Loneliness Is Bad for your Health

We’re living in the age of connection; WhatsApp group chats, YouTube channels, Zoom calls, Instagram reels, TikTok videos. And yet, so many people are lonelier than ever. In fact, loneliness has become such a common and serious problem that in 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared it a public health epidemic. Yes, epidemic. Right up there with obesity and smoking.

The Surprising Health Risks of Loneliness

Loneliness isn’t just about feeling sad or bored when your Saturday night plans fall through. Chronic loneliness can wreak havoc on your physical and emotional health. Here are a few stats that might surprise you:

• Loneliness is associated with a 29% increased risk of heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015).

• People who report high levels of loneliness are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline.

• Loneliness can increase the risk of premature death by up to 60%, the equivalent risk of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

In other words, loneliness is far more than just undesirable or unpleasant, it’s downright dangerous. And yet, many people don't talk about it, either because they think it’s shameful or because they’re so used to emotional disconnection that they don’t even realize they’re lonely.

What Loneliness Really Looks Like

Loneliness doesn’t always look like social isolation. It can show up in a crowded house, a long-term relationship, or a group chat that no longer feels supportive. What we’re really talking about here is emotional disconnection. Feeling unseen or misunderstood. Feeling like nobody really wants to know what goes on inside your head.  

That kind of disconnection doesn’t just make life feel harder; it is harder. Emotionally disconnected people are less resilient to stress, more prone to illness, and more likely to struggle in their relationships.

Humans are Wired for Connection

All of us are biologically wired for connection, whether we recognize it or not. Our brains light up when we feel seen, emotionally safe, and understood. When that connection is missing, our nervous systems get stuck in patterns of hypervigilance or shutdown, and we may start to believe that there is something unlovable about ourselves. This creates insecure attachment styles and further difficulty forming bonds with others.

How EFT Can Help

As an Emotionally Focused Therapist, I help individuals and couples understand the cycle of emotional disconnection that keeps them stuck. EFT isn’t about teaching you communication hacks or how to "fix" yourself. It’s about identifying the deeper emotional needs, also known as attachment needs, that drive your reactions. With Emotionally Focused Therapy you can learn how to get beneath the surface reaction and access the unmet needs and unacknowledged emotions underneath. EFT gives you a roadmap for how to get those needs met, and how to meet those needs for the people you care about.

Why do I do this work? Because I am also a human in the world, wired for connection just like you are. I know what it’s like to feel alone in a room full of people. And I also know how healing it is to feel truly connected to myself and to someone else.

You don’t have to stay stuck in loneliness. You don’t have to pretend you’re fine when you’re not. And you definitely don’t have to fix this by yourself. If you are looking for more warmth, more attunement, and a deeper connection to yourself and others, therapy with an EFT therapist can be a wonderful place to start.

Attachment Styles and Relationships

What are Attachment Styles?

Attachment styles are various ways of interacting with other people, which are heavily influenced by a person’s bond with a parent or other caregiver in childhood. Attachment theory comes from the research of psychiatrist and psychologist John Bowlby, who identified that isolation from caregivers in childhood is a traumatizing experience. Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Therapy, expanded on this idea, and her work with adults and couples is based on the discovery that the need for secure connection to others continues throughout life.

 Types of Attachment Styles

There are four different attachment styles. The first one is known as secure attachment and the remaining three are all variations of insecure attachment – anxious, avoidant and disorganized.

Secure Attachment

When a child’s needs are met by consistently reliable and available caregivers, they typically develop a secure attachment style. They learn when they're an infant that if they are hungry they will be fed, when their diaper is soiled it will be changed and that when they cry somebody will comfort them.

If this experience continues throughout childhood and there's somebody who is responsive to them, they typically become a securely attached adult who feels safe in the world, knowing that there are trustworthy people around them and that it is possible to get their needs met. This gives them a secure base with which to launch themselves into the world with confidence.  

People with a secure attachment style tend to be more resilient in relationships and better at regulating their own emotions. If they do not get an immediate response to their needs, they can usually tolerate it without becoming distressed because they trust that their needs will be met at some point.  

Insecure Attachment

When a child’s needs are not met due to an unavailable, inconsistent, abusive or neglectful parent, they typically develop one of the following types of insecure attachment styles or strategies, due to the uncertainty about whether their needs will be met. This doesn’t necessarily have to be an intentional refusal to meet a child’s needs on the part of the caregiver. There are many circumstances that can lead to a child’s need for a responsive caregiver not being consistently met by the parent, such as addiction, physical or mental illness, incarceration, or even a parent having long working hours or having to travel for work frequently.

