Podcast Summary: The Thais Gibson Podcast

Episode: When A Dismissive Avoidant Argues with An Anxious Attachment Style

Host: Thais Gibson
Date: November 21, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Thais Gibson delivers a “mini masterclass” on how arguments between those with anxious and dismissive-avoidant attachment styles can become destructive cycles—and exactly how to interrupt them. Drawing from over a decade of research and client experience, she presents five actionable steps that transform conflict into an opportunity for intimacy and resolution. The episode is packed with practical frameworks and compassionate insights for anyone struggling with push-pull relationship dynamics.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding the Attachment Dynamic

Timestamp: 00:00–03:30

Thais introduces the “holding pattern” frequently experienced in anxious/dismissive-avoidant relationships—one partner seeking closeness, the other withdrawing.
She emphasizes that, while painful, these cycles can be shifted with the right tools, and that most people never get properly taught how to handle conflict in relationships:

"It is the most frustrating thing ever...when you really love and care about somebody and you feel like you just can't get to the bottom of things or create resolution." —Thais [01:00]

2. Step One: Know Your Triggers

Timestamp: 03:30–08:00

Anxious Attachment Core Wounds: Triggered by feelings of abandonment, being unloved, not good enough, unimportant, unseen/unheard, emotionally unsafe, or excluded.
Dismissive-Avoidant Core Wounds: Triggered by feelings of defectiveness or shame, fear of being trapped, vulnerability (“I am weak”), being misunderstood, unsafe in conflict, or helpless (“Why bother?”).
Naming and understanding these triggers is foundational:

“Just knowing and putting a language to the things that get under your skin...is really powerful and meaningful to do.” —Thais [07:50]

3. Step Two: Practice Somatic Processing

Timestamp: 08:00–12:10

When triggered, tune into bodily sensations (heat in the stomach, hollowness, heaviness, etc.).
Cite: Neuroimaging research shows that labeling bodily sensations during emotional upset ("affect labeling") helps deactivate the brain’s alarm system, shifting it from reactivity to logical processing.
“As soon as participants were able to describe the sensations in their body...they went out of this in their mind, where they were triggered by their own thoughts...and by coming back and getting present in their bodies, it actually created a de-escalating effect.” —Thais [10:25]

4. Step Three: Stick to One Topic Per Conversation

Timestamp: 12:10–14:55

Avoid overwhelming your partner with multiple grievances at once—address one issue at a time for effective communication and problem-solving.
“If you say, I'm feeling upset about these last nine things that happened, you will spin your wheels in any kind of conflict and you'll never be able to solve anything...” —Thais [13:10]

5. Steps Four & Five: The Validation-and-Need Framework

Timestamp: 14:55–20:00

Framework: Each person expresses their perspective (feelings/needs) and receives validation. Think: Perspective → Need → Perspective → Need.
Example Argument Cycle:
- Anxious partner, hurt by withdrawal, becomes critical (“Do you even care?”).
- Dismissive-avoidant partner feels criticized, triggers shame, withdraws more.
- Both are trapped in a "trigger cycle."
How to Break the Cycle:
- Each expresses their feeling (“I feel hurt when...”) and their need (“What I really need is...”), avoiding blame or criticism.
- Each acknowledges the other’s experience and, where possible, apologizes or offers empathy.
Sample dialogue:

“Hey, I notice you pulling away more, and I'm feeling very hurt right now. What I'm really needing is...to know that you care and to have a little bit more consistency, if we can work towards that.” —Thais [16:40, modeling anxious partner] “I can work toward that. I may not be perfect, but also I need you to be mindful in your delivery, because that hurts me too.” —Thais [17:15, modeling dismissive partner]
Validation of both experiences and explicit discussion of needs allows for constructive resolution.

