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Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy
Attachment theory has entered the mainstream, but most discussions focus on how we can cultivate secure monogamous relationships. What if, like many people, you're striving for secure, happy attachments with more than one partner?
Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern breaks new ground by extending attachment theory into the realm of consensual nonmonogamy. Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how these emotional experiences influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships.
Polysecure is both a trailblaizing theoretical treatise and a practical guide. It provides nonmonogamous people with a new set of tools to navigate the complexities of multiple loving relationships, and offers radical new concepts that are sure to influence the conversation about attachment theory.
Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern breaks new ground by extending attachment theory into the realm of consensual nonmonogamy. Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how these emotional experiences influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships.
Polysecure is both a trailblaizing theoretical treatise and a practical guide. It provides nonmonogamous people with a new set of tools to navigate the complexities of multiple loving relationships, and offers radical new concepts that are sure to influence the conversation about attachment theory.
268 pages, Paperback
First published October 23, 2020
5546 people are currently reading
22363 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Fern
14 books223 followersJessica Fern is a psychotherapist, public speaker, and trauma and relationship expert. In her international private practice, Jessica works with individuals, couples and people in multiple-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles, and past traumas, helping them to embody new possibilities in life and love.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,806 reviews
December 30, 2021
The non-monormative attachment book I have desired for so many years! As someone who is monogamous (and begrudgingly attracted to men), works with poly clients, and has a few close friendships, I felt like I could trust this book’s wisdom without any heteronormative, monogamy-centric brainwashing. Jessica Fern draws upon her experience as someone who is polyamorous, as well as through her therapy experience with polyamorous clients, to deliver a book I honestly think we could all benefit from reading. If you are someone interested in relationships I would highly recommend Polysecure.
Fern first starts by providing an overview of attachment theory and how trauma affects our relationships. She does a great job of conveying the science surrounding attachment theory while still making the content readable and relatable, such as by avoiding unnecessary jargon. I felt like I could see my own relational patterns reflected in her descriptions, and I think she writes so well about how our past experiences can influence us to pull away or grasp firmly onto people we have relationships with, without judging people for their trauma or their general relational tendencies.
After describing attachment theory and how it relates to trauma, Fern writes about consensual nonmonogamy and how it relates to our attachment styles. I so enjoyed this section because I feel like Fern destigmatizes consensual nonmonogamy and writes about it in such a clear, accessible way. I feel like whether you are polyamorous, monogamous, neither or a combination of both, you could benefit from this book just to deepen your own understanding of how nonmonogamous relationships work, in particular if you are unfamiliar or still hold onto some stigma. Even though I identify as monogamous romantically (though idk if I’ll ever find a man I want to date, lol) I do have three closest friends I care about a lot, friends who I care about just as much as and probably more than I would any male romantic partner, and this book helped me reflect on my secure attachments with them as well as past attachments that were not as healthy.
I most loved how Fern dedicates space to discussing the importance of developing a secure attachment with ourselves. She writes about having a healthy relationship with oneself in a way that emphasizes how we can act as our own warm shelters to weather the storms of life, without framing this self-love in a trite or formulaic way. Fern offers specific strategies and actions we can take to tune into ourselves and enhance our relationships with ourselves, just as she provides tangible steps to strengthen the quality of our relationships with others.
Overall, would highly recommend this one! I am glad she acknowledges the role of various forms of systemic oppression on relationships too. Yay for deconstructing monogamy and creating a society where healthy consensual relationships of all kinds thrive.
Fern first starts by providing an overview of attachment theory and how trauma affects our relationships. She does a great job of conveying the science surrounding attachment theory while still making the content readable and relatable, such as by avoiding unnecessary jargon. I felt like I could see my own relational patterns reflected in her descriptions, and I think she writes so well about how our past experiences can influence us to pull away or grasp firmly onto people we have relationships with, without judging people for their trauma or their general relational tendencies.
After describing attachment theory and how it relates to trauma, Fern writes about consensual nonmonogamy and how it relates to our attachment styles. I so enjoyed this section because I feel like Fern destigmatizes consensual nonmonogamy and writes about it in such a clear, accessible way. I feel like whether you are polyamorous, monogamous, neither or a combination of both, you could benefit from this book just to deepen your own understanding of how nonmonogamous relationships work, in particular if you are unfamiliar or still hold onto some stigma. Even though I identify as monogamous romantically (though idk if I’ll ever find a man I want to date, lol) I do have three closest friends I care about a lot, friends who I care about just as much as and probably more than I would any male romantic partner, and this book helped me reflect on my secure attachments with them as well as past attachments that were not as healthy.
I most loved how Fern dedicates space to discussing the importance of developing a secure attachment with ourselves. She writes about having a healthy relationship with oneself in a way that emphasizes how we can act as our own warm shelters to weather the storms of life, without framing this self-love in a trite or formulaic way. Fern offers specific strategies and actions we can take to tune into ourselves and enhance our relationships with ourselves, just as she provides tangible steps to strengthen the quality of our relationships with others.
Overall, would highly recommend this one! I am glad she acknowledges the role of various forms of systemic oppression on relationships too. Yay for deconstructing monogamy and creating a society where healthy consensual relationships of all kinds thrive.
May 26, 2020
There are more than a few books out there about how nonmonogamy works. We haven't moved very far past them, most books are about what it is, how it works, the basics. But for regular relationships, those kinds of books don't really exist. For monogamous relationships, though, you have a seemingly infinite number of self-help books about how to make your relationships better. But these books are pretty useless for consensually nonmonogamous people. What is normal for monogamous relationships, the benchmarks, the agreements, etc., is not at all similar to what CNM people (as Fern calls them) have. POLYSECURE wants to be a relationship self-help book for people in nonmonogamous relationships, specifically people thinking about attachment styles. It is successful at what it sets out to do, though some of the task Fern has taken on slows her down a bit. But it's still so unusual to see this kind of book in the world that it feels radical.
Fern is a therapist who specializes in nonmonogamy, and who is actually nonmonogamous herself. That goes a long way in establishing the kind of trust that's necessary for the reader. She is mostly operating in the theoretical here and the book is not heavy on real-life examples, but what she shares is so practical that it doesn't really need them. Sometimes Fern will tell us about a client's story or share one of her own, but she doesn't get bogged down in it.
The biggest hurdle of the book is getting through the first half. Fern has set a big task for herself and she has to cover a lot of starting-off ground before we can get to the meat of it. She has to make sure her reader understands Attachment Theory and then she has to make sure her reader understands Consensual Nonmonogamy. If you are already familiar, these sections are easy to skim.
