“The EA framework focuses on “emotions”, which attachment theory and attachment assessments are not necessarily focused on. In addition, the EA framework looks at things dyadically [dialogue between two people], taking into account the parent’s and the child’s perspectives, both separately and together”.
In addition to being different in its research focus, EA is unique because it focuses on the individual relationship that we have with others. We can be emotionally available in one relationship but not in others1. This is a much broader perspective compared to attachment theory.
“Emotional availability is a more real-world measure than attachment in the sense that you can measure it anywhere and basically during any amount of time (although the more you have the better). Also, EA is broader than attachment. Technically, attachment is about stressful situations and specifically separation-reunion situations whereas EA is about a much broader relationship phenomenon”.
I feel like we can all relate to our EA being different based on what relationship we are discussing. I have seen this phenomenon in my own relationships and my friend’s relationships. I personally am very emotionally available in friendship with my girls. But in romantic relationships, I am very fast to put my walls up and withdrawal from my partner. I believe that emotional availability is unique because it focuses on individual relationships instead of having a broader view focusing on all relationships.
Despite the two differences mentioned above, Dr. Biringen indicated that EA and attachment theory are related in the measures they use.
“The Emotional availability (EA) Scales are associated with attachment, as measured by the Strange Situation Procedure, the Attachment Q-Set, and the Adult Attachment Interview, at moderate levels, and these other attachment measures are actually related to each other at moderate levels”.
In addition to using similar techniques, research has found that children who have an emotionally available relationship with their parent show similar future outcomes as children with a secure attachment style1. Outcomes of children with higher EA relationships show higher emotional competence and academic achievement, and better peer relationship. It is beneficial for children to have parents who are emotionally available1.
These blogs have shown the importance of parent child relationships through the lens of attachment theory. Attachment theory is a well renowned research topic, but I believe that it is important to look at this influential relationship through a lens of another closely-related research theory. This blog introduced us to emotional availability, and if you are interested, I encourage you to pursue this area of research further. Maybe even reach out to a professor during office hours it’s surprising the information you can discover.
1Biringen, Z. (2009). The universal language of love. EA Press. ISBN: 0982130309
I agree with your statement that emotional availability can look different depending on the person that you are interacting with. I completely agree that it can be easier to relate with a friend versus someone that you are trying to form a romantic relationship with initially. Not only do I think that that is true, I also think that once in a romantic relationship it can take much longer for my emotional availability to increase with that relationship. Your blog makes me think about how my pattern of emotional availability with my parents has also reflected my levels in romantic relationships.
ReplyDeleteI believe emotional attachment is key. I think both parents should establish a strong relationship with their children as they grow due to the fact that sometimes, all we can really do is depend on our parents. With that being said, it can be contradicting because being there for the child too much can create dettachment issues. This can be hard to break as the child may not indulge the importance of independency. As parents they should maintain a consitent emotional availibility, but also show some dettachment as you wouldn't want to risk the future of the child to be dependent only the parent.
ReplyDeleteI like how you stressed the importance of a child having emotionally available parents. My parents have always made it a priority to be emotionally available to my siblings and I, and I believe that it had its benefits. Like you said, children with higher emotional attachment grow up to have better relationships, succeed academically, and are emotionally content. Thanks to my parents, my siblings and I exhibit these traits. With that said, I had a relationship with someone who didn't have emotionally available parents. Based on how this person treated me and acted, I could tell that not having emotionally available parents affected them.
ReplyDeleteI think one thing I have noticed through out all my relationships is the way I can act different in them. In high school especially, I felt like I was my most true self with my performing arts friends but when it came to my friends who were a bit more popular or didn't really understand performing arts I acted a bit more guarded. It's not so much that I didn't want to be my true self to my other friends, but more so because the things that I wanted to talk about when it came to the performing arts was not something I could truly talk to them about. It was nice reading that and seeing that people experience the same thing. And truly understanding that all the relationships we have in our life our going to be the same, but actually kind of scattered and there will never be a true clean cut answer on how to solve different situations you may find yourself in with different people. It's really about understand that all people are different and because of that, we will treat and react to people differently.