Anxious Attachment Style

A person with an anxious attachment style seeks ongoing proof that they are loved, and that the other person is there for them. They tend to be clingy, jealous, controlling, fearful of betrayal, rejection or abandonment and highly emotionally expressive in relationships.

Avoidant Attachment Style

When a person has an avoidant attachment style, they tend to have difficulty being vulnerable in relationships. They push their emotions away and distract themselves with work or keeping busy, or they numb their feelings with substances. They do not trust others easily and will often be guarded in relationships or avoid being in a relationship in the first place. They are often highly independent, taking pride in not needing to depend on others and finding it particularly difficult to ask for help.

Disorganized Attachment Style

A person with a disorganized attachment style flips regularly between anxious and avoidant states, so essentially they are a blend of the other two types of insecure attachment style. Disorganized attachment style is associated with trauma or abuse in childhood. Often a child will have experienced a parent or caregiver as being intermittently available, or responding to their needs in an unpredictable or inconsistent way. They long for closeness and connection and will often get close to another person relatively quickly in a new relationship.

Unfortunately they also fear closeness, because they are unable to deal with the vulnerability of trusting another person. Having bonded with somebody, they often pull away or shut down, sometimes even sabotaging the relationship.

Attachment Styles and Compatibility

The attachment style of each partner in a romantic relationship can have a big influence on how the couple interacts, and will also play a role in predicting how compatible they will be.

The ideal pairing is two securely attached individuals. They will most likely navigate differences well and be able to regulate their emotions easily because they are emotionally available and emotionally responsive to each other.

Another common pairing is one anxious partner and one avoidant partner. This couple will definitely have some problems and challenges, but they will be able to meet each other’s needs at least some of the time. They often find themselves in the classic pursuer/withdrawer dynamic, with the anxious partner protesting their unmet needs through anger and complaints and the avoidant partner shutting down in response.

A pairing of two avoidant partners is unlikely to succeed and may not even get off the ground in the first place. They may find a way to bond that is based on something other than emotional availability, such as a shared hobby, but there is likely to be little meaningful emotional connection between the two.

Two anxious partners will also struggle, as each will be stuck in their own worries, unable to be emotionally present to reassure the other. This couple will be likely to trigger each other’s attachment fears, such as fear of rejection and abandonment, regularly.

A person with a disorganized attachment style probably faces the biggest challenge in romantic relationships. The partner they will be most drawn to at first is likely to be a person with an anxious attachment style, but that is not actually the best pairing for them. The initial attraction to an anxious person will become an issue once the bond has been well established. After that, the avoidant side of the disorganized attachment style will start to emerge and they will want more space. This will heighten anxiety in the anxious partner, who will begin to protest the disconnection with increased pursuing behavior. A person with a disorganized attachment style is better suited to a securely attached partner, but is likely to push too hard for connection at the beginning of a relationship, frantically trying to connect as quickly as possible and end up frustrated by a securely attached partner’s lack of urgency.  

Most people with an insecure attachment style can do well with a more securely attached mate, because over time they are likely to find reassurance in the stability and emotional availability of the secure partner.

 Can Attachment Styles Change?

Attachment styles are formed early in life and whilst they tend to be quite consistent over time, luckily, they can be influenced by a romantic partner. We can have corrective emotional experiences in relationships that increase our felt sense of secure attachment.

Additionally, people tend to deviate from their main attachment style with certain other individuals or in certain contexts. For instance, a person who is generally avoidant may have one person in their life that has never let them down and with whom they have always felt safe and secure. They may be able to open up emotionally with that one person in a way that they are unable to do with anyone else. Even securely attached people can go through a period of insecurity if their emotional needs go unanswered for too long, but they will typically return to their main attachment style once the temporary disruption is over.

The best thing a couple can do is to identify what each partner's attachment style is and where it comes from, by closely examining who was there for them when they were a child and who was unavailable or let them down. Once they have figured out their main attachment styles, they can think about how their attachment styles influence the way they interact in their relationship. If they have difficulty accessing and sharing their emotions and unmet needs with each other, a couples’ therapist who specializes in Emotionally Focused Therapy can help them increase their secure attachment to each other.

From Conflict to Connection

Stuck in Conflict

When you are trying to express yourself to your partner, do you often end up feeling worse than when you started?

During a conversation or conflict with our partner, we often tend to focus on our surface emotions, thoughts and perceptions, but far less so on our deeper, core emotions and our unmet emotional needs.

Our communication comes out as critical, angry, or frustrated and our partner becomes angry and frustrated too, or just throws their hands up and walks away, leaving us all alone with our unmet needs. Nobody feels heard or understood and nobody wins.