The second half is the good stuff and I really appreciated how practical and clear Fern's advice and information is. The book lays out plenty of examples and understands the many different situations CNM people may find themselves in. Fern is good at always acknowledging these variations, even if most of her book is directed at CNM people who are having multiple romantic relationships specifically. It does lean a little too heavy on couples who are new to nonmonogamy and/or people who are living with/nesting with a partner, but this is to be expected. She doesn't embrace a hierarchal framework and she always acknowledges the value of every person in these scenarios.
The final section specifically focuses on the self and applies her entire analysis of how we relate to partners to how we relate to ourselves. This is missing from most relationship books generally, and I certainly wasn't expecting it in a book about nonmonogamy.
I am not terribly familiar with attachment theory, so the ways Fern applies it aren't anything I can offer a qualified review of. But as a layperson, I learned a lot and I was able to give myself a whole lot of food for thought. This book is really meant as a jumping off point, something that shows you what kinds of questions you should be asking yourself and your partner, rather than the key to a problem. I often find this kind of book pretty useless with maybe a couple of interesting tidbits, but I often found myself thinking about my own relationships, past and present, and it was a really good opportunity for reflection that I can definitely see myself coming back to.
For people who are new to nonmonogamy, this may give some questions to chew on, and it may be helpful to get you more oriented in the world of nonmonogamy, but it's mostly for people who are well into it and working through more than one important, emotionally committed relationship.
Could we please have 50 more books like this? It's definitely time to get past the same 3 or 4 books that it seems like everyone always recommends, that are always "starter" books and that don't give you the opportunity to reflect and grow, which are central elements of nonmonogamous relationships for many people practicing them.
Fern is a therapist who specializes in nonmonogamy, and who is actually nonmonogamous herself. That goes a long way in establishing the kind of trust that's necessary for the reader. She is mostly operating in the theoretical here and the book is not heavy on real-life examples, but what she shares is so practical that it doesn't really need them. Sometimes Fern will tell us about a client's story or share one of her own, but she doesn't get bogged down in it.
The biggest hurdle of the book is getting through the first half. Fern has set a big task for herself and she has to cover a lot of starting-off ground before we can get to the meat of it. She has to make sure her reader understands Attachment Theory and then she has to make sure her reader understands Consensual Nonmonogamy. If you are already familiar, these sections are easy to skim.
The second half is the good stuff and I really appreciated how practical and clear Fern's advice and information is. The book lays out plenty of examples and understands the many different situations CNM people may find themselves in. Fern is good at always acknowledging these variations, even if most of her book is directed at CNM people who are having multiple romantic relationships specifically. It does lean a little too heavy on couples who are new to nonmonogamy and/or people who are living with/nesting with a partner, but this is to be expected. She doesn't embrace a hierarchal framework and she always acknowledges the value of every person in these scenarios.
The final section specifically focuses on the self and applies her entire analysis of how we relate to partners to how we relate to ourselves. This is missing from most relationship books generally, and I certainly wasn't expecting it in a book about nonmonogamy.
I am not terribly familiar with attachment theory, so the ways Fern applies it aren't anything I can offer a qualified review of. But as a layperson, I learned a lot and I was able to give myself a whole lot of food for thought. This book is really meant as a jumping off point, something that shows you what kinds of questions you should be asking yourself and your partner, rather than the key to a problem. I often find this kind of book pretty useless with maybe a couple of interesting tidbits, but I often found myself thinking about my own relationships, past and present, and it was a really good opportunity for reflection that I can definitely see myself coming back to.
For people who are new to nonmonogamy, this may give some questions to chew on, and it may be helpful to get you more oriented in the world of nonmonogamy, but it's mostly for people who are well into it and working through more than one important, emotionally committed relationship.
Could we please have 50 more books like this? It's definitely time to get past the same 3 or 4 books that it seems like everyone always recommends, that are always "starter" books and that don't give you the opportunity to reflect and grow, which are central elements of nonmonogamous relationships for many people practicing them.
September 17, 2020
Paired with the help of a good, polyamory-competent therapist, I can imagine no better resource than this book for helping insecurely-attached people figure out how to do non-monogamy in a way that is happy and healthy, rather than constantly triggering and retraumatizing.
Anyone who liked this book should also consider reading Clementine Morrigan's zine "Love Without Emergency" and taking their online class on trauma-informed polyamory. Those resources focus more on calming the nervous system when triggered than Polysecure does, and together I think they make an invaluable toolkit for traumatized would-be polyamorists.
Anyone who liked this book should also consider reading Clementine Morrigan's zine "Love Without Emergency" and taking their online class on trauma-informed polyamory. Those resources focus more on calming the nervous system when triggered than Polysecure does, and together I think they make an invaluable toolkit for traumatized would-be polyamorists.
July 9, 2025
This is a strange review because I’m DNFing at about 50% even though I thought the first half was strong and deserves 4 stars. I read this psychology book because it takes an updated and more integrated version of Bowlby’s Attachment Theory and lays it out visually as an overlapping continuum, rather than a list of categories. It’s a good half-book to read if you want to better grasp that theory.
The second half is how attachment theory can be helpful in navigating the complex waters of polyamory. I decided I’m not curious enough about it to want to read on right now. Perhaps in the future.
The second half is how attachment theory can be helpful in navigating the complex waters of polyamory. I decided I’m not curious enough about it to want to read on right now. Perhaps in the future.
December 12, 2021
This is the first book I’ve ever read about nonmonogamy so I need to remind myself that it isn’t going to cover everything I want to know! It felt like it only addressed experiences of privilege and oppression in relationships on a surface level, but I can understand that being beyond the scope of the book. Overall though, this rocked. My favorite part was the explanation of the different forms of attachment and how that can show up in relationships. There are a lot of great reflection questions and proposals of things to try in here that I will definitely be returning to! Would honestly recommend this to anyone, even if you’re not interested in nonmonogamy! A lot of great info for exploring how you show up to relationships and guidance for being more secure in your relationship with yourself.
January 14, 2022
I was very disappointed by this book. I have practiced consensual/ethical non-monogamy for seven years and I did find the glossary to be good for beginners. But, this book doesn’t shed anything new or substantial on attachment theory and I couldn’t finish it to see if it sheds anything new on ENM and polyamory. In the chapter on structural violence she fails to so much as mention transphobia. She quotes Tina Fey…in a psychology book in the section on structural violence and racism. It is well known that Tina Fey is racist. This was a terribly researched book. The author reached far into areas she doesn’t understand and did a terrible job trying to represent economic and racial violence using harmful euphemistic words espousing color blindedness and Reganomics like “trickle down” and “racialized women”. Skip this book and read instead “It’s Called Polyamory”, and “The Power of Attachment”, or even “Attached”. “Attached” felt more woke than this book and it was written a while ago. Yuck.
