ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
NOTES
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
Attachment is the way people give and receive love with one
another. It’s the secure connection wherein you share your needs
and get them met. The security of your attachment determines
the quality of your relationships.
Attachment forms the basis for how you get your needs met. Are
you going to act upon others, get acted upon, or act with them
cooperatively for mutual care?
Attachment is learned based on how our parents treat us. The way
they meet our needs, or don’t, shows us what we should expect
from others around us.
Good attachment feels warm and secure. You can ask to get
your needs met without fear of rejection, punishment, or
abandonment. You’re able to relax into relationships and enjoy
social engagements with other people.
When attachment is broken, everything becomes fearful. You
can’t ask to get your needs met because you think no one
cares. You aren’t able to trust others because you either believe
something is wrong with you or that something is wrong with
everyone else. Either way, there’s no means for working together.
You’re alone in the world and have to figure out how to get your
needs met without getting hurt.
With broken attachment, everything is terrifying.
As I said before, this colors everything in your life. If every social
interaction is fearful, life becomes painful and scary. You won’t
know what to do or how to act. Your romantic relationships
become power struggles. It becomes impossible to form real
partnerships based on trust and love because you’re waiting for
them to betray or leave you.
This gets handed down to children as you don’t know how to
model healthy attachment. They grow up just as fearful. And the
pattern repeats.This leads to generational brokenness.
Where did you get your attachment from?
Attachment is learned based on how our parents treat us. The way
they meet our needs, or don’t, shows us what we should expect
from others around us. We believe no one will treat us better than
our parents did, so we never expect more.
PAGE 1
Then we have to take those feelings and build relationships with:
• Friends
• Siblings
• Lovers
• At work
• And with ourselves
And as we do so, we have to keep everything inside without
revealing ourselves. This creates a perpetual inner struggle where
we crave intimacy but can never have it.
Primal Attachment Theory
Why do humans bond like this? And why do we break in such
similar ways? The answer is something I call Primal Attachment
Theory.
Our bonding patterns were designed by evolution during our
Hunter-Gatherer days. And they haven’t changed, because our
brains have not had time to evolve since the Neolithic Revolution
a mere 11,000 years ago.
Given this reality, we must understand the environment which
shaped us. That will allow us to build similar conditions in our
modern world for us to be healthy. Because though we may not
be running from saber tooth tigers, our brains are still afraid
of abandonment, harm, and death. We can build a modern
experience which gives the same benefits our ancestors enjoyed
from healthy social circles.
Ancient Attachment
For information on Hunter-Gatherer tribes, I lean heavily on
work by Peter Gronn. Check out his detailed analyses for more
information.
What do Gronn and other anthropologists say that daily life
looked like 10,000 years ago?
Hunter-Gatherers lived in family units in a small society. They
were closely connected in every way. And everyone had a role to
play. Leadership shifted around between those with the best
expertise for the moment. Surplus, wealth, and power were not the
goal. Family survival was.
Who connected best survived, Who did not, died.
 ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
Interestingly, male and female communication appears to have
evolved around gendered tasks.
People also stayed fairly local to their community and rarely
traveled from their place of birth - because there was nothing
to travel to! Unless they were following game, in which case the
whole family would come.
With everyone around you, secrets were difficult to keep. You
didn’t have a bedroom door to close for privacy. And survival of
the group required members to keep each other healthy enough
to work and bond. Again, bad bonding equaled death while good
bonding equaled survival. So everyone looked out for each other
and knew each other’s concerns and needs. There was no need
to worry about imposter syndrome because everything was fully
known. And you would be fully accepted by necessity.
Our brains also evolved certain chemicals to enhance bonding.
Let’s talk about vasopressin and oxytocin.
Vasopressin
What is vasopressin and how does it work? Vasopressin is
the hormone that allows us to bond while overcoming stress
together. When you can hang out a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
banner and high-five under it, you’ve vasopressin bonded.
Interestingly, men have more vasopressin receptors than women.
And vasopressin is older than oxytocin because it predates
lactation, which oxytocin allows for.
Here’s something you’ll need to remember for later: Our brain
can shift to bond MORE through vasopressin than oxytocin
depending on our childhood experiences. Hold onto that thought
for when we discuss broken attachment.
Vasopressin bonding kept us alive in times of struggle by
rewarding us for working together as a team.
Ancient man also had greater physical contact and closer
proximity, and thus more potential oxytocin events than we do.
Oxytocin allows us to bond in the absence of stress, when we
feel warm and safe with someone we trust. Physical contact is a
big part of oxytocin release. Modern life is much more physically
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isolating with close contact frowned upon in much of the West.
Think of attachment then as a model in a person’s head for
where they would live in an ancient village. Broken attachment
leads people to believe they live outside the village as an outcast,
among the rocks and predators. No one cares for them or will help
them. The brain responds like it’s on the edge of death because
we have no close connections.
And so many people live like this in our modern age. It’s become
more and more normal for people to live lives of fear as if they are
about to die.
How did we get to where we are now?
Modern Brokenness
Let’s talk about the last 100 years of broken attachment in the
West, especially in the US. To begin, let me take you back to World
War I.
These will be generalizations on the various generations. Not
everyone will fit, because groups aren’t monolithic. But these
generalizations are important to know because it’s how those
groups trended and how they shaped society.
The past 100 years since World War I have seen unprecedented