ReplyDeleteFor as long as I can remember, I have discussed emotional availability with my friends in regard to relationships and whether or not people seemed emotionally available, even though I didn’t truly understand what EA is. I think that looking at how we all are able to be with other individuals, specifically the difference in how we all act and feel depending on the specific relationship at hand. Within the article, it discussed how the author changed her emotional availability depending on whether or not the relationship was platonic or romantic, and I felt as though that fit me as well. I think that the way my parents raised me had a large influence on this, and I am curious as to the way I will influence my future children in regards to emotional availability in their various relationships.
ReplyDeleteI have often discussed emotional availability with my friend, usually without even realizing it was actually a concept! We often talked about how we reacted differently depending on the person and even the situation. With close friends, I was always more emotionally available than with people I do not know well. I am not very outgoing around new people, so it can be much harder for me to appear emotionally available to others. I have often been told by people that they did not think I liked them when I first met them. Though that was not usually the case, my lack of EA made it appear as though I was not comfortable or even stuck up.
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ReplyDeleteSomething that I have learned about myself with all my relationships is that I act very different in all of them. I think this is all based on my emotional availability because for me it depends on how comfortable I am in the relationship for me to be emotional. I liked how you explained how impart and it is for the parent to be emotionally available because when I was growing up this impacted my relationships. I say this because my mom was mostly at work and not very emotionally available. From this blog learned that emotional availability was a concept because I never know it was up to right now.
DeleteHi Ashlee! I liked how you explained Dr. Biringen’s view on emotional availability versus attachment theory and how they are similar in the measurements they use though they have certain differences. Since emotional availability focuses mainly on emotions whereas attachment theory has a more broad variation of its framework. When you said that with your girlfriends you are very emotionally available but then when it comes to your romantic relationships you are quick to build walls, I related to this very much. There is probably nothing that my girlfriends don’t know about me, but in previous romantic relationships I have had I would find it very difficult to open up to and share everything with them. Your blog has made me think more about how my emotional availability may be different within certain relationships.
ReplyDeleteEmotional Availability is a very interesting topic to me because I believe there is a line where someone should be emotionally available. I think that in the family, everyone should be emotionally available. As stated in the blog, this has shown to help the children and parent relationship. In my own life, I have seen how being emotionally available for my family has created a stronger bond. I have also seen this in my friendships. I am typically a very closed-off person, therefore I am not as emotionally available as some would like me to be. I believe that this has pros and con’s and I personally have found that there are only some people I will be vulnerable with.
ReplyDeleteAshlee, thanks for your work to better understand Emotional Availability and for sharing your findings. Similar to previous commentors, I found it quite interesting that you can be emotionally available in one relationship but not others and like your examples of your girls vs. your partner. Whereas I perceive that in attachment theory we have a generally similar level of attachment or expression of attachment based on previous attachment relationships & caregiver’s responsiveness. It makes me think of my brother. He can be very closed off to me emotionally in addition to my parents. Yet, with his partner he seems very tender, honest, and emotionally available. What an interesting subject!
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I found this post to be very interesting and gave me a new perspective on emotional availability. I agree that an individual’s ability to be emotional available depends on the specific relationship and person. I find this to be true in my own life and feel I am emotionally available to certain people such as my friends and family however, struggle when it comes to romantic relationships. Although it is difficult for me to be emotionally available in relationships, I see this as an opportunity for growth. This blog post highlighted the importance of positive caregiver interactions during childhood which makes me think about the way I hope to raise my family in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading you blog post on emotional availability. I feel that I have a better understanding of emotional availability and attachment, and how they are similar to each other, but also how they are different. After reading your post, it is interesting to see how emotional availability really influences relationships between people. I think that attachment styles and emotional availability really influence one another, as those who have stronger attachment styles with their parents most likely have stronger emotional availability. I also agree how emotional availability is super unique to each person, as similarly, I find myself being very emotionally available to my family and best friend, but when it comes to talking to people I don’t know, or guys, I find myself very reserved and shy or avoidant of confrontation.
Ashlee, I thought your post on emotional availability and how that relates to childhood is extremely interesting. I loved how you talked about how you can’t be emotionally available in one relationship but not in others. I have a close friend of mine who really struggles with emotional availability and she finds it very easy to be open and available with children but struggles with it for adults. She finds that children are not a threat to her, and they will never be able to hurt her. They just want to give and receive love and are just that simple.