Read
May 15, 2023I see almost nothing but glowing reviews for this and I get it, it's an interesting subject and a useful read for people wanting to understand attachment theory and how it relates to polyamorous relationships. Unfortunately, I found it extremely repetitive and, at times, wilfully obscure in terms of its prose. I'm afraid I couldn't help but skim the last few chapters. All in all, it felt like a good start to a discussion that should be had but it ultimately left a lot to be desired.
March 30, 2023
tl;dr: I really hated this book and think it's bad for you. Read a good advice column that reminds you that life is sometimes out of your control, but that you get to ask for things, and you sometimes have to make big changes when you don't get them - like Dear Sugar or Captain Awkward - instead.
full:
This book requires the reader to have these three beliefs:
- Our personalities and behaviors are largely independent of our circumstances. They're determined by our early histories and genes, and can be bucketed into discrete types.
- We independently and individually determine, through our actions, the course and quality of our relationships (including a strong influence over how attracted other people are to us). Our relationships would be stable and hot and emotionally satisfying if we had the right analysis and made the right choices.
- The things in our lives that feel really bad cause long-lasting metaphorical wounds, called trauma, that make us do and feel unhelpful things long into the future until we heal them by acknowledging that a really bad thing happened to us and thinking about it a lot, and if we do a good enough job thinking and talking about our trauma (and/or using other healing techniques correctly), the trauma is healed and we stop doing and feeling unhelpful things.
These assumptions make for nice neat just-so stories about our lives, they are not true, and this book doesn't make sense if you don't buy them.
But a lot of self-help and a bunch of pop psychology rests on these assumptions, and some of that stuff seems to maybe sometimes help people - why do I think this book is so particularly terrible?
Because the ideas in this book prey on the people most likely to get stuck in bad poly relationships. They are exactly the opposite of the ideas those people are most likely to need.
The people who will get excited reading this book are those people who will blame themselves for every problem, who are comforted by the idea that there is something wrong with them that they can fix, and uncomfortable with the idea that their external circumstances (their relationship with their partner, their partner) are bad in a way that they can't fix without making a big change to their life. The people who will resonate most strongly with this book are those who think it's telling them what's wrong with them - they have an insecure attachment style - and who want something identifiable to be wrong with them and someone to tell them how to fix themselves.
I have watched several friends stay in unfulfilling relationships for months beyond what they otherwise would have because of this book, refusing to accept that it's the *relationship* that is insecure - typically because a partner is just not as into them as they are into the partner - and not their attachment style. They'll do a whole bunch of journaling about past relationship betrayals and disappointments and the deaths of people close to them. They'll feel a bunch of big feelings and think that means the framework is doing something for them, and then they'll blame themselves for not working hard enough to fix their insecure attachment style when the relationship eventually falls apart.
I've also watched these friends' partners muscle through this book under pressure from my friends and conclude "wow, what a boring book. But oh good, I have a secure attachment style, I'm a winner, the issues in our relationship are because my partner is traumatized and defective." The less empathetic ones become even less into their partner as a result; the more empathetic ones try to help their partner with the feeling-big-feelings-about-the-past process that doesn't actually improve the relationship. Or worse, they exaggerate how into their partner they are and how stable the relationship is, because they understand their partner to have this defect of insecurity that requires reassurance to fix, and the disconnect between their true feelings and their communication causes all kinds of confusion and pain.
This mismatch in how important the relationship is to each partner is particularly common in non-monogamy. Polyamory is particularly attractive both to people trying to fix themselves with sex and to people who like connecting without becoming particularly attached. And an imbalance is less threatening to a non-monogamous relationship because both people have permission to seek out additional partners who are more into them or who they're more into, without having to end the relationship. So this poison pill in the book's ideas is especially likely to land because of the target audience.
This is not as important, but it annoyed me: Fern's presentation of the science is not the science. The four quadrant attachment theory model Fern presents is an oversimplification of a framework developed to describe infant/caregiver behavior. It comes from the system that observers in the experiments of Mary Ainsworth and her students used to code infant responses - that is, it isn't a pattern that emerges from the data, it's a framework that the researchers imposed on the data prior to gathering observations, in order to apply quantitative analysis to the observations. (The quadrant model doesn't even match those coding systems - researchers went back and forth a bunch about how to classify attachment patterns and none of their answers totally line up with the quadrant model. Quadrants are just a good way to look like an expert in a workshop.)
There are some findings that are pretty solid in attachment research - there's good evidence that consistent caregiver relationships affect a bunch of early childhood outcomes for example - but the different kinds of attachment are vocabulary terms defined to facilitate the research, not research findings themselves. (And, as mentioned, the quadrant model is not the same way of talking about them the research uses.)
Importantly, in this research, attachment is not a kind of personality type that the child has. It's a description of the *relationship* between a child and a particular caregiver. People may have an insecure attachment to one person and a secure attachment to another.
I don't necessarily expect general audience advice books to get the science solid - the uncertainty of an honest account of many corners of scientific understanding makes for an unsatisfying story. I would probably feel more forgiving if the author seemed generally wise and kind and humble - the sort of person to give good advice even if it doesn't come from science. But the author's stories from her own life make it sound to me like she lacks self-awareness and would be totally insufferable to be around. She dunks on all of her partners that she mentions. She spills a lot of ink on how amazing and brilliant and resilient she is, how many lives she's changed, how revolutionary the ideas in the book are, and how revolutionary it is to be poly. She identifies herself as a "genocide researcher" though her only scholarly publication is a single paper she cowrote in grad school. Writing is such a vulnerable and humbling act that it is rare that I can dislike a writer as much as I came to dislike Fern by the end of this book.
Finally, the book promises to translate revolutionary developments in attachment theory to a poly-accessible context. While I don't agree the ideas are revolutionary (or correct), the context that they're translated to is extremely specific - a subculture of mostly white, mostly straight-ish cis men and bi-ish cis women in long-term primary partnerships who sleep around plus a few single satellites, mostly in a financial situation where they're not materially dependent on a partner for survival, mostly college-educated, mostly in an urban enough area where there's an ample menu of available partners. Which, yes, might be the subculture most likely to use the words "poly" or "ethical non-monogamy", and for sure the subculture most likely to attend Fern's webinars or hire her for counseling, but there are a whole ton of other subcultures doing things other than monogamy that the book makes a claim to speak to, but does not do a good job of speaking to. Despite how much the author leans on her childhood experience of poverty for credibility, much of the book just doesn't make sense if you're experiencing economic precarity and have motivations for your relationships that go beyond self-actualization. The text doesn't translate well to folks experiencing transphobia or racism, or communities that are more tightly and materially interconnected, or communities where heterosexual dynamics aren't central.