social and family upheavals. These changes have moved away
from our natural biological and evolved needs. As these changes
have occurred, our generational attachment has grown worse.
Before WWI, most Americans lived in rural areas on farms. Their
extended families lived around them in large communities.
They’d have aunts and uncles and cousins and maybe five
generations alive at the same time.
Then WWI hit hard and led to a lot of trauma. We lost an entire
generation of young men, the Lost Generation. And in 1920, the
number of Americans living in cities surpassed rural areas for
the first time. The federal dollar led to inflation and easier money,
the credit system was invented, the stock market inflated, and
everyone left for the glamor of the city. This led to the roaring 20s
where young people said, “I don’t need anyone but me.”
 ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
Then came the massive market crash, the Dust Bowl, and the
Great Depression. Americans flooded cities for relief and found
terrible factory conditions. 18 hour days, misery and squalor. They
survived by breaking up their families and working themselves to
death.
Then came World War II. More trauma in a meat grinder. And the
war also pulled women out of the home to work factory jobs.
Kids spent less time with mom that way. Before, they at least
had one parent, but now none. Little contact. Parents came home
exhausted and broken down, and kids didn’t bond well.
The Baby Boomers came out of this split into two camps. “My
parents loved me so much they suffered for me,” or “My parents
didn’t love me at all, so screw the whole world, it’s all about me.”
Boomers led cultural revolutions which overthrew the last pieces
of tradition. Some were good, like ending unjust racial laws.
Some led to drug-fueled group sex in parks as Boomers created
the “free love” movement. Sex no longer mattered for bonding, it
was all about feeling good. Many emotional pieces of the human
experience became detached from relationships entirely. Life
became about getting what you want even at the expense of your
family.
Generation X and Generation Y hit a world controlled by youthful
Boomers and had no idea how to react. Gen X and Gen Y were
the unwanted kids dumped in daycare and latch key and with
stranger babysitters so Boomer parents could get drunk and
explore their sexuality. Boomers saw Gen X and Gen Y as confused
deer in the headlights, failures to launch.
So the Boomers divorced and moved into second marriages. They
created the Millennial generation, the second batch of kids from
Boomers’ second marriage after their youthful marriages failed.
Millennials have never seen a world that works, their healthy
grandparents were too old or dead to connect. Millennials got the
brunt of Boomers’ impatience as older parents and rebelled.
This created a second Boomer generation where “It’s all about
ME” but without the resilience and tough-guy internals of
Boomers. Millennials are Boomers with no idea what they’re
rebelling against and no mental fortitude. Totally lost and
crushed. “Who am I? I need to find out.” Afraid to attempt to
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achieve accomplishments and BUILD who they are, since they feel
like failures and think they’ll fall short.
The next generation, Gen Z, is even worse off because they’re
raised in the rubble by broken Gen X and Millennials parents.
They’ve never seen healthy behavior except in old movies.
Attachment seems like a fairy tale. Love isn’t real to them. Which
is why Gen Z is in a meat grinder right now as 11 year olds are
committing suicide. The ones who aren’t killing themselves are
split between more extreme risky behavior for attention and “to
feel something” through their pain, and being angry at the world
that created their suffering and wanting to find traditional ways
to fix it.
This has fueled an even stronger divide in the newest generation,
which will likely turn into a polarizing social war as the years
progress and Boomers die off.
Modern life, reexamined
Now we live alone in single apartments or in a temporary couple
with a pet as our baby. We’re isolated, alienated, and we look for
connection in safe ways. We get addicted to video games and
porn and substances to ease our pain and feel the dopamine
we never get from our relationships or lives. And the suicide
epidemic is increasing.
Daycare teaches kids they aren’t wanted, even if they are.
“I have to live with strangers and earn their approval and
attention.”. Single mom comes home too exhausted to engage
enthusiastically. Kids think, “She doesn’t want me.” Or parents get
divorced and say, “Sometimes people just stop loving each other.”
Sexual abuse rates climb as kids cohabitate with parents’ new
partners. And kids think, “I deserve to be used.” “I can’t speak up
or everyone will hate me.”
This is the new normal that children see others living through,
too.
Tindr allows unrestricted sex without even knowing the person.
You meet up with strangers from the internet to swap fluids.
Totally impersonal.
And the new generations can’t imagine another way. They believe
 ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
this is our natural state. That “monkeys do this so it’s normal.”
Current life seems perfectly designed to prevent both vasopressin
and oxytocin bonding.
But monkeys don’t even do this. They’d die out. Just like our
hunter gatherer ancestors, monkeys rely on structured group
dynamics that hold them together. We reject group dynamics,
responsibility, and expectations as if they’re slavery. Monkey
troupes in the forest are healthier than modern human society
That’s the last 100 years of broken attachment and reveals how
each generation has fared worse than the one before it, up until
modern attachment styles.
Now let’s talk about how to fix it
HOW DO YOU FIX BROKEN ATTACHMENT?
To learn to fix broken attachment, we need to figure out what
went wrong. Only then can we undo what was done. That means
identifying those broken parts as “wrong” instead of “normal” and
building a new system that replaces the old which we’ve lost.
To get there, let’s go even more in-depth about why modern life
breaks attachment. In particular, let’s examine modern life as a
contrast to the Hunter-Gatherer and Neolithic structures to reveal
how far we have fallen from our basic needs.
Causes for broken attachment
Family groups are broken, not only with extended families
disappearing but constant divorce or not even getting married.
And families live globally instead of locally, so even if you have a
healthy-ish family you might move to another state or country for
work and lose what little you have. Grandparents are older and out
of touch. They die as we become teens or early adults and aren’t
there to help us grow into adulthood. Plus they have attachment