6. Core Insight on Conflict

Timestamp: 19:52–20:32

The real issue in conflict is not right vs. wrong, but longing to be seen, heard, and understood.
“People think that they're arguing about being right and wrong, but they're actually arguing about feeling seen and heard and understood by the people they love. And it's painful when that's not happening.” —Thais [20:10]

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

“Relationships do not have to be hard. The problem is most people are at a deficit going into relationships if you didn't have healthy modeling yourself in childhood.” —Thais [02:40]
“Dismissive avoidance in particular...get relief by just shutting down and pushing away.” —Thais [06:40]
“What do I need to feel relief? If you don't know, this is going to be your approach.” —Thais [18:45]

Important Timestamps

[01:00] — On the pain of unsolved conflict in intimate bonds
[03:40] — Defining anxious vs. dismissive-avoidant triggers
[10:25] — How somatic processing shifts emotional states
[13:10] — Pitfalls of multi-topic confrontation
[16:40] — Example of how to communicate needs and feelings clearly
[20:10] — The deeper reason behind most arguments

Tone & Style

Thais maintains a warm, empathetic, and educational tone throughout, mixing evidence-based practice with lived experience and encouragement. She speaks directly to listeners’ struggles, offering reassurance that these patterns are transformable with the right knowledge and practice.

Summary Takeaways

Recognize and name your triggers (from your attachment style) as the first step to better conflict management.
Tune into your body to de-escalate emotional intensity through somatic processing and affect labeling.
Tackle one issue at a time—avoid overloading your partner (or yourself) in the heat of an argument.
Use the “perspective-need” framework: each person expresses their emotional experience and what they specifically need to feel relief or resolution, followed by reciprocal validation.
Arguments in these dynamics are rarely about “the issue”—they’re about longing to feel seen and understood.

For more, Thais invites listeners to ongoing live streams and expanded content on attachment and relationship dynamics.

Transcript

A (0:00)