So: maybe don't read it. And if you do and get really excited, ask yourself if it's because it feels like the book has identified something wrong you can fix about yourself. And then ask yourself - what would I do if that's in the relationship and there's nothing wrong with me?
full:
This book requires the reader to have these three beliefs:
- Our personalities and behaviors are largely independent of our circumstances. They're determined by our early histories and genes, and can be bucketed into discrete types.
- We independently and individually determine, through our actions, the course and quality of our relationships (including a strong influence over how attracted other people are to us). Our relationships would be stable and hot and emotionally satisfying if we had the right analysis and made the right choices.
- The things in our lives that feel really bad cause long-lasting metaphorical wounds, called trauma, that make us do and feel unhelpful things long into the future until we heal them by acknowledging that a really bad thing happened to us and thinking about it a lot, and if we do a good enough job thinking and talking about our trauma (and/or using other healing techniques correctly), the trauma is healed and we stop doing and feeling unhelpful things.
These assumptions make for nice neat just-so stories about our lives, they are not true, and this book doesn't make sense if you don't buy them.
But a lot of self-help and a bunch of pop psychology rests on these assumptions, and some of that stuff seems to maybe sometimes help people - why do I think this book is so particularly terrible?
Because the ideas in this book prey on the people most likely to get stuck in bad poly relationships. They are exactly the opposite of the ideas those people are most likely to need.
The people who will get excited reading this book are those people who will blame themselves for every problem, who are comforted by the idea that there is something wrong with them that they can fix, and uncomfortable with the idea that their external circumstances (their relationship with their partner, their partner) are bad in a way that they can't fix without making a big change to their life. The people who will resonate most strongly with this book are those who think it's telling them what's wrong with them - they have an insecure attachment style - and who want something identifiable to be wrong with them and someone to tell them how to fix themselves.
I have watched several friends stay in unfulfilling relationships for months beyond what they otherwise would have because of this book, refusing to accept that it's the *relationship* that is insecure - typically because a partner is just not as into them as they are into the partner - and not their attachment style. They'll do a whole bunch of journaling about past relationship betrayals and disappointments and the deaths of people close to them. They'll feel a bunch of big feelings and think that means the framework is doing something for them, and then they'll blame themselves for not working hard enough to fix their insecure attachment style when the relationship eventually falls apart.
I've also watched these friends' partners muscle through this book under pressure from my friends and conclude "wow, what a boring book. But oh good, I have a secure attachment style, I'm a winner, the issues in our relationship are because my partner is traumatized and defective." The less empathetic ones become even less into their partner as a result; the more empathetic ones try to help their partner with the feeling-big-feelings-about-the-past process that doesn't actually improve the relationship. Or worse, they exaggerate how into their partner they are and how stable the relationship is, because they understand their partner to have this defect of insecurity that requires reassurance to fix, and the disconnect between their true feelings and their communication causes all kinds of confusion and pain.
This mismatch in how important the relationship is to each partner is particularly common in non-monogamy. Polyamory is particularly attractive both to people trying to fix themselves with sex and to people who like connecting without becoming particularly attached. And an imbalance is less threatening to a non-monogamous relationship because both people have permission to seek out additional partners who are more into them or who they're more into, without having to end the relationship. So this poison pill in the book's ideas is especially likely to land because of the target audience.
This is not as important, but it annoyed me: Fern's presentation of the science is not the science. The four quadrant attachment theory model Fern presents is an oversimplification of a framework developed to describe infant/caregiver behavior. It comes from the system that observers in the experiments of Mary Ainsworth and her students used to code infant responses - that is, it isn't a pattern that emerges from the data, it's a framework that the researchers imposed on the data prior to gathering observations, in order to apply quantitative analysis to the observations. (The quadrant model doesn't even match those coding systems - researchers went back and forth a bunch about how to classify attachment patterns and none of their answers totally line up with the quadrant model. Quadrants are just a good way to look like an expert in a workshop.)
There are some findings that are pretty solid in attachment research - there's good evidence that consistent caregiver relationships affect a bunch of early childhood outcomes for example - but the different kinds of attachment are vocabulary terms defined to facilitate the research, not research findings themselves. (And, as mentioned, the quadrant model is not the same way of talking about them the research uses.)
Importantly, in this research, attachment is not a kind of personality type that the child has. It's a description of the *relationship* between a child and a particular caregiver. People may have an insecure attachment to one person and a secure attachment to another.
I don't necessarily expect general audience advice books to get the science solid - the uncertainty of an honest account of many corners of scientific understanding makes for an unsatisfying story. I would probably feel more forgiving if the author seemed generally wise and kind and humble - the sort of person to give good advice even if it doesn't come from science. But the author's stories from her own life make it sound to me like she lacks self-awareness and would be totally insufferable to be around. She dunks on all of her partners that she mentions. She spills a lot of ink on how amazing and brilliant and resilient she is, how many lives she's changed, how revolutionary the ideas in the book are, and how revolutionary it is to be poly. She identifies herself as a "genocide researcher" though her only scholarly publication is a single paper she cowrote in grad school. Writing is such a vulnerable and humbling act that it is rare that I can dislike a writer as much as I came to dislike Fern by the end of this book.
Finally, the book promises to translate revolutionary developments in attachment theory to a poly-accessible context. While I don't agree the ideas are revolutionary (or correct), the context that they're translated to is extremely specific - a subculture of mostly white, mostly straight-ish cis men and bi-ish cis women in long-term primary partnerships who sleep around plus a few single satellites, mostly in a financial situation where they're not materially dependent on a partner for survival, mostly college-educated, mostly in an urban enough area where there's an ample menu of available partners. Which, yes, might be the subculture most likely to use the words "poly" or "ethical non-monogamy", and for sure the subculture most likely to attend Fern's webinars or hire her for counseling, but there are a whole ton of other subcultures doing things other than monogamy that the book makes a claim to speak to, but does not do a good job of speaking to. Despite how much the author leans on her childhood experience of poverty for credibility, much of the book just doesn't make sense if you're experiencing economic precarity and have motivations for your relationships that go beyond self-actualization. The text doesn't translate well to folks experiencing transphobia or racism, or communities that are more tightly and materially interconnected, or communities where heterosexual dynamics aren't central.