ReplyDeleteAshlee, I had not thought about emotional availability as its own scale before. I do think that perspective can truly affect how you interact with people and your children. I thought the fact that this scale adjusts and changes feels very accurate. I think the rigidity of the traditional attachment style is not always the case with relationships. For myself I tend to show much more anxious attachment or less EA for intimate partners or people I am unfamiliar with. However, I have much more EA for friends and the children I work with (which I would hope would mean I will be emotionally available when I have my own children). I also think my EA can change from day to day depending on what other stressors are happening.
ReplyDeleteHello Ashlee,
ReplyDeleteI like that you chose to write about emotional availability. In almost every HDFS course I have taken it has mentioned how parents showing their kids love and warmth has overall improved their development. As we develop having that caregiver be that support system and warmth helps us with sensitivity and responsiveness. Being able to have that also helps develop healthy attachment styles. I can relate this back to myself to see how I grew up and why my attachment style may be the way that it is. It also shows me that in the future when having a child or working with children it is important to show them that warmth to help them develop positive attachment styles.
Hi Ashlee,
ReplyDeleteAs an HDFS major, attachment theory is one of my favorite topics because of the impact and different aspects that contribute to this concept. I liked how you included emotional availability and how that looks different for everyone depending on such factors. Our emotional availability is influenced by our interactions with our caregivers during our childhood as you mentioned and as we have learned in class. These interactions are the reason behind how we treat people in our lives and how we react in different groups. I liked how you included how you are emotionally available for your friends but not for romantic relationships because I am the same way. I struggle with emotional attachment in my romantic relationships and with my family, but I do not struggle with friends as much. I believe that the reason behind it has a lot to do with my interactions with my caregivers during my childhood. My mother was never around my brother and I growing up because she worked three jobs as a single mother. My mother was also very tough on my brother and I which is why it is hard for me to be vulnerable in romantic relationships. Thank you for adding the importance of parent child relationship through the lens of attachment theory as it is a big influence to our future relationships and friendships.
Hi Ashlee! I found your blog post regarding emotional availability and attachment to be so interesting as I am also a human development major, and I have spent a significant amount of my time with kids I have seen the benefits or downfalls of EA specifically in kids. Growing up, I had such amazing parents that were great with their emotional availability towards me, and I never fully appreciated or understood the greatness of that until I worked in a preschool and witnessed first-hand kids that shared the exact opposite experience as I did. I think that often times parents and caregivers don’t realize how vulnerable and susceptible young kids are so they aren’t as cautious as they maybe would be if they knew the extent of impact, they are having on their children. However, although I had such great EA shown to me as a young child, my attachment styles have changed greatly over the years as I have experienced relationships and other people’s EA, which is something that I find to be very interesting! Do you feel like your attachment styles have changed multiple times over your lifetime?
ReplyDeleteAshlee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge about emotional availability (EA). This term was something that I have not heard before and it was interesting to learn more about and personally expand my knowledge. It makes sense that EA would be connected to attachment and relationships overall. I thought that the interview information that you added from Dr. Biringen was really helpful and the interest of emotional availability and questions about my own and how it relates attachment. I enjoyed this topic of conversation and it led to an interest in my own life for reflection and future research.
I loved this post. I think every single person has dealt with somebody who is emotionally unavailable. The way this post was written was wonderful and I think that there should be more knowledge out there on how to deal with an emotionally unavailable person. I think dealing with parents who could be considered emotionally unavailable shaped me into the type of person that has issues dealing with their own emotions. I think that it is important to accept that fact and find resources that can help one grow. This was an excellent post and was written greatly. The post was easily readable and understandable.
ReplyDeleteAshlee,
ReplyDeleteEmotional availability is something that gets talked about all the time in my Human Development and Family Studies classes but not something I have ever truly taken the time to examine in myself. This blog also helped me to understand the difference between EA and attachment theory.
Your blog brought up many good points and I especially thought hard about the comment you made about having different levels of emotional availability within different types of relationships. When examining this in myself I found that I typically find myself to always be emotionally available whether that be in my friendships or romantic relationships.