issues, too. The extended family members who could pick up the
slack - 10 aunts and 10 uncles and forty cousins - don’t exist or
don’t speak to us. There’s no one to help us get better when our
parents mess up
Friend groups are temporary and based on school. Then we leave
school and don’t know how to make adult friends we actually like.
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We work long hours at jobs we hate that barely help us afford to
live empty lives.
In short, all our relationships are built around protecting us from
exposure. We have sex with strangers and then wonder why our
sex drive doesn’t work well and why we get overly attached or
under attached. Meaningless sex with strangres is death a from
hunter-gatherer perspective, It’s born from total desperation as
you’re the last survivor of your tribe and have to rebuild. An “I’m
the last woman on earth” scenario. But it’s all we have left.
Why? What causes this?
Specific factors which break attachment
A child’s brain is always working to learn cause and effect. But
it uses itself as the origin of all events. Even with gravity. “Oh,
I made that happen.” Sometimes it gets things wrong, but
hopefully in time it can be corrected.
But then comes a parental divorce. And the parents say,
“Sometimes families just break up” or “Sometimes people just
fall out of love.” Or daycare as an infant where the child’s brain
thinks, “My mother doesn’t have time for me or doesn’t want me.”
Or parental neglect or absence where the child thinks, “If I was a
better kid my dad would want to spend time with me.”
Abuse makes the child’s brain believe, “I’m doing something to
deserve this.” Sexual abuse too - “This is what people want from
me becaue it’s all I’m worth.” Medical scares including NICU make
the child think, “No one is going to rescue and me, I’ll experience
pain and no one will help.”
Trauma like the death of a family member teaches, “Bad things
happen and I can’t stop them.” Parental depression - “I’m not
worth enough for them to try and connect with me.” Parental
drug use - “This is how people deal with problems, I can’t expect
better than this.” Parental disengagement because the parents
have attachment issues so they’re anxious and don’t know how
to connect - “Something about me causes them to stay away and
it’s my fault.”
What the child’s brain learns over and over is, “Something is
wrong with me deep down inside that other people can see but I
 ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
don’t know what it is. But it’s there, and it makes people abandon
me or want to hurt me.”
So the solution is simple: “I have to lock down my inner self and
make sure no one ever sees who I am, or they’ll see this awful
thing that’s wrong with me and reject me.”
The child becomes a cardboard cutout of the perfect person
who never asks for help or causes problems. Life becomes about
earning approval and love from others by acting right. They might
become a perfectionist and need to get an A+ on every test or
people will see they’re a stupid failure. They might go the other
way and become a joker to earn approval and laughter. Or they
even become defiant as they believe it’s impossible to ever earn
love. Ever hear of oppositional defiant disorder?
The belief is that they can never earn real love because the
moment someone gets too close, they’ll see what’s wrong with
the person and abandon them or hurt them. Every relationship
then is a series of pushing the right buttons to make people like
you more without letting them close enough to see you’re a fraud.
Why isn’t attachment fixed by our family systems?
Because we don’t have family systems to fix them. We lost that
generations ago. No aunts or uncles or grandparents or cousins
are around to help us. And the family we do have usually have
broken attachment too. That’s where we got ours from.
So why don’t we challenge these wrong ideas as we grow up?
The same reason we don’t challenge other laws of the universe.
They’re hardwired into our brain as a basic rule. “Water is wet,
gravity makes things fall down, and I’m an unlovable piece of
crap.” You don’t question it because it’s a basic building block
your brain has totally accepted and now builds decisions from.
That’s why even learning about attachment is a huge step. It
challenges the foundations of your worldview. If you can accept
there’s a better way, your brain will start looking for new solutions
that work better.
Why is broken attachment such a problem in relationships?
Because it turns you into an approval seeker or a button pusher
rather than a healthy human being. You’re playing at a constant
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deficit and have to push buttons so other people won’t learn
you’re a fraud and leave you. This changes your relationships from
connecting to human beings to moving objects around to get the
outcome you want.
Extreme sociopaths have the worst version of this where they
exploit objects for their own pleasure. But attachment issues give
you a small version of this. You want to make objects happy so
they don’t leave you or hurt you. Because you can’t connect past
the cardboard cutout of yourself. You can’t connect AS PEOPLE, so
you have to play a video game with the world. Every interaction
is playing a video game with the right and wrong button combos
that will lead you to success or failure.
This is why interactions are so exhausting. And it’s why people
with attachment issues tend to unconsciously seek out people
with attachment issues. Neither person feels threatened behind
their cardboard cutout. Marriages like this work until you have
kids and one parent wants the kids to be healthy while the other
is afraid to connect, Which leads then to divorce.
And people with attachment issues can’t ask for what they want,
they have to earn love and approval by doing good deeds. So
it’s “I’ll do 10 nice things for you and you’ll be so grateful you’ll
decipher my clues and do the one thing I’ve been wanting” -
which might be sex, in the case of men. When the other person
doesn’t read your mind you blame yourself at first. After a few
cycles, you get resentful. “If you really loved me you’d know what I
want and you’d pay me back for all the nice things I do for you!”
Some people with attachment issues need to be “The good one”
and rationalize how they do everything right even as they believe
they’re a fraud. They might even connect with people who have
horrible problems and behaviors so they feel like the savior and
“The good one” in the relationship.
Over time this total lack of honesty and treating your partner like
an object leads to resentment and coldness and lots of pain.
People look elsewhere for love - into affairs or even leaving the
relationship completely.
 ATTACHMENT BOOTCAMP LECTURE
NOTES