So: maybe don't read it. And if you do and get really excited, ask yourself if it's because it feels like the book has identified something wrong you can fix about yourself. And then ask yourself - what would I do if that's in the relationship and there's nothing wrong with me?
July 5, 2025
(review based on a partial read)
I came across the book, and it looked interesting...
alot of people in spaces I was moving thru seemed to be reading and raving about it, and I got abit wary (often my way when anything seems to have alot of hype)...
then this year a friend (who was reading it) mentioned it in conversation, saying that the poly/non-monogamy parts probably wouldn't tell me anything new/useful/I didn't know, but that the some of the attachment ideas might be relevant to a situation we were talking about...
I ended up finding a PDF of the book online and printing off a few chapters (apologies to author and publisher, but it wasn't available in the libraries I have access to at the time), and after reading the ones my friend mentioned, I went back to read the previous chapters presenting attachment theory. I found them a really straightforward, concise and useful introduction to something I hear alot about, but hadn't read alot about. I'd say the book is useful for this in itself. especially wrt it being discussed outside of more heteronormative and monogamous perspectives.
and the later chapters revisiting attachment theory practically, in the context of relationships you might be in, provide some nice exercises/prompts. I learned abit here, including how much of what I already tended to do was part of actively building secure attachment with another person... and how I could look at it thru this lens, and add/tweak/refine. it was nice to be presented with a pretty simple (to my mind) toolkit to approach and/or reinforce this stuff.
I'm not saying attachment theory is 'the way', but (along with other approaches to conceptualising people's behaviours and needs within interpersonal relationships of any kind) I think it's an interesting way to look at things that can give insights, especially into how anothers reactions and/or responses might differ dramatically from your own.
I think maybe one of the most personally interesting/useful things I also took away from what I read was that attachment styles are not necessarily static/fixed, which kinda confirmed something that had been on my mind since hearing folk talk in these terms... *and* that you can fall into different styles within/in response to different relationships/how others behave within the relationship. that was I think the most relevant and timely to me at the time.
I skipped the chapters on non-monogamy, not cos I think I haven't anything to learn, but based on my friends evaluation, a couple decades experience navigating non-monogamies, and my current priorities...
but I'm going to guess they'd be equally straightforward and constructive, and likely helpful if you're relatively newly navigating multiple relationships, and/or have come acropper and want to revisit/reflect.
so a pretty positive recommendation based on a partial read. if it's caught your attention/interest and you're wondering about reading it, I'd say definitely take a look, even if you just dip into a few chapters that seem relevant to your situation, and/or that simply intrigue/resonate with you.
I came across the book, and it looked interesting...
alot of people in spaces I was moving thru seemed to be reading and raving about it, and I got abit wary (often my way when anything seems to have alot of hype)...
then this year a friend (who was reading it) mentioned it in conversation, saying that the poly/non-monogamy parts probably wouldn't tell me anything new/useful/I didn't know, but that the some of the attachment ideas might be relevant to a situation we were talking about...
I ended up finding a PDF of the book online and printing off a few chapters (apologies to author and publisher, but it wasn't available in the libraries I have access to at the time), and after reading the ones my friend mentioned, I went back to read the previous chapters presenting attachment theory. I found them a really straightforward, concise and useful introduction to something I hear alot about, but hadn't read alot about. I'd say the book is useful for this in itself. especially wrt it being discussed outside of more heteronormative and monogamous perspectives.
and the later chapters revisiting attachment theory practically, in the context of relationships you might be in, provide some nice exercises/prompts. I learned abit here, including how much of what I already tended to do was part of actively building secure attachment with another person... and how I could look at it thru this lens, and add/tweak/refine. it was nice to be presented with a pretty simple (to my mind) toolkit to approach and/or reinforce this stuff.
I'm not saying attachment theory is 'the way', but (along with other approaches to conceptualising people's behaviours and needs within interpersonal relationships of any kind) I think it's an interesting way to look at things that can give insights, especially into how anothers reactions and/or responses might differ dramatically from your own.
I think maybe one of the most personally interesting/useful things I also took away from what I read was that attachment styles are not necessarily static/fixed, which kinda confirmed something that had been on my mind since hearing folk talk in these terms... *and* that you can fall into different styles within/in response to different relationships/how others behave within the relationship. that was I think the most relevant and timely to me at the time.
I skipped the chapters on non-monogamy, not cos I think I haven't anything to learn, but based on my friends evaluation, a couple decades experience navigating non-monogamies, and my current priorities...
but I'm going to guess they'd be equally straightforward and constructive, and likely helpful if you're relatively newly navigating multiple relationships, and/or have come acropper and want to revisit/reflect.
so a pretty positive recommendation based on a partial read. if it's caught your attention/interest and you're wondering about reading it, I'd say definitely take a look, even if you just dip into a few chapters that seem relevant to your situation, and/or that simply intrigue/resonate with you.
October 30, 2022
While there have been several landmark books on polyamory, such as The Ethical Slut and More Than Two, and while there have been books on using trauma and attachment theory to understand how to navigate a wide range of interpersonal relationships, including different types of monogamous relationships, there have not been books using trauma and attachment theory to navigate having multiple partners.
Relationship self-help books centered around monogamy can be unhelpful as they, along with the rest of the world, come from a mono-normative perspective that views non-monogamy – either as a lifestyle or an identity – as pathological behaviour stemming from insecure attachment.
Polysecure skilfully dives into attachment styles through the lens of trauma, as a reflective practice to understand our needs, motivations, and behaviours, in relation to ourselves and potential or current non-monogamous practices. It is a compulsively readable and accessible, while being short and concise. Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist who works with non-monogamous clients and who practices non-monogamy herself, and she brings a wealth of experience that is both rich in theory and applicable in practice.
While Fern strives to make the book accessible to lay readers, this book presumes that the reader already has some sort of reflective practice in their life, or at least are not resistant to reflection. Fern invites you to reflect on your attachment styles and that of loved ones around you, and move towards secure attachment within yourself and with others for a fulfilling and thriving relationship.
Besides the useful information, I appreciated the solidarity and the wisdom Fern and her clients have brought to the community. The pathologising of identities, behaviours, and lifestyles different from the norm pervades the origins and current state of psychology. Everyone should have the right to receive accurate, unbiased, and updated knowledge, free from a majority lens that doesn’t serve them, in order to make free and informed choices. Fern’s book has been validating, eye-opening, and healing. This was a long time coming and much needed!