In this blog, it talks about emotional availability, which looks at how individuals treat and relate to those they are in a relationship with and how we would prefer to be treated and cared for by them. The blog discusses the idea on levels of emotional availability in children, it says that children with levels of higher EA are more competent with their parents emotionally and more skilled when it comes to cognitive performance in school. This shows that in more mature adult relationships emotional availability can be stemmed form an upbringing and not so much the current relationship itself. An example of this could be my cousin who struggles not only in romantic relationships but friendships. Growing up she had always felt she could tell her parents stuff and couldn't express her feelings with them causing an emotional availability detachment. Now because of her upbringing she struggles with opening up with her friends and romantic relationships.
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ReplyDeleteI liked this post because it did a great job and explaining the differences between emotional availability and attachment. I thought the two worked off of each other, but I learned they are two entirely different things. I also relate to you, being completely emotionally available to my girlfriends but in romantic relationships, I pull away. I like how you said our emotional availability can be different for different relationships in our lives. This makes sense because we all have past traumas or experiences that contribute to how we construct future relationships. This post was very informative. Thank you for sharing!
I completely agree when it comes to emotional availability with my friends compared to a significant other relationship. I am definitely more emotionally available to my friends and my family then I am at the beginning of a relationship with a new partner. I also feel like my emotional availability depends on how comfortable I feel with a person. I could feel really comfortable with a person that I just met and be more willing to share more personal things on the other hand some people are not the same in that sense. I think that girls are definitely more emotionally available when it comes to conversations with other girls, and I also think that altogether they're just more emotionally available. I feel like they are more willing to share how they're feeling in a relationship than a guy is to express his feelings.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee thank you for sharing! I agree with your overall thought that emotional availability is extremely important in more aspects of your life than you think. Throughout my time as an HDFS major at CSU, my classes have taught me a lot about emotional availability as most of us are hoping to get into the helping professions. I am currently a volunteer with children with disabilities where I find myself extremely emotionally available as I would do literally anything for those kids, however once I come home, I find it hard for me to be even emotionally available for myself, let alone a significant other. I am curious to see how this changes throughout the next stages in my life and as I continue to develop as a person. Thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee! – Emotional availability is a concept that I am not super familiar with and I appreciated you delving in to what it is an how it relates to attachment theory. Along with other factors, it was unsurprising that EA is related to lifelong outcomes and is an important area to address in childhood. Withdrawing from a partner or putting up walls in friendships can be challenging and potentially detrimental and so it is very important for those who are struggling, as you shared, to address how they can become more secure in their relationships. In another post I read that CBT is proven to be one of the most effective ways to support individual with past trauma. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi, I agree with what you said about how each relationship can be so different. Because like you, with my friends and family I am very eager to give any advice and be open and willing with them, but when it comes to a relationship I completely put my walls up and act like a different person. This shows how the emotional availability and attachment styles can differ, but also relate because based on your attachment style it can affect your relationships in the long run. Thank you for sharing your own personal status and how you act in a relationship, it was interesting to know that others are just like me when it comes to relationships.
ReplyDeleteThis is an important topic and I'm glad you chose to write about it. We all have experience with emotional availability, whether it was during childhood, or in our relationships as adults. As a future parent, I want to try my best to have as much warmth and responsiveness as possible while also enforcing rules and giving consequences for unacceptable behavior. As we have learned in the HDFS field, this refers to the authoritative parenting style. Emotional availability is one of the things that fall under the criteria for authoritative parenting.
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ReplyDeleteThis blog topic is so interesting to read about. Your interviewee was a great choice and I loved getting to hear their perspective on this. I always find it interesting how so much starts when we are children. Emotional availability starting with our childhood caregivers is so important to keep in mind. As someone who is going to work with children and possibly have children, I want to be conscious of how I engage with them in the hopes to positively impact things such as their future emotional availability. It is so interesting how much just one parenting technique can affect a child.
