This opening lesson explains why attachment theory remains one of the most useful frameworks for understanding close relationships across the lifespan. Rather than treating attachment as a personality label, it introduces attachment as an adaptive system: a set of expectations, emotions, and behaviors organized around safety, connection, separation, and repair.
Learners will see how early caregiving relationships can shape adult intimacy, emotion regulation, parenting, and conflict patterns, while also learning an important caution: attachment history influences people, but it does not permanently define them. The lesson sets up the rest of the course by clarifying what attachment theory can explain, what it cannot explain by itself, and why practical change usually begins with noticing patterns before trying to fix them.
Check back — resources for this lesson will appear here.