WHAT IS ATTACHMENT? PAGE 6

The root cause

• This is the foundation for many of our modern problems
• High divorce rate
• High infidelity rate
• Porn addictions
• Drug addictions
• High rate of depression and anxiety medication use
• The suicide epidemic

So what can we do about it?

Building your roadmap

Here’s how we’re going to fix attachment your in 10 steps

Part one is about fixing yourself. That includes:

• How to open up to others
• Conquering your fears: breaking the worry cycle
• Building up your self-respect
• Identifying your needs and figuring out what you want
Part two is about finding your tribe. That includes:
• Making real friends
• Building functional social circles: family, friends, work

Part three is about discovering real love. That includes:

• How to date properly: the do’s and don’ts
• Understanding Romantic Male Bonding
• Understanding Romantic Female Bonding
• Happily Ever After - how to love forever

It starts with fixing yourself enough to open up to just one other

person. Getting an outside perspective will help challenge your
beliefs. “I’m an unlovable piece of crap” to “Oh wait, maybe I’m
wrong.”

And don’t worry, “loving yourself first” is crap. If you don’t love
yourself yet, I’ll explain why it’s not the first thing you have to do.

As you go, you’ll be afraid and hit various snags, and we’ll address
those in order as we go from building a better self to better
relationships to better love.