Hi Ashlee! To start, I thought it was really neat that your included a professor from the Human Development department as it adds a lot of personality to your information. Second, I think that in my own life I have experienced a lot of great EA and I really hope that I can offer that you my children in the future. My parents raised me basically in the exact definition that you described. I think at times I took that for granted and now that I am learning more and more about how people interact it really has given me a appreciation for them and the way that they brought me up in this world. My parents are my greatest role models and I will always try to be great parents like them!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy this blog because knowing about your own emotional availability is key to being able to know yourself as well as how you deal with other relationships. It is very interesting how the role that our parents' emotional availability towards us plays into who we are as we grow. For me, neither one of my parents was very emotionally available as I was growing up and I have noticed that I am that same way in my romantic relationships. I have been told that I come off nonchalant or more cold towards people until they can really get me to open up and be vulnerable and I think that has to do with the fact that feelings were never really discussed in my house and when they were, they were looked at as weak.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee, reading your blog post was very interesting and eye-opening. I never thought about my EA in my different relationships, whether it is with my close friends or my romantic partner. I, however, can relate with you. Within my friend group, it depends on the person. If it's just one of my friends, I tend to have some walls up and not be fully emotionally available; however, if it is my best friend, I can fully open up to her. When it comes to my romantic relationship, my partner has taken some time to pull down my walls. It was tough to be fully emotionally available to him. Still, now that we've been together for a while, he knows how to help me become more emotionally available to him. Thank you for sharing your thoughts in this blog post!
ReplyDeleteWhen people have talked about emotional availability in the past, I always thought they were talking solely about romantic or intimate relationships. I love reading about the different types of relationships and how emotional availability corresponds with each one. I personally feel like it’s common for women to be more emotionally available with friends or more platonic relationships and less emotionally available in romantic or sexual relationships. I am the complete opposite, it’s so easy for me to be emotionally available in romanic relationships but it’s impossible for me to be emotionally available in friendships. My past few close friends violated some very important “friend codes” and it’s been hard for me to make friends ever since. I wish there was more information and advise on how to change emotional availability. I have heard that being more vulnerable is a way to be more emotionally available but that’s so hard when there has been past trauma.
ReplyDeleteHi, thank you for explaining the idea of emotional availability in such depth. I never fully understood the term emotional availability, I think it's just a label we give to people sometimes when they're not tending to our emotional needs. I find it interesting how it refers to individual relationships rather than just looking at the broader view of the attachment style. It hones in on what each and every individual relationship looks like and how we treat those around us. I can also see how our relationships with our parents may have an influence on our emotional availability to others as well!
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing such a meaningful blog post! I think emotional availability is something that I have personally struggled with because as a past caregiver, it was extremely hard for me to have a filter while caring for patients in long-term care. I was raised with parents who promoted extreme emotional empathy and connection with all people. This has been hard to navigate in an emotionally taxing job because, in caregiving, you are exposed to a number of interactions that require different levels of emotional empathy. Similar to you, I often put my walls up in my romantic relationships because I become afraid to be as emotionally vulnerable as I was in the past. Great job!
ReplyDeleteBefore I learned about what emotional availability was, I would always think about my attachment style and how that was, or was not, reflective in my relationships with others. I would wonder why I had such a secure attachment with my immediate family and was so open all the time, but with several people I considered friends I would always leave doubting myself and my worth. I think that this relates to my emotional availability and trying to treat every relationship as good as the ones with my family. But the truth is, I just cannot be there emotionally for some people, especially what they have put me through, what they expect from me, and how I have been treated by them.
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate this blog post to my current relationship with my partner. My partner expresses less of an emotional availability than I do but we find ways to conversate and work through those emotions. My partner's relationship with their parents wasn't emotionally fulfilling when he was a child so it is very hard for him to express love and want to open up that much to someone, in fear of abandonment and it being an unknown area. We have worked through these emotions by having conversations that slowly lead up to my partner's willingness to open up more. Although we express different love languages, we both have found through many conversations what work best for us and how to not feel overwhelming but providing enough support to work through insecurities around abandonment.
