Love Relationships: Bonding from Infant to Adult
Science tells us clearly that bonding has an impact on key responses in love relationships. Staying close to a protective loved one is the main survival strategy of our species. Humans need loving contact like oxygen and don’t have many ways to deal with the pain of disconnection at any stage, whether as a child or in an adult couple relationships.
In relationships, we invite connection and if we don’t get a response, we protest or shut down. Every relationship has moments of painful disconnection. However, these connections can be repaired and the bond restored. How we handle moments of disconnection defines how these bonds unfold.
Bonding is more than protection. It is a necessary ingredient for healthy relationships. Romantic bonding is an adult version of the bond between a parent and child. We can look at pivotal moments in the dance we call bonding – in infancy and romantic love – and pinpoint the core moves in the emotional dance that defines so much of our lives – our happiness. Learn more about the dance of fostering lasting love relationships and togetherness as experts, Sue Johnson and Ed Tronic, share how bonding goes from the cradle to the grave.
Hold Me Tight – Couples Workshop based on the work of Dr Sue Johnson
Many couples live parallel lives, are locked in power struggles or are complacently coping. The quality of your relationship with a romantic partner is critical to your emotional well-being, happiness and physical health.
If you want to build a secure, healthy bond between you as a couple, Angela Fox offers a Couples Relationship Workshop in Cape Town called Hold Me Tight (see the Counselling Workshops section on this website). This workshop is based on the Emotionally Focussed Therapy approach developed by Dr Sue Johnson.
In private therapy sessions, when counseling couples Angela Fox (Trained Psychologist, Cape Town based) draws on a number of couples’ therapy approaches including Emotionally-focussed Couples Therapy; Psychoanalytic Couples Psychotherapy., Imago Couples Therapy; Encounter-centred couples therapy as well as Relational Life Therapy.
Relationship Therapy will equip couples with skills to create a healthy attachment bond. When you clear the space between you and create an intentional, conscious, more relationally mature way of relating with your partner, this learning will extend to your relationship with your children, your loved ones, and friends and even with others who “push your buttons”.
