Thoughts on Jessica Fern’s Polysecure

If all attachment wounds are interpersonal, how can healing them come from within?

This piece was originally published to Medium on October 17, 2022. Why I’m migrating all my Medium posts to Substack.

One of the books that kept me company during my week of no posting was Jessica Fern’s Polysecure, a book ostensibly all about building attachment security within polyamorous and non-monogamous relationships. I say ostensibly because while Fern’s book contains several helpful frameworks for understanding attachment threat in non-monogamous relationships, her recommendations for overcoming those threats are frustratingly individualistic and don’t veer far from typical love-yourself-before-you-love-anyone-else self-help territory.

Early in the book, Fern introduces something called the Nested Attachment Model. It holds that attachment is an interpersonal, dynamic phenomenon, rather than a static personality trait that gets locked in during childhood.

For a long time, psychologists believed that a person’s attachment style was cemented in infancy, based on the quality of their relationship with their primary caregiver. Early attachment researchers observed infants interacting with their mothers (and back then, it was always mothers), and based on how they coped with a temporary separation, grouped them into one of three attachment categories: securely attached, avoidantly attached, or anxiously attached.

For the next several decades, psychologists claimed that adults carried their childhood attachment style with them into every subsequent relationship. Infants who were securely attached to their moms formed healthy, stable bonds with adult romantic partners; anxious babies turned into demanding adults whose insecurities could not be soothed; infants who were withdrawn became sullen, conflict-averse grown-ups.

The only way for an insecurely attached adult to heal and transform into a securely attached person, therapists believed, was by forming a partnership with a securely attached adult. In this view, insecurely attached people got broken in infancy, and only the love of an unbroken person could cure them. Otherwise they’d continue demanding excessive reassurance or running away from closeness, all their lives.

Today, we know that isn’t actually true. Decades of research demonstrates that attachment styles are mutable, and that we form stable bonds by engaging in productive conflict with another person, and then repairing our connection in the wake of that conflict — not by having a perfect, unbroken attachment pattern inside us from the start.

Attachment is interpersonal by definition. Every relationship is an ongoing dance of gesture and response, of action and reaction and reaction in kind. So we can’t really understand how a relationship operates by only turning our gaze toward one person within it.

In retrospect, it was pretty absurd for early relationship therapists to believe otherwise, and to view attachment as, essentially, a personality typology. But that’s what a culture deeply basted in capitalism and the Protestant Work Ethic does to our brains — it makes us obsessed with categorizing individuals as healthy or unhealthy, fixed or broken.

Modern-day attachment research also reveals that a person does not have one single attachment style, but rather a panoply of different attachments in their many different relationships. We can feel secure in our friendships but insecure in our romantic lives, warm around friends but frigid with our family, anxious with one partner and avoidant with another or a blend of both depending on the day. Our relationships also interact with and inform one another.

One can even argue, as Fern does in Polysecure, that we have attachments to our communities and the world as a whole. All these varied relationships — close friendships, romantic entanglements, family bonds, neighborly acquaintanceships, views of our communities and of society — influence how we respond to others and what we expect from interaction, hence the “nested” nature of the Nested Attachment Model.

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash

According to the Nested Model, any significant threat to a person’s social position or their environment can introduce rupture in their relationships. To illustrate this, Fern tells the story of a woman who was raised by a loving, emotionally consistent mother, in a deteriorating house filled with rats. This woman had all the makings of a secure attachment style, according to the old attachment models — but she never felt safe and relaxed in her childhood home. This, according to Fern, led to the woman struggling to feel at ease in her relationships as an adult.

Fern also describes one therapy client of hers feeling insecurely attached to the planet, because of the looming threat of climate change. The future seemed uncertain and teeming with loss and instability, which preoccupied Fern’s client and made it difficult for them to trust in long-term plans or bonds with their partners.