ReplyDeleteI think emotional availability is important to understand. As well, I think one's emotional availability can depend on the people that they are around. For instance, it is really easy for me to be emotionally available with my grandmother, but its not so easy for me to be emotionally available with friends or a relationship partner. I also think the level of closeness and comfortability in a relationship, romantic or not, can play a huge part in one's emotional availability. I have noticed that the longer I am friends with someone the easier it is for me to be emotionally vulnerable with them.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I was immediately intrigued by this post due to the fact that I always joke around about how I am not emotionally available right now in my life. I have never broke up my emotional availability into friendships and relationships. I think that there have been times in my life that I have not been emotionally available during friendship but just wrote it off as me being a “bad friend”. I appreciate you beginning that to light because I am not sure I would have ever made that connection. In relationships, I have felt like I have never been fully emotionally available but I feel as if that has to do with my attachment style and life experiences. I will definitely be doing some self-reflection on this topic.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always considered myself to be a very open person about my mental struggles and emotions. It wasn’t until year 3 of therapy that my therapist had to tell me that I need to start working on my emotional availability, because on the surface I seemed fine and ok, but underneath the surface I was quite literally drowning in my own thoughts and skin. I think that it is extremely important for parents to be emotionally available, and it would probably be best if both parents were emotionally available rather than just one. Now I am in my 6th year of therapy and I think that I have made great strides in my emotional availability. I have a long way to go, but the journey is worth it!
ReplyDeleteI can very much relate to hearing this phrase many times throughout my college career, as an HDFS major. Emotional availability is very important in parenting as a lot of the parenting one does, reflects heavily on the child. It also is important as the child so they can accept all the emotions that come along with developmental growth. Something you mentioned in this post was that our EA can differ depending on the relationship that we are talking about. This couldn’t be more true. I think for me, I have seen my EA change when talking to other people. For example, there are some people who give me the space to be completely myself and allow for pure and easy communication about feelings and give consistent support, while others I am more closed off.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee. I really appreciated how you explained your own experiences with emotional availability being dependent on what relationship you are looking at. Similarly, my emotional availability relies heavily on the type of relationship I am looking at. For example, I also am fairly open with girl friends from the start, but take more time getting to that comfort level when it comes to romantic relationships. Being able to understand not only your own emotional availability, but also your partners will help you to understand why/if they have barriers up. I also really liked your ties to parent-child relationships because having divorced parents who handled their post-divorce relationships very differently played a role in how I handled my romantic relationships.
ReplyDeleteI feel like emotional availability is one of those things that people talk about but never really know how to define. In dating,, everyone claims that they want an emotionally available partner. But much like this author, they tend to close themselves up around partners. I feel similarly. I have always labeled myself as someone who was willing to be vulnerable, and created space for others to talk and really feel like they have a listening ear. However in relationships, I tend to close myself off and feel more fearful about sharing any personal information. I even go as far to dismiss my own feelings so that it doesn’t cause too much of a scene, for fear of being “dramatic.” Obviously this is something I need to work on.
ReplyDeleteHi Ashlee!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your blog on emotional availability. I have learned a lot about emotional availability in school. It also seems to be a joke in movies and tv because the girls seem to always go for the emotionally unavailable guy. So, emotional availability is all over. This helped me distinguish between the Attachment theory and the Emotional Availability theory. I tend to have a hard time communicating my emotions in both my friendships and relationships. I tend to try to avoid conflict and forgive and forget in my head, which is hard because I don’t really forget. Emotions build up until they explode. I understand the importance of EA, so that is something I would love to work on. Great job!
Ashlee, I relate to this post a lot and don’t have my background in this area. However, As a child my parents were extremely emotionally available with me and that has led me to be the same towards other people in friendships and relationships. This is sometimes a blessing and a curse because it also causes extreme attachment as well as anxiety when it comes to the other person maybe not being as emotionally available as me. I liked how your tied in attachment theory to emotional availability because it gave me perspective from an area I know a little more about.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how this blog focused on emotional availability that comes from parent-child relationships instead of just attachment style. The idea that people can be emotionally available in some relationships and not in other relationships really stood out to me. My partner is shy and does not reveal his emotions to a lot of people. With his family and friends he does not get emotional or have deep conversations, but with me he does. I have always found his emotional availability with me to be quite shocking considering he does not open up to the people he has known the longest. Reading this blog post helped me to make sense of why and how people can have different levels of emotional availability in different relationships.