More reading:
• Clementine Morrigan on trauma and polyamory
• The Book on polyamory – More than Two
• The book that started it all – The Ethical Slut
• Jessica Fern’s upcoming second book in 2023 – Polywise
My own notes
Fern critiques the prevailing assumption that healthy relationships are dyadic by in the field of attachment theory, and that behaviours out of the monogamous model is associated with insecure attachment styles. She additionally proposes that monogamous relationships may rely on the relationship structure rather than secure attachment to function.
I have to admit, part of me found the above gratifying. I also want to point out (as the book touched on as well) that the instability of a non-monogamous relationship may not just be inherent in its nature, but is also because of the lack of social norms and models, community support and recognition, and legal and social benefits to act as foundational structures to help a relationship thrive, with the added difficulty of discrimination, state violence, and sometimes actual violence. All of these should be taken into consideration before individualising the issue of instability of non-monogamous relationships.
I also found her list of challenges that couples may face transitioning from monogamy to non-monogamy (from her clients’ lived experiences) really helpful:
• Resistance to the paradigm shift
• Skills that were enough for monogamy are not current enough for non-monogamy
• Lack of healthy differentiation within the couple
• Differences in how non-monogamy is seen and practiced by the couple ie. one person may view non-monogamy as an identity and the other may merely practice it as a lifestyle
• Awakening of identity beyond non-monogamy – what Fern calls a crisis of deconstruction
• Attachment crisis
I found the fourth and fifth point really interesting and it’s a shame that Fern did not dive into them. The book did not cover much ground at all on them. On the fifth point, I do resonate with it. I find it hard to untangle my feelings and motivations to pursue a non-monogamy identity and lifestyle from other parts of who I am, some of which I am already aware of, others of which are rapidly being made known to me – my queerness as a commitment of how to love and as a political stance, my avoidant attachment style which makes it relatively easy (at first, at least) to detach myself from my pals and (potential) metamours, my strong feelings against traditional, nuclear, heterosexual families stemming from feminist perspectives and personal trauma history, the realisation that the gendered way I have sex with my current partner is socially conditioned and also a way to cope with past sexual assault experiences (of no fault of his), and that I would like no longer to relate to my body and loved ones that way, and a deep desire to never stay still. I think I consider that a crisis of deconstruction.
I also found the idea of healthy, porous, and rigid boundaries helpful, however, I find that I would need the help of a therapist to apply it to my life. A therapist had told me before that my boundaries should be flexible in the right ways, and said it was a lifelong process to find that balance.
Lastly, I found the HEARTS framework practical, easy to understand, and helpful. Because I trust in Fern's expertise and I know that this was developed from the lived experiences of others as well as literature, I am going to give it a try and apply it to my life. Wish me luck!
Relationship self-help books centered around monogamy can be unhelpful as they, along with the rest of the world, come from a mono-normative perspective that views non-monogamy – either as a lifestyle or an identity – as pathological behaviour stemming from insecure attachment.
Polysecure skilfully dives into attachment styles through the lens of trauma, as a reflective practice to understand our needs, motivations, and behaviours, in relation to ourselves and potential or current non-monogamous practices. It is a compulsively readable and accessible, while being short and concise. Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist who works with non-monogamous clients and who practices non-monogamy herself, and she brings a wealth of experience that is both rich in theory and applicable in practice.
While Fern strives to make the book accessible to lay readers, this book presumes that the reader already has some sort of reflective practice in their life, or at least are not resistant to reflection. Fern invites you to reflect on your attachment styles and that of loved ones around you, and move towards secure attachment within yourself and with others for a fulfilling and thriving relationship.
Besides the useful information, I appreciated the solidarity and the wisdom Fern and her clients have brought to the community. The pathologising of identities, behaviours, and lifestyles different from the norm pervades the origins and current state of psychology. Everyone should have the right to receive accurate, unbiased, and updated knowledge, free from a majority lens that doesn’t serve them, in order to make free and informed choices. Fern’s book has been validating, eye-opening, and healing. This was a long time coming and much needed!
More reading:
• Clementine Morrigan on trauma and polyamory
• The Book on polyamory – More than Two
• The book that started it all – The Ethical Slut
• Jessica Fern’s upcoming second book in 2023 – Polywise
My own notes
Fern critiques the prevailing assumption that healthy relationships are dyadic by in the field of attachment theory, and that behaviours out of the monogamous model is associated with insecure attachment styles. She additionally proposes that monogamous relationships may rely on the relationship structure rather than secure attachment to function.
I have to admit, part of me found the above gratifying. I also want to point out (as the book touched on as well) that the instability of a non-monogamous relationship may not just be inherent in its nature, but is also because of the lack of social norms and models, community support and recognition, and legal and social benefits to act as foundational structures to help a relationship thrive, with the added difficulty of discrimination, state violence, and sometimes actual violence. All of these should be taken into consideration before individualising the issue of instability of non-monogamous relationships.
I also found her list of challenges that couples may face transitioning from monogamy to non-monogamy (from her clients’ lived experiences) really helpful:
• Resistance to the paradigm shift
• Skills that were enough for monogamy are not current enough for non-monogamy
• Lack of healthy differentiation within the couple
• Differences in how non-monogamy is seen and practiced by the couple ie. one person may view non-monogamy as an identity and the other may merely practice it as a lifestyle
• Awakening of identity beyond non-monogamy – what Fern calls a crisis of deconstruction
• Attachment crisis
I found the fourth and fifth point really interesting and it’s a shame that Fern did not dive into them. The book did not cover much ground at all on them. On the fifth point, I do resonate with it. I find it hard to untangle my feelings and motivations to pursue a non-monogamy identity and lifestyle from other parts of who I am, some of which I am already aware of, others of which are rapidly being made known to me – my queerness as a commitment of how to love and as a political stance, my avoidant attachment style which makes it relatively easy (at first, at least) to detach myself from my pals and (potential) metamours, my strong feelings against traditional, nuclear, heterosexual families stemming from feminist perspectives and personal trauma history, the realisation that the gendered way I have sex with my current partner is socially conditioned and also a way to cope with past sexual assault experiences (of no fault of his), and that I would like no longer to relate to my body and loved ones that way, and a deep desire to never stay still. I think I consider that a crisis of deconstruction.
I also found the idea of healthy, porous, and rigid boundaries helpful, however, I find that I would need the help of a therapist to apply it to my life. A therapist had told me before that my boundaries should be flexible in the right ways, and said it was a lifelong process to find that balance.