At first, I was skeptical of the idea that a person could have an insecure attachment to the earth— but then I remembered the research literature showing that people of color, queer people, and Autistic people are more likely to have insecure attachment patterns due to their experiences of marginalization. All three groups have good reason to feel uneasy and less trusting when they engage with others. They’ve repeatedly been discriminated against, attacked, and socially ostracized, and have far less power on a systemic scale.

If the social threats of racism, homophobia, and ableism can put pressure on our relationships, it stands to reason that the existential threat of total ecological collapse could as well. Attachment, then, is an interpersonal, environmental, dynamic experience that is forever evolving as external circumstances do.

Fern conveys these core ideas reasonably well, though I wish she had made the connection between racism and attachment threat more explicit. She’s just outlined the broad concepts, which I’ve then filled in here. I also wish she’d openly contemplated the role ableism and neurodivergence play in attachment insecurity, which does not get mentioned at all in the book. (More on this later.)

As it stands, Polysecure acknowledges that outside threats to relationship stability come in many forms, naming environmental degradation, homophobic legal statues, and living in an unsafe neighborhood as some of them.

After providing some examples of external relationship threat, Fern lists the many ways in which a move from monogamy to polyamory introduces threat specifically. Polyamorous relationships have no legal protections, for instance. Polyamorous people can’t share health insurance, power of attorney, or custody of children with their multiple partners. The world is not built for non-monogamous structures, and very few people even realize such relationship models are an option at all. Legal oppression and social invisibility can take a real toll on a relationship’s health.

In addition, having multiple partners is still pretty widely socially frowned upon. Polycules can face discrimination in housing or employment if they are “out.” Friends and loved ones may criticize their choices, and not respect all their partnerships equally. If members of a polycule aren’t out as polyamorous, then some of their partners may be hidden away or excluded from family gatherings and relationship-centric events. This can hurt immensely, and fray attachment bonds.

On a practical level, scheduling quality time with multiple partners is simply more challenging. At times, it might be impossible to freely discuss the details of one relationship with another partner without violating somebody’s trust. It’s difficult to juggle the full emotional responsibility of tending to more than one person — particularly when partners are in crisis. At times, the insecurity triggers and reassurance needs of various relationship members may be completely incompatible with one another.

Photo by Ezequiel Junoe on Unsplash

Though in theory polyamory brings more close social connections into a person’s life, Fern states that in practice, a transition to polyamory means getting more comfortable being alone and becoming far more self-reliant. I sincerely appreciate her acknowledging this. Some polyamorous writers downplay the challenges of polyamory as short-term adjustments or brief emotional storms that good communication and planning can largely forestall. Fern, in contrast, states that many people choose polyamory because they want these challenges and conflicts, and the growth that it inspires.

Reading through this passage of the book, I felt comforted, and validated in my decision to be non-monogamous but not polyamorous. I’m not interested in having many loves and the difficulties Fern described don’t sound rewarding to me. But it makes sense that somebody else could make an informed choice to face them.

On the whole, Fern’s writing about what attachment is and how polyamorous relationships function is informative, clear-headed, and worthwhile. Where it all falls apart, sadly, is when Fern discusses how a polyamorous person might heal their feelings of attachment insecurity. After spending the majority of the book defining attachment as a dynamic interaction between multiple people and their environment, Fern now frustratingly presents forming a secure attachment to the self as the solution to frayed bonds.

Fern provides several tools to improve readers’ attachments to themselves. They are, sadly, the classic hits of the self-help book genre: positive self-affirmations, reflection questions about one’s self-concept, endorsements of mindfulness and yoga, and invitations to treat oneself to a solo date or take part in self-esteem boosting hypnosis. They’re mostly reheated bromides that don’t really introduce anything novel or challenging to the discussion of relationship insecurity — but far worse than that, they don’t make sense when placed in the larger context of Fern’s work.

“You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose, and the sooner that you can release your partner from being the source of these experiences, the better for everyone involved.”