ReplyDeleteI find nurturing very important in caregiving characteristics because it does shape our attachment style early on in our development. Emotional availability from our caregivers sets us up in our current response towards how we feel about ourselves and others. Our attachment styles impact how emotionally available we are towards each individual, especially in romantic partners. For example, my past romantic partner has a avoidant attachment and I constantly felt as if he felt uncomfortable about certain things such as talking about feelings and letting himself feel his emotions or having physical touch. Early development needs emotional regulation techniques that their caregivers imitate so their availability is secure in the future.
ReplyDeleteI was able to really connect with this blog. I am able to form emotionally available relationships with girl friends and guy friends much easier than I am with individuals who I have expectations from the beginning to pursue a romantic relationship. The techniques which are used to measure attachment to me has become apparent in seeing it out to play with my siblings and their children. I have multiple older brothers and each has young boys, the way I grew up around my brothers and their emotional availability is being shown toward the relationships they are having with their children and their plans in parenting styles. Reading this blog helped me gain an insight on this.
ReplyDeleteHello! I am extremely glad that I am able to express my experience and actually relate to this blog and commenters as well, someone had also commented on here with a very similar experience as mine stating that they could express themselves differently around their performing arts friends compared to their almost popular friends and what's crazy to say is that I've also experienced the same in high school and even now that I am in college! This blog really helped me understand and cope with the fact that it's okay to be emotionally unavailable sometimes it doesn't mean you're a bad person, ultimately for me it is hard to communicate in both friendships and relationships because I personally choose to avoid all conflict and just forgive and forget which in the end can be difficult to mentally deal with but it is somewhat comforting to know that others experience the same as well.
ReplyDelete• I agree with your statement that emotional availability looks different for each relationship. I appreciate that you interviewed Dr. Biringen to bring more information into your blog post. As an HDFS major it can be difficult to find the connections of how one theory or idea can impact another, sharing what Dr. Birgingen said helps make a clear distinction between the two theories. To add onto things others have also mentioned in the comments, I think it can be easier to be emotionally available with friends than a romantic partner due to already having more intimate feelings towards your partner than a friend. I also think it is important to speak about your emotional availability in relationships, informing others what you can provide emotionally at any given time and leave the door open for communication if things change.
ReplyDeleteI love that you broke down the difference between emotional availability and attachment theory! It's interesting how emotional availability is more about the emotional quality of our relationships, and how we can be more open in some relationships, like with friends, but close off in others, like romantic relationships. Your personal example was a great example of this. I also think it’s cool how emotional availability is tied to future outcomes like emotional competence and academic achievement in kids. It goes to show how important it is!
ReplyDeleteI am also a Human Development and Family studies major and so far, it has been very interesting learning about how parenting styles can factor into someone's attachment style. Lately I have found myself not having as much emotional availability as I would like, and it is important to me to work on it as much as I can. Although I have a very secure relationship with both of my parents, some of my past relationships have ruined how I respond in my more recent relationships. This post was really helpful learning even more about attachment theorys and how it can help me.
ReplyDeleteI can understand how emotional availability is closely connected with attachment styles and how people were raised. I like how you shed light on how parent-child relationships shape development and emotional availability. I understand how it can be draining to be in a relationship with someone emotionally unavailable as they don’t reciprocate the same feelings or commitment. It does make sense how emotional availability looks different among friendships versus romantic relationships as there is a difference in connections and relationship expectations. I am also very committed and emotionally available with my friends but sometimes fail to do the same with romantic relationships.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how this post touched on emotional availability. I think this is a really big factor and influence on the way people are in their relationships and sometimes is not taken into consideration as much as it should. Reflecting on my own emotional availability and attachment style, I am aware I am not at the place I would want to be, and it is something I want to work on. However, I will say I think it took a while for me to realize and acknowledge this, therefore it kind of makes me wonder if others are also aware and recognize where they are emotionally and if not, how that influences their relationship.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate this post bringing attention to EA awareness. I resonate because I really enjoy attachment theory and recognize that emotional availability is a separate and very important aspect to relationship dynamics. I find it really interesting that children with high EA display similar characteristics as children with a secure attachment. I think it is important to ensure that children are set up to have both a secure attachment and high emotional availability. I think that this is important to bring attention to because people can understand attachment theory and the benefits of a secure attachment, but still be emotionally unavailable (much like myself). So, letting people realize that and understand that they can work on their emotional availability could bring lots of benefits.
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