Lastly, I found the HEARTS framework practical, easy to understand, and helpful. Because I trust in Fern's expertise and I know that this was developed from the lived experiences of others as well as literature, I am going to give it a try and apply it to my life. Wish me luck!
December 1, 2020
There are books about polyamory, and books about attachment, and books about trauma, but as far as I know, this is the first to put them all together in one cohesive theory/work.
Possibly because it's the middle of the pandemic, and my reading brain isn't as sharp, but the beginning chapters of the book were a little dry and hard for me to get into. However, the middle and ending were both more readable, and helpful.
One concept the author touched on that I'd never seen before, is our childhood attachment patterns might be MIXED. We might have had one parent/adult to whom we enjoyed a secure attachment, and another who was inconsistent, even abusive/traumatic. As this translates to polyamory, we might have one partner to whom we are securely attached, and another with whom our attachment is anxious, avoidant, or mixed, possibly because they push those same buttons. This was tremendously helpful for me.
The book acknowledges the many different ways people "poly:" from an existing monogamous relationship, as solo polyam, from swinging, and more, makes it more accessible to all the different kinds of people seeking to be polysecure. It also addresses the issue of whether people are inherently polyamorous (born this way), or it's a lifestyle choice, and the answer seems to be, Yes. Some people DO feel they were born polyamorous, and others choose it as a lifestyle, and neither position is wrong, BUT having partners with different outlooks can create friction within that relationship, even though both parties are polyamorous.
The HEARTS concept of attaching to our partners, and even, to ourselves, also great. Relationships aren't like bookcases from Ikea - each one is different, BUT having concrete steps to take to improve a relationship that we might not have thought of, is great. I also really liked the last section, on building a more secure relationship with ourselves.
Every polyamorous person, and every therapist who works with polyamorous people, should put a copy of this book on their shelves.
Possibly because it's the middle of the pandemic, and my reading brain isn't as sharp, but the beginning chapters of the book were a little dry and hard for me to get into. However, the middle and ending were both more readable, and helpful.
One concept the author touched on that I'd never seen before, is our childhood attachment patterns might be MIXED. We might have had one parent/adult to whom we enjoyed a secure attachment, and another who was inconsistent, even abusive/traumatic. As this translates to polyamory, we might have one partner to whom we are securely attached, and another with whom our attachment is anxious, avoidant, or mixed, possibly because they push those same buttons. This was tremendously helpful for me.
The book acknowledges the many different ways people "poly:" from an existing monogamous relationship, as solo polyam, from swinging, and more, makes it more accessible to all the different kinds of people seeking to be polysecure. It also addresses the issue of whether people are inherently polyamorous (born this way), or it's a lifestyle choice, and the answer seems to be, Yes. Some people DO feel they were born polyamorous, and others choose it as a lifestyle, and neither position is wrong, BUT having partners with different outlooks can create friction within that relationship, even though both parties are polyamorous.
The HEARTS concept of attaching to our partners, and even, to ourselves, also great. Relationships aren't like bookcases from Ikea - each one is different, BUT having concrete steps to take to improve a relationship that we might not have thought of, is great. I also really liked the last section, on building a more secure relationship with ourselves.
Every polyamorous person, and every therapist who works with polyamorous people, should put a copy of this book on their shelves.
March 7, 2025
shoutout elysia for putting me on this book— i think it’s a book everyone should read, regardless of relationship preference/orientation. a lot of the advice can be applied to any kind of relationship, from platonic to monogamous to polyamorous, and will help challenge / expand the internalized, ingrained assumptions of heteronormative monogamy that we may still harbor.
at the very least, it should be read for its much more detailed, nuanced breakdown of attachment styles than the book, “attached.” also unlike attached, it talks about and recognizes fearful avoidant attachment as an attachment style !!! lol
at the very least, it should be read for its much more detailed, nuanced breakdown of attachment styles than the book, “attached.” also unlike attached, it talks about and recognizes fearful avoidant attachment as an attachment style !!! lol
December 12, 2020
Loved it. An absolute treasure of a book. Since finishing, I've bought copies of Polysecure for half a dozen of my friends already and I'm sure I'll be buying many more. I've found attachment theory a useful framework to think about relationship styles for a long time but have been extremely disappointed by most of the literature on the topic. Most authors talk about attachment theory in very mononormative (often implicitly heteronormative) ways and see attachment styles as fixed, immutable attributes or patterns which will show up the same in every relationship we have, which has not been my lived experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find many new frameworks and ways of thinking in Polysecure that helped me to understand myself and my relationship history. Overall, strongly recommend to anyone (including people who aren't practicing non-monogamy!) who is interested in working on their romantic relationships.
July 7, 2022
This book horribly misses its target in my opinion. Most of it is nothing more than basic introduction to psychology and attachment theories you can read anywhere else. Vague attempts of connecting those nuggets of popular psychology with polyamory doesn't justify its title.
August 9, 2024
Fantastic resource, highly recommend if you want to learn about attachment styles and communication, especially in but not limited to polyamorous relationships.
October 4, 2022
Read the book for the second time this year and - having now more concrete ways to implement Jessica's counseling in real life - I found it even more useful and enlightening than the first time. Reiterate every single word I had shared in my previous review! (below)
-------
A mind-opening book and an extremely valuable resource to be better individuals in relationships.
The author first describes the different types of attachment styles, not as enclosed boxes but rather as a nuanced spectrum everybody can reflect into. Then she explores how these styles affect and interweave with relationships - monogamous and non-monogamous - resulting in an enriching manual on how to be better at loving ourselves and loving others. I believe this goes much beyond romantic relationships to embrace family, friends and colleagues too.
The end of each chapter is further equipped with guiding questions, tools and pragmatic resources to continue one's path of self-discovery even after the end of the reading.
I found so much value I'll probably dwell a bit longer on each chapter, and I'll definitely go through a re-read over my next relationship.
110% recommended if you're monogamous, non-monogamous or literally whatever.
-------
A mind-opening book and an extremely valuable resource to be better individuals in relationships.
The author first describes the different types of attachment styles, not as enclosed boxes but rather as a nuanced spectrum everybody can reflect into. Then she explores how these styles affect and interweave with relationships - monogamous and non-monogamous - resulting in an enriching manual on how to be better at loving ourselves and loving others. I believe this goes much beyond romantic relationships to embrace family, friends and colleagues too.