If you are anxious or dismissive, avoidant in a relationship, if you find yourself caught in a cycle where one of you is constantly seeking closeness and proximity and wanting resolution and the other person's constantly pulling away, first of all, it is the most frustrating thing ever. So if you're here and you need some help, you should be looking for help so that you can get unlocked out of this holding pattern that's so painful and honestly so difficult. Because when you really love and care about somebody and you feel like you just can't get to the bottom of things or create resolution about the things that you care about so much in your life and in relationships, those meaningful needs that you're waiting to get understood by your partner or the things that they're doing that are actually hurting you and you just want a little bit of empathy, we should be able to navigate these things with ease, with grace, but we don't get taught these tools growing up. And so in today's mini masterclass, we are going to cover exactly that. I'm gonna take you through five crucial steps that will allow you to argue or disagree without it causing a rupture and in fact will actually bring you closer together, especially if you do these things correct. And it will honestly change how you see conflict for the rest of your life. And I'm one of the biggest believers as somebody who personally used to be a fearful, avoidant attachment style and really struggled with conflict, really struggled with communication, learning how to communicate properly over the past almost 15 years of doing this work has literally been one of the most life changing things. And I just want to be able to share that with you here today. If you're new here, my name is Thais Gibson. Welcome. I've been in this field of working with over tens of thousands of clients over the past much more than a decade, specifically in private practice and in our own group coaching platforms that we developed online for people to come in. And I'm here to share with you in these daily mini masterclass series, the most powerful insights for deep inner healing from your own childhood and how to actually learn your attachment and relationship dynamics so that you can thrive. Because relationships do not have to be hard. The problem is that most people are at a desk deficit going into relationships if you didn't have healthy modeling yourself in childhood. So I'm going to share with you what more than a decade, closer to 15 years of research, and then another 12, 13 years within that time frame of helping people navigate these relational dynamics really looks like and how we can thrive okay, so there's five major steps and I promise you this will change how you see conflict. Okay, so here's the first thing you need to know. In order to do conflict appropriately, you need to know your triggers. And if you don't know what's actually triggering you in a relationship, then it's hard to communicate and convey it and then you're not going to be understood. So, specifically to the anxious and dismissive avoidant dynamic, I'll tell you the biggest triggers. And this is according to Integrated Attachment Theory. This is the body of work that we published about 12 years ago on all the different core wounds from each attachment style. And here's the first set. Okay, so anxious attachment cells are biggest core wounds in relationships. The things that trigger them the most are if they feel abandoned, obviously unloved, not good enough. If they feel like they are not important. Okay. If they feel unseen or unheard. And if they feel unsafe, emotionally unsafe when somebody pulls away is huge. And if they feel alone or excluded. Okay, so these are the biggest core wounds according to Integrated Attachment Theory that we've published. Dismissive avoidance. On the flip side here, their biggest wounds, the things that set them off, trigger them the most are if they feel defective or shameful. Okay, they have a lot of internalized shame from their own childhood. You won't see it because they're very stoic, but that's a huge piece. Then you'll see them feel trapped very easily. Okay, this, this core wound of, oh my gosh, I'm going to be trapped. And so they're constantly trying to create distance and space. Okay, I am weak is another huge fear for them. If they're vulnerable, I am misunderstood. They frequently feel misunderstood in relationship dynamics and experience a lot of pain and suffering around that. Also unsafe. They don't like conflict and this fear of being helpless. And you'll hear the manifestation of the helplessness core wound for dismissive avoidance. When they say, why bother? You know, who cares? And people say those things, they say, oh, why bother? Who cares? Let's stop trying. When they are stuck in free state as a result of learned helplessness. So when they feel like there's literally nothing they can do because they can't see a way out of something, Dismissive avoidance in particular, they get relief by just shutting down and pushing away. Okay, now it's just helpful to maybe note those things down. We have. You know, this is going to be a month long series of mini masterclasses on this channel, so you're welcome to subscribe to this Channel if you're not already, and we'll talk about how to navigate triggers and how to actually rewire triggers. Leveraging neuroplasticity in future masterclasses this month. But you can just keep it short and sweet for now. Okay, so just knowing and putting a language to the things that get under your skin hurt you the most, affect you greatly. Like, this is really powerful and meaningful to do. Now, the next thing is, if you're in a disagreement with somebody or an argument and you can feel yourself, you feel that emotion in your body that, like, frustration heating up in that moment, it is very meaningful to practice a somatic processing skill. Okay, so when you feel the emotion rise up in your body, sometimes it's heat in your stomach and your torso, Sometimes it's hollowness in your chest and torso. If you're feeling sad or a heaviness, you know, one of the best things that you can do is practice somatic processing. What somatic processing means is you want to practice as soon as you feel something to get really attuned to the sensations happening in your body. There was a study done where they took participants and they put them into FMRI scanners, and they had them actually recall triggering experiences. And then the researcher said, okay, now I want you to witness your emotions and describe the sensations in your body. So label the emotions, Label the sensations. And what the researchers found is that as soon as participants were able to describe the sensations in their body and actually somatically process the emotions or to notice them, all of a sudden they went out of this in their mind, where they were triggered by their own thoughts and their own past experiences and the way that they had stored it. And by coming back and getting present in their bodies, it actually created a de escalating effect. And they actually saw this on brain scans, where suddenly all this brain activity went back up into the neocortex, which has regions like our prefrontal cortex responsible for logic and analytical processing, and out of this amygdala activation state. And so this was very, very beneficial. And it's actually called affect labeling, and it's a tool that we can use to somatically process to get back into our bodies. There's a. That we could talk about in somatic processing. And we will cover some of these things this month, but it's a really powerful place to start. Okay, now here's tip number three. We start to bring these things together so we're able to witness our emotions, not get so bought into this trigger. Oh, my