Often, we are not even aware that there is another layer of emotion happening beneath the surface of communications like these, especially if we grew up in a family where emotional expression was not encouraged or modeled by our caregivers.

Many of us get stuck in a chronic attack/defend or mutual blame pattern with our loved one when we try to express our emotional needs and over time this can erode our secure connection to each other and create emotional distance.

Once a person is able to shift their awareness to their deeper emotions and unmet needs, it can be a game changer for connection and healing.

When I work with clients, I like to explain it as an “experience elevator”.

The magic happens when you take the elevator from the top floor (surface emotions) all the way down to access what’s in the basement (deeper emotions).

How can you tell which emotions are surface and which are deeper?

There are some clear differences between the two.

Surface Emotions

On the top floor, it feels safe. You can see everything from there, or at least you think you can. This is where the surface emotions exist. The most common ones are  anger and frustration. People feel safe when they express these surface emotions. They tend to come easily and quickly to us, often as a reaction to an external trigger. The feelings are observable to others and can change or escalate quickly. These emotions are typically more socially acceptable or easier to express than the deeper feelings that lie beneath.

They are often used as a way to defend ourselves from perceived or actual criticism  and we can use them to deflect blame and avoid vulnerability.

Unfortunately these surface emotions don’t help us get our needs met. In fact, they tend to push other people away.

Deeper Emotions

Deeper emotions, or primary emotions, are the core feelings that are often hidden beneath the surface. These emotions are more fundamental and relate to our basic needs and desires, such as the need for connection, safety, and acceptance. Primary emotions include feelings like sadness, fear, hurt, and loneliness.

Core emotions are much harder to express because they involve being much more vulnerable.

It is so much easier to approach our partner with anger or frustration, saying something like,

“You never listen!”

than to say,

“It really hurts when you tune me out. I feel the hurt like a pit in my stomach and I get so afraid that maybe I am not important to you”.

Our primary emotions tend not to be reactive or defensive in nature. Often they are more persistent and are related to our view of ourselves, which was most likely formed during childhood. For example, a child who was neglected will probably grow up feeling unsure about how valued and lovable they are. As an adult, they will be sensitive to this and may unconsciously look for evidence that they are not good enough or that they don’t matter to their partner.

Unmet Needs

Usually when a primary or deeper emotion is being experienced, it points to a core unmet need. In Emotionally Focused Therapy, we refer to these as attachment needs. These needs, when met, are the things that let us know we are safe, secure and loved in our relationship. Here are some of the most common attachment needs that people identify during  EFT couples therapy sessions:

·      To feel seen, heard and understood

·      To know they matter

·      To know they are good enough

·      To work as a team/partnership

·      To be respected

·      To have efforts acknowledged

Vulnerability Leads to Empathy

So why delve into deeper emotions and unmet attachment needs when they are so much harder and more vulnerable to acknowledge and express?

The big payoff to accessing and sharing primary emotion is empathy. Whilst surface emotions like anger tend to push the other person away, primary emotions typically do the opposite and draw the other person closer.

Your partner is more likely to understand what you are feeling and be motivated to help you feel better. Part of the vulnerability of expressing these emotions is that you don’t actually know for sure that the other person will respond well to you. They might be stuck in their own experience, lacking  the emotional capacity to hold space for your feelings right at that moment.  

Practical Steps for Accessing and Sharing Emotion

Understanding the distinction between surface and deeper emotions can be transformative in everyday life. Here are some practical steps to apply this knowledge:

Self-Reflection: Take time to reflect on your emotional responses. Ask yourself, “What am I really feeling beneath this anger or frustration? What unmet need drives this feeling?”

Connect with your Body: Tune in to the physical sensations that give clues about your deeper emotion. Is there heaviness in your chest? A knot in your stomach? Does your body suddenly feel colder or warmer? Pay attention to these signs and try to hear what your body is telling you about what emotion you are feeling.

Open Communication: In relationships, strive to communicate your deeper emotions. Instead of saying, “I’m angry,” try expressing, “I feel hurt because I need to feel valued.”

Empathy: When others express strong emotions, consider what deeper feelings might be driving their behavior. Try to respond with empathy and curiosity. Often this can defuse anger and shift the conversation dramatically, paving the way for reconnection.

Therapeutic Support: If navigating these emotional layers feels challenging, seeking support from an EFT therapist can be very helpful.

Recognizing and understanding the difference between surface or secondary emotions and deeper or primary emotions is a key concept in Emotionally Focused Therapy. By taking the elevator of our emotional experiences down to the basement, we can achieve greater self-awareness, improve our relationships, foster deeper emotional connection and create opportunities for mutual healing with our partner.