defensive, depending on the relationship, but at least when we're talking about it, we can have an awareness. I'm coming in with a soft start. Okay. Allow space for the other person to do something different. And they would then have more awareness about their response to that request. 

Jessica Hornstein: How do you recommend that people get in touch with that awareness, because you need to create a space between the reaction, your internal reaction and the fears and all the emotions and the outward reaction, right? There needs to be a pause in there, right? You have to catch yourself to, to be able to say something, you know, that's at that lower level and not escalated level. So do you have something in particular that you, I mean, I know obviously these things take time and work and practice, but is there something you sort of recommend to people to access that pause and expand the space before the reaction. 

Jennifer Nurick: The way that I do it in my own system is I feel the anger come up through the middle of my body. So, it's a somatic felt awareness for me. And that for me is a sign of weight. Don't say anything. Wait, don't say anything. And then that for me is when I know, okay, just take a moment, Jen, and just check in rather than reaching out straight away and escalating, just wait. But I have a process in the book, right?

There is a table that I've laid out to go through. And the way that that works is. You start off just, it'll be as a reflection of a past conflict or when there's been something happening. You go through it and it really helps you, break down the expressed emotion and the emotion underneath what you're actually really needing and what the attachment need is. So, it starts off, you just go through it and you reflect after these kinds of interactions in a pattern of doing that. What tends to happen is you recognize, because we're writing down what's the trigger, what's my behavior. And so, then there's more awareness. And so then eventually you'll come to when the trigger happens, you know that you've got to fill out your table afterwards, right necause I give everyone blank sheets of this. So, you know, okay, I, this is a trigger and I'm going to have to write this on my sheet. What do I want to write down as my next step? And that's how change happens. It's through repetition and practice and, and getting it wrong sometimes, you know, sometimes you'll, you'll do the sheet and you'll know, I'm going to have to write this down snd, and a part of you will go, I don't care that I'm going to have to write this down. It's okay. That's just, that's if you get it 20 percent of the time, there's still a shift.

Jessica Hornstein: It's almost like, what you were describing about that. When that feeling. You feel that feeling coming up, you know, to wait. It's almost like the more you want to say something, right, the more behind it, is probably more of a sign that you should not, when it has all that energy building and just wants to burst out. 

Jennifer Nurick: And that is where the internal family systems work is really helpful. And I do this in couples work where we work with a part while the other partners present that can be very powerful work. So, let's say that I have that um for all of that power. And I might objectively know this is more energy than really is appropriate for this particular situation. Like I could be mildly irritated, but I feel really angry. That's a sign of what kind of, we would kind of colloquially call a trigger. And that means that this it's, it's, there is a memory or an energy that has been evoked through something in present day time.

And I have time traveled. And activated a younger part of my psyche and a younger part of my psyche has blended with me and I'm reacting from that younger part of me. Now internal family systems are some really amazing work around accessing that younger part. Really hearing them, witnessing them, giving them a lot of missing experiences because the energy is stuck because it didn't get the attention, attunement, support that it needed at that time.

There's a lot of stuff we get left with as children that we can't process properly. Events. They, the younger parts receive missing experiences holding from self, so self-energy, unconditionally loving, compassionate, caring for, um, the younger part. And then there's another healing process that that younger part goes through that involves really letting go.

We call it unburdening of some of the heaviness that they were carrying. And also bringing in a different frequency for them and then allowing them to take on a new role in the system. And then they integrate back in, in a very different way. And a lot like for my own system and for lots of my clients, there are phases in that where there is very strong felt shifts in the system of, Oh my goodness, that feels so different And then what happens is. Next time when our partner leaves their stuff all over the house. It's just not there. It's just kind of a, I feel, I just, I don't feel all of that anger to kind of escalate. It's just a love, just noticing you've left all your stuff all over the floor, just checking that you're going to pick it all up when you're done showering, which is different. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yes. Very, very different. And I, I suppose I know you talk about neuroplasticity a bit. So, with time, right, that, as you said, the energy just goes because we are really rewiring our responses. And there's so much hope in that. And in, and in doing that ourselves, we're also affecting our partners and vice versa. So, it becomes a really positive cycle. 

Jennifer Nurick: That's it. That's it. The relationship becomes a very different container. 

Jessica Hornstein: So, before we go, I mean, I'd love to leave everybody with an , an alternate vision, And, so could you share with us a little bit about, what secure attachment looks like? You did a little bit in that example of how you might speak. So, you know, it may not be necessarily that interesting because it's not something we notice, I guess, when it's happening because it's, everything's fine. But I, wonder how people can recognize that they are in or moving into at least, you know, a securely attached relationship? 

Jennifer Nurick: Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. And I love that you mentioned that as can be like swimming in water when you're a fish and you don't know that you're in the water. Absolutely. It's this deep sense of knowing that my person has my back, that they will, that if I reach out, that my person will be there. So, these are some of the beliefs that we know from research into the thoughts of securely attached people. There's also a sense in when securely attached people that if I need help, if I'm out on the street and I need help from a stranger, my model of others says, A good person will come forward and help me.

So, it shows up in the relationship, but also in other relationships and my expectations of the world. So that, yeah, in the relationship, there's a sense of care, there's love languages that flow where we feel our partner's love and care. Different relationships will balance that differently, words of affection and touch, and time together, but there is a real warmth and care and a level of closeness and intimacy where both people feel nurtured and supported in that container. And there is that sense that I am one of the most important people, if not the most important person to my partner. 

Jessica Hornstein: So, there's a real safety and trust. 

Jennifer Nurick: Absolutely. 

Jessica Hornstein: Yes. That's lovely. Something we can all aspire to. So thank you so much for everything you've shared. It's, it is really such fascinating work and so important for so many people and I'm sure that people will be very interested in hearing more and learning more about your work. Where can they find out more about you? 

Jennifer Nurick: My website is psychotherapycentral.health. And my Instagram, which I manage myself, so if you DM me, I will read it is at psychotherapy.central.

Jessica Hornstein: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jen. I really appreciate it. It's been such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you for being here.

Jennifer Nurick: You too. A great conversation, really interesting questions. So love to dive into all of it. Thank you. Thank you.