gosh, I'M excluded or I'm not good enough or I'm trapped because we're just staying present in our bodies and noticing the sensations and then we're able to actually put language to what we're feeling. Oh, you know, I'm feeling anger and it's because I feel trapped or I'm feeling sad and it's because I feel abandoned. Right. So we want to be able to start speaking of these things, but when we do, and this is so important, and this is really your step number three, you need to stick to one topic per conversation. Okay. If you say, I'm feeling upset about these last nine things that happened, you will spin your wheels in any kind of conflict and you'll never be able to solve anything because you can't possibly engage in a conversation with somebody where they're telling you nine different things at once and have one answer to deal with all nine of those problems. It's not possible because each of those nine situations will be individual and unique. And one of the things that people fall into is a trap is getting stuck here because they aren't able to come to properly name these things. Okay, I just want to pop in here and let you know we are doing a seven day free trial to the All Access Membership Pass at pds, which means you get access to literally everything inside of the school. And this includes the four live webinars I do with our students every single week. And on top of that, you get access to all of our different courses. We have over 55 different courses on Relational relationships, Communication, Boundaries, Emotional Mastery, Guilt and Shame. Learning your needs. So many different facets that are really important to master our lives and feel really good about our lives going forward. And last but not least, there's a daily community event. We have trained facilitators and coaches who are in there doing that work, showing up to support you on your journey every single day. Please join me on the other side. Come check it out, see if it's a fit for you. I'd love to see you there. Go ahead and sign up by clicking the link in the description box below. Steps 4 and 5 is a framework that I've always used for couples to actually navigate challenging situations. And you can think of this as each person needs their perspective validated and heard. And each person needs a need expressed and strategized for. So you can think of this as perspective, need, perspective, need. And you could even think of it if you wanted to reframe it, as validation, need, validation need. Like the person needs validation of their perspective. So let's say that there's a disagreement between these two. And we have the anxious person who, when they feel, you know, they're missing consistency in communication, they become slightly critical. And they say, like, do you even care? Like, I try so hard, you're not trying. And let's say they, they have this sort of minor form of criticism that shows up in the way that they're communicating. And let's say the dismissive avoidant receives that communication as critical, and it triggers their core wound of being defective and shameful, and it causes a dismissive avoidant to want to retreat. Now we have a dynam where the anxious attachment style was hurt first by the dismissive avoidance behavior, but then the delivery. The anxious attachment style used in turn hurt the dismissive avoidant. And now they're locked in a holding pattern which I call trigger cycles. And once they have this trigger cycle, there's one way you get out of it, and literally one way. And it is to have each person's perspective or feeling validated and then their need expressed. So it would look like this, the anxious attachment style. It might say to that person, hey, I notice you pulling away more, and I'm feeling very hurt right now. What I'm really needing is to know that you care and to have a little bit more consistency, if we can work towards that. Okay, so here what they did, they first started by expressing what they were experiencing emotionally. Hey, I'm feeling a little bit hurt, and here's what I'm needing. Okay, now what this did is it avoided the anxious attachment cell from negative framing where they said, you're not trying. Do you even care? That's not productive. It is productive to tell somebody, this is what I'm feeling right now and experiencing, and here's what I'm needing. And when we can flip this around, then we can have the other person express what they're feeling and needing. So in turn, the dismissive avoidant might say, okay, I can work towards that. I may not be perfect, but also I need you to be mindful in your delivery, because that hurts me too. And if they can say, I need you to be mindful in your delivery when you communicate, it doesn't feel good for me either to receive information in that way. Then all of a sudden, both people got to express their feelings, both people got to express their needs. And you can think of it being their feelings, AKA their perspective, like their own personal emotional experience, and then their needs. And all of a sud when both people feel seen and heard exactly what they need to feel like the situation is solved for is actually expressed. Now we have a constructive ability to resolve things. Okay. Because what your needs were are expressed. And you can think of it this way. If you don't know, think of it as like, what do I need to feel relief? If you don't know, this is going to be your approach. Okay? So both people's perspectives and feelings were expressed. Both people talked about what their needs are. Now we have a productive set of steps forward that's loud and clear, like very simple, very clean cut from both people. And we just need a little bit of validation. Hey, yeah, I can see that my delivery wasn't great there. I'm sorry. Hey, yeah, I can see that consistency is important to you. And I'm sorry I haven't been as consistent this week. If we can have an acknowledgement of those things, of how one another are feeling in that, then all of a sudden we have that validation of perspective and we have the expression of needs with a strategy. And this is actually a framework really covering those two parts that then allow us to healthily resolve conflicts. Now, as I mentioned before, we have a whole course on this. We can dive into this in so much detail. There's worksheets and pract. This is at a very high level, obviously, because people don't usually watch hour long videos on YouTube, but I'm hoping that this is really helpful for you. I'm hoping that this gave you the ability to understand, okay, that's what a conflict actually is. Because people think that they're arguing about being right and wrong, but they're actually arguing about feeling seen and heard and understood by the people they love. And it's painful when that's not happening or there for them. And so this is how we solve for it. So I hope this is helpful for you today. I'm really excited to be sharing this with you. This is our month of relationships. We're going to be talking about all the different attachment style pairings and dynamics and make sure if you want to see all of the relationship content we have coming out this month, you like share, subscribe and hit the notification bell especially so that you are notified when our new content pops up. And the last thing I'll say is a special announcement is that I am starting because of so many requests from people, I am starting to do a live stream podcast. So it's going to be every Wednesday and Saturday and on this live stream podcast, we are going to be going through and doing exercises together. So I'll actually be joining in here with you. We'll do live exercises. I hope you join me. And really excited to share that with you. And yeah, thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon.