A neuroscientist has answers for you about how attachment styles change from childhood to adulthood—and how you can become more secure.
What if the way you relate to others isn’t fixed—but fundamentally changeable?
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine is an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.
He was the author of the best-selling book Attached (Penguin Random House, 2012), which examined how people’s attachment styles—from secure to anxious to avoidant. In his new book, Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life (Penguin Random House, 2026), Levine argues that attachment styles aren’t lifelong labels but actually patterns the brain can relearn.
In this episode of the Big Brains podcast, he digs into the emerging science of “earned security”—how relationships reshape our neural wiring, why some people feel safe under pressure while others spiral, and what it takes to move from insecurity to stability:
Source: University of Chicago
