RELATIONSHIP EXPERT: Anxious People Are Addicted to Unavailable Partners (& How to Fix it!)

In this podcast episode, host Jay Acunzo welcomes relationship expert Thais Gibson, founder of the Personal Development School and author of The New Attachment Theory: Heal Every Relationship by Rewiring Your Brain and Nervous System. Thais presents a fresh, integrative perspective on attachment theory that goes beyond labeling attachment styles, offering practical tools to understand and heal relationship patterns at a subconscious level. The conversation covers definitions of attachment styles, the reasons behind attraction to certain partners, and a structured five-pillar framework for transforming insecure attachment into secure lasting love. The episode also explores real-life relationship scenarios, effective communication and boundary-setting strategies, and healing approaches after breakups.

Attachment Styles and Their Origins

Thais begins by explaining the foundational concept of attachment styles, outlining that everyone has one, originally classified into four types by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth: secure, anxious, dismissive avoidant, and fearful avoidant. Secure attachment develops in childhood through consistent, attuned, and responsive parenting, resulting in adults who feel worthy of love, can trust others, and have satisfying long-term relationships. Approximately 50% of people fall into this category. The other half have insecure attachments shaped by various childhood wounds.

Anxiously attached individuals develop from situations involving real or perceived abandonment, often having inconsistent parental attention. These adults fear rejection, abandonment, and not being good enough, leading to people-pleasing, self-silencing, and attraction to emotionally unavailable partners. Dismissive avoidants experience emotional neglect rather than abandonment; their caregivers are often uninvolved and emotionally unavailable. As a result, they suppress emotional needs, feel shame about vulnerability, and tend to withdraw or create strong emotional distance in relationships.

Fearful avoidants grow up in chaotic, unpredictable environments marked by trauma such as parental addiction, narcissism, or intense conflict. They experience conflicting associations with love—seeing it as desirable yet dangerous—thus oscillating between seeking closeness and pushing partners away. Fearful avoidants become hypervigilant to emotional cues but often misinterpret them, contributing to turbulent relational dynamics.

The Problem with Attachment Labels

While attachment theory went mainstream, Thais observes that many people began identifying rigidly with their attachment style as a fixed identity rather than as a temporary label that indicates areas for healing. She emphasizes that the main goal is not self-labeling but understanding patterns to rewire them on a subconscious level. Healing involves discovering the roots of one's triggers and consciously transforming those patterns through deliberate neuropsychological work.

The Subconscious Mind and Relationship Patterns

A defining feature of Thais's approach is the focus on the subconscious mind, responsible for the majority (95-97%) of our beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. She highlights that lasting change requires rewiring subconscious conditioning because conscious intention alone cannot overcome these ingrained patterns. For example, anxious individuals might consciously want emotionally available partners but are subconsciously drawn to familiar, often unavailable people. This happens because familiarity equals safety in the brain's survival wiring, even if the experience is painful or dysfunctional.

The Five Pillars of Rewiring Attachment

Thais introduces a five-pillar framework for healing attachment wounds and cultivating secure relationship patterns.

The first pillar is rewiring core wounds by identifying painful subconscious beliefs like "I'm not good enough" or "I will be abandoned" and replacing them with positive opposites. This process involves using emotional imagery from personal memories and repetition over 21 days to create new neural pathways, ideally through recordings of affirmations spoken in one's own voice during relaxed, suggestible states.

The second pillar focuses on learning to meet one's own unmet needs from childhood in a healthy way, often called self-sourcing. Many people try to get from others what they never received as children, leading to imbalance and dependency. Practices like daily self-validation exercises nurture these needs internally and create a more stable foundation for relationships.

The third pillar emphasizes nervous system regulation, helping individuals shift from being trapped in fight-or-flight or hypervigilant states (common among insecure attachment types) to more parasympathetic, regulated states. This includes somatic processing—labeling emotions with bodily sensations—to move from reactive states to mindful awareness and self-attunement.

The fourth pillar concerns effective communication, teaching people to express feelings and needs clearly and specifically without falling back on criticism or negative labels. Using a consistent framework (feeling → need → request/painting a picture), partners learn to validate each other's emotions and negotiate solutions collaboratively, reducing misunderstanding and conflict.

The fifth and final pillar is healthy boundary setting, recognizing that boundaries are authentic expressions of self and essential for secure relationships. Different attachment types have characteristic boundary challenges: anxious types often lack boundaries due to fear of abandonment, dismissive avoidants set overly rigid boundaries out of fear of vulnerability, and fearful avoidants cycle between boundarylessness and harsh boundaries driven by anger or guilt. Healing boundaries requires rewiring core fears first and practicing incremental exposure by starting with small boundaries in safe contexts.

The Role of Self-Work in Healthy Dating and Relationships

Thais stresses that healthy relationships begin with having a secure relationship with oneself. This means healing wounds, meeting needs, regulating emotions, communicating effectively, and setting boundaries before or alongside dating. Without this foundation, people tend to attract partners who mirror their insecure patterns, perpetuating cycles of pain. Even if someone consciously wants different relationship qualities, subconscious programming drives them toward what is familiar.

Common Relationship Dynamics and Fixes

The conversation explores practical examples, such as the classic anxious-avoidant push-pull cycle. While the anxious partner seeks more closeness, the avoidant partner needs space, often leading to misunderstandings and emotional turmoil. Thais advises that clear, compassionate communication about needs for time together and time apart—painting specific, realistic pictures—can break this cycle. Even if one partner resists doing their own internal work, the other can lead by example in communication and regulation, potentially inspiring positive change.

If a partner refuses to engage in emotional work or communication over time, she recommends setting a timeline to observe whether change occurs and, if not, respectfully walking away to avoid unsustainable emotional imbalances.

Understanding and Managing Love Bombing

Love bombing is discussed as a behavior that ranges from manipulative (typical of narcissistic personality disorder) to insecure attachment-driven attempts to win approval through overwhelming affection. Thais advises that early dating boundaries can serve as a useful test: narcissists tend to resist or disregard boundaries, while insecurely attached individuals, though intense, generally respect and honor them.

The Phases and Growth in Long-Term Relationships

Thais highlights that the initial dating and honeymoon stages are often marked by attraction to repressed traits and unmet childhood needs, which eventually trigger the power struggle stage as partners confront their wounds and differences more deeply. Instead of fearing this stage, couples can use it as a catalyst for personal and relational growth by integrating each other's traits and developing humility to learn from, rather than control, one another.

Long-term thriving depends on building clear communication, mutual respect, emotional regulation, and shared growth beyond the transient excitement of early infatuation.

Navigating Commitment and Uncertainty

Fear around commitment often arises from unresolved personal needs or communication deficits rather than simple incompatibility. Honest, vulnerable conversations about timelines, fears, and personal boundaries are essential to clarify intentions and reduce resentment. Partners can negotiate ways to honor friendship needs, individual space, and emotional safety to overcome uncertainty and build trust.

Handling Breakups and Grief

Thais frames breakups as a form of grief involving the loss of a person who met certain emotional needs, even imperfectly. Healing requires identifying the unmet needs the partner had filled and learning to meet those needs independently or through other healthy connections. It also involves coming to terms with who one became within that relationship and finding new ways to express those qualities.

She stresses the importance of obtaining closure from oneself rather than relying on validation or explanations from the ex-partner, encouraging individuals to challenge negative internalized stories and cultivate self-compassion.

Final Reflections on Love and Relationship Certainty

Thais and Jay discuss the myth of 100% certainty in choosing partners, agreeing that a high level of trust combined with ongoing mutual growth is more realistic. Relationships are dynamic, requiring continuous adaptation as individuals evolve. The true depth of love is often formed in the challenges and power struggles that encourage vulnerability and honest communication.

They emphasize that relationships ultimately serve as ashrams, or places of growth, where the greatest joys arise from overcoming challenges together rather than avoiding them.

Practical Program and Support Structure

Thais describes how the Personal Development School supports clients through structured 90-day programs focusing on one pillar at a time, complemented by daily exercises lasting just a few minutes. Students can participate in live events, receive coaching, practice communication and boundary-setting skills interactively, and connect with a global community. The design prioritizes simplicity, progressive skill-building, and consistent neurological rewiring for practical, sustainable change.

Key Takeaways from the Final Five

Thais shares succinct wisdom in response to rapid-fire questions, emphasizing compassion toward oneself as the best love advice, rejecting the notion of changing unwilling partners, clarifying that "spark" often reflects unhealed traits and unmet needs, cautioning that over-reliance on partners pushes love away, and underscoring the critical importance of rewiring subconscious conditioning as foundational to all personal and relational transformation.

How to Connect and Learn More

Listeners are invited to visit personaldevelopmentschool.com to take a free attachment style quiz, access personalized reports, and enroll in programs. Thais is also active on YouTube and Instagram under the Personal Development School brand, offering educational content for deeper learning.