— Chapter 9: The S in HEARTS — Secure Attachment with Self

Fern’s recommendation that readers become their own secure base completely contradicts everything she has written up to this point in the book, and cannot possibly be reconciled with the Nested Model of Attachment. If all attachment is interpersonal, then an individual cannot possibly be their own source of emotional regulation or love. And if all attachment threats come from an interaction between living beings and their environment, it’s nonsensical to suggest insecurity may be healed from within.

It’s true, of course that people in all kinds of relationships have to be able to soothe their anxieties and remind themselves that they are loved when their attachment figures are away. But these are just means of maintaining and acknowledging the connections that a person already has. It’s not an alternative to that connection.

All self-regulation is to some degree co-regulation; it’s a social phenomenon of registering that we are okay and not alone, even if there isn’t another person literally in the same room. And inner feelings of relationship security cannot occur without an actual relationship to undergird them. It seems bizarrely solipsistic to claim that all of a person’s happiness, courage, and purpose must come solely from themselves.

The importance of social connection has been well-known to epidemiologists for a very long time. Infants die if they are not touched often enough. Adults who are lonesome and touch-starved face a pronounced risk of strokes, depression, anxiety, suicide, and heart attacks.

Lonely people’s immune systems function far worse. Their mortality rate is far higher. As social animals, without other people we essentially fail to exist. How a relationship therapist can recommend individuals serve as their own psychological ‘secure base’ in light of all this is baffling to me.

Fern further posits that the many threats and challenges of polyamory are in fact a positive thing, because in her view most monogamous relationships are far too deeply and co-dependently attached. Throughout the book, Fern emphasizes the importance of all people developing greater psychological independence, regardless of relationship structure. In her view, we should all be capable of self-soothing, emotionally self-regulating, and setting our own life agendas and goals, without any attachment figure serving as an anchor.

From a left-leaning author who is openly critical of capitalism, this is also an unexpected, self-contradictory turn. I thought the whole point of exploring non-monogamy was challenging the one-size-fits-all relationship norms that have been forced on us by capitalism and the patriarchy. These norms demand many of us become far more independent than we’d otherwise like. And to escape them, we need to question society’s core values, not pursue a polyamory that conforms to them.

Photo by Blake Wheeler on Unsplash

Traditional relationships norms keep us cloistered away from our friends and community, raising children in nuclear families that can barely scrape together the resources to survive. Couples in relationships are often lonely disconnected from other people as well as each other. And the pursuit of ruggedly independent life also causes us to waste tremendous amounts of food and fossil fuels, contributing to the massive attachment threats that are climate change and global health epidemics.

Personally, if my gay, Autistic self is going to upend traditional monogamy, it will be for a relationship that’s far more connected and mutually reliant. My brain doesn’t work the way capitalism wants it to. I crave a ton of closeness and quality time. I cook more and eat better when I have a partner to feed. I’m happier and more functional when there’s someone around to remind me to go on a walk and take a shower. My deepest, most abiding fantasies involve weaving my own life into a partner’s to a non-normative degree.

To build a relationship that fulfills and sustains me, I don’t have to be monogamous — but I certainly can’t adhere to Fern’s ideal of being my own “secure base.” My longing for closeness borders on the transgressive. And I am disabled by society’s expectation that I do absolutely everything on my own.

Other neurodivergent writers such as Eric Garcia, Marta Rose, and Jesse Meadows have thoroughly explored how notions of independence fail people like me. And there millions of physically disabled adults who will never be able to thrive fully on their own. They deserve love (and non-monogamous models) that meet their needs, too.

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I don’t think this is a niche quibble for Fern to have overlooked. Self-realized neurodivergent people are a growing group, and we already make up a sizable percentage of polyamory practitioners. At roughly 20% of the population, disabled people comprise the largest marginalized group in the world. And no matter a person’s neurotype or disability status, it’s important to question the narrow scripts and expectations that have made cishet monogamy such a colossal social failure.

Every person deserves the freedom to author their own relationship scripts. For marginalized people, liberation will come from learning to lean on one another — not by aspiring to a level of complete independence that doesn’t really exist for anyone, but especially cannot serve us. If we’re gonna ever attain security, it will be together, not by shoring up the individualistic inner security Fern surprisingly endorses.

Though I do believe the emphasis that Fern places on self-attachment unravels the entire central premise of her book, I’ve got to acknowledge that she’s put some genuinely helpful resources and concepts in here.

The first is Fern’s reframing of intense jealously instead as primal panic — a heightened state of arousal and fear, which a person experiences when relationships appear to be under attack. I’m not a jealous person at heart, but when I truly believe abandonment in on the horizon, my entire world and psyche seem to fall apart. Distinguishing between the vague twinges of bitterness that come with jealously, and the electrifying alarm of primal panic is something I found helpful.

I also appreciated Fern’s recommendation that new couples let go of the murky compulsion to define the relationship, and replace it with a frank conversation about whether they’re seeking an attachment-based dynamic or not. A mismatch in attachment expectations is at the core of many early relationship conflicts. Often, when one partner yearns for proof of attachment, they ask for monogamous commitment, cohabitation, or a specific relationship label as a symbol of that importance — instead, what they really might need is a consistent relational practice to make them feel secure.

To this end, Fern introduces the acronym HEART, outlining five different ways that partners can build consistent closeness:

H: Here (being present)

E: Expressed Delight

A: Attunement

R: Rituals & Routines

T: Turning Towards Your Partner after Conflict

In her breakdown of how to practice HEART, Fern’s writing really shines; she gives readers a solid spread of activities and rituals to practice with their partners. You can think of HEART as an improvement upon the five love languages, one without all the evangelical Christian baggage that old resource carries.

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Many of Fern’s HEART tips deviate refreshingly from traditional straight, monogamous relationship markers. Partners can celebrate their first time not using condoms as a relationship milestone, for instance, in lieu of boyfriend/girlfriend labels or wedding rings.

I especially enjoyed the sections on the importance of presence and expressed delight. I crave being around my attachment partner a lot, but I know not all time spent in proximity is created equal. Fern promotes having direct conversations with partners about their expectations regarding texting response times, cell phone use during dates, and whether or not it’s okay to check notifications while in bed with a partner. These are the kinds of topics many straight monogamous couples never discuss and instead quietly simmer about. Any relationship could benefit from bringing these tensions out into the open.

At its best, Polysecure offers a clarifying update on the old attachment literature, which never suited the many unique desires and vulnerabilities of marginalized people all that well. Many of Fern’s frameworks are illuminating, and some of her exercises would be useful to monogamous and polyamorous people alike.

The great letdown of the book is that Fern doesn’t challenge conventional relationship norms or explore the role of systemic oppression further. Rather than fully celebrating the many distinct ways people can experience pleasure, security, and love, Fern imposes a singular, self-sufficient norm on her readers, many of whom will be neurodivergent people who just aren’t well suited to it.

By contradicting her own structural critique with a list of generic recommendations for self-care and personal optimization, Fern perpetuates the frustrating capitalistic double-speak endemic to the self-help genre. I say this as a psychologist and self-help author who continually grapples with how to strike a balance between systems analysis and prescriptive take-aways in my own work. I’m hard on her here because I’m hard on myself, and because I think as psychological professionals, we have a responsibility to challenge the individualistic, ableist norms of our fields.

I’d give this book a solid three out of five stars, and recommend it with heavy caveats to readers interested in nonmonogamy, trauma recovery, attachment insecurity, and queer issues. For those who, like me, find its social critique wanting, I can suggest the housing chapter of Eric Garcia’s book We’re Not Broken. I’ll also pass along a Tumblr follower’s recommendation of Love’s Not Color Blind by Kevin Patterson, which is next on my list.