The end of each chapter is further equipped with guiding questions, tools and pragmatic resources to continue one's path of self-discovery even after the end of the reading.
I found so much value I'll probably dwell a bit longer on each chapter, and I'll definitely go through a re-read over my next relationship.
110% recommended if you're monogamous, non-monogamous or literally whatever.
August 13, 2021
Nuanced, but accessible! Includes explanation, as well as questions for reflection and useful tips and ways to use the information practically.
July 30, 2025
So interessant und anregend!! Der erste Teil hat sich für mich etwas gezogen, obwohl er inhaltlich eigentlich super wichtig war, aber den zweiten und dritten Teil habe ich richtig verschlungen. Auch wenn dieses Buch einen besonderen Fokus auf romantische Beziehungen legt, die für mich konkret keine große Rolle spielen, fand ich die Ansätze super inspirierend und auch übertragbar auf andere Beziehungsformen, die mich mehr beschäftigen.
Lohnt sich also total zu lesen, egal mit welchem Hintergrund oder welchen Zielen man sich dem Buch nähert!
Lohnt sich also total zu lesen, egal mit welchem Hintergrund oder welchen Zielen man sich dem Buch nähert!
January 3, 2022
I went into the first half of this book expecting to give this book a five star review. Sadly my hopes failed to dovetail with the content of the book. A major issue I would have recommending this to poly friends and members of my polycule is the inclusion of citations of known pseudoscience content, IE the Five Love Languages, the Myers Briggs personality test, and enneagrams. While I am not a psychologist, this lead to me doubt the veracity of the rest of the citations as well.
Another issue was the language and pacing; is this book intended for the polyamorous client or their care provider? Or the poly lay person? The wording was often clinical and unapproachable, and yet seemingly too casual and brief to be truly of use to a practitioner (again, that is not my profession, just speculation). This was my first introduction to attachment styles, which I found useful in analyzing my behavior and that of former and current partners. There seemed to be a lot of useful, insightful content in the book that will likely help inform my comprehension of healthy polyamory/ethical nonmonogamy going forward.
I also would not recommend this book to people of color or non-Americans, as it felt distinctly American-centered and unnaturally aracial. I feel that the ideas of this book are a helpful addition to a genre that is quite thin on the ground, but ultimately needed a co-author/editor with greater insights to the needs of the poly community.
Another issue was the language and pacing; is this book intended for the polyamorous client or their care provider? Or the poly lay person? The wording was often clinical and unapproachable, and yet seemingly too casual and brief to be truly of use to a practitioner (again, that is not my profession, just speculation). This was my first introduction to attachment styles, which I found useful in analyzing my behavior and that of former and current partners. There seemed to be a lot of useful, insightful content in the book that will likely help inform my comprehension of healthy polyamory/ethical nonmonogamy going forward.
I also would not recommend this book to people of color or non-Americans, as it felt distinctly American-centered and unnaturally aracial. I feel that the ideas of this book are a helpful addition to a genre that is quite thin on the ground, but ultimately needed a co-author/editor with greater insights to the needs of the poly community.
March 27, 2021
Being a great fan of Bowlby`s work on Attachment, I appreciate the author`s reflections and further expansion on existing literature. Built upon well-established modes of Attachment Theory, this book serves as an essential piece of work on polyamory - a topic so disregarded and misinterpreted within scholastic circles.
May 12, 2025
~50% divorce, ~50% cheat (p.102)... oh, you seeming securities, off you go! But then how to feel securely attached without "living with your partner, being primaries, sharing finances or having a child together" (p.6)?
This beautiful book presents lots of theory and provides impulses to understand and reason about oneself regarding this. It's not very personal, it is very packed. One read-through is probably not enough and things will only start to make sense if really applied/experienced. It's not very explicit in advice. It does not really tell you what to do, but it makes you aware what there is to discover, and guides mostly with questions rather than precise tips. I guess the workbook is more practical.
First of all, I need to thank the existence of CNM for putting a finger into my wounds, surfacing what was hidden underneath me. And even more so, thanks to Jessica for providing something as rational as text to hold on to when being very lost. This book triggered so many points which lead to fruitful discussions with partners.
Be it jealousy as a feeling to work through and understand without losing my mind (p.129), finding me "pull away, shut down or lash out in emotional reactivity" (p.24), or generally disabling the acquired "patriarchal control" (p.108) in me, I got faced with a million heavy things that I internalized. Faced with how far I want to and can go, distinguishing needs from normative habits. Rediscovering me when the monogamy dies inside, when removing all structure of the relationship, and instead building a secure attachment through "how we consistently respond and attune to each other" (p.122).
Simply experiencing the full "crisis of destruction" (p.134) including deep spirals and dissociations from the world. What an experience! (reads like a drug trip description)
I loved reading the book to be validated. I recall myself looking for exactly what I felt, marking it. Rereading it. Oh, it felt so affirmative.
Throughout part 1 on attachment types, I found myself reflecting on how I learned to live in this world regarding human connection. And lots of the things made sense. Even though Jessica provides a "Caveat to the Attachment Styles" (p.25-28), this part can still create an "illusion of emotional rationality" (as much as I would love for a thing like this to fully exist) and easily "rebrand emotional pain as a trait, then encourages self-regulation as the cure." (Schröter, Securely Unhinged, unpublished manuscript, 2023)
Still, there are so many questions left for me to answer and figure out. And I am so happy to have them in this book, which I will come back to very often, I suspect.
To all the lovely people in my life: I love you. I choose you. I am so thankful for your existence and presence. And I hope we will choose each other deliberately for as long as we want to.
in love we trust
This beautiful book presents lots of theory and provides impulses to understand and reason about oneself regarding this. It's not very personal, it is very packed. One read-through is probably not enough and things will only start to make sense if really applied/experienced. It's not very explicit in advice. It does not really tell you what to do, but it makes you aware what there is to discover, and guides mostly with questions rather than precise tips. I guess the workbook is more practical.
First of all, I need to thank the existence of CNM for putting a finger into my wounds, surfacing what was hidden underneath me. And even more so, thanks to Jessica for providing something as rational as text to hold on to when being very lost. This book triggered so many points which lead to fruitful discussions with partners.
Be it jealousy as a feeling to work through and understand without losing my mind (p.129), finding me "pull away, shut down or lash out in emotional reactivity" (p.24), or generally disabling the acquired "patriarchal control" (p.108) in me, I got faced with a million heavy things that I internalized. Faced with how far I want to and can go, distinguishing needs from normative habits. Rediscovering me when the monogamy dies inside, when removing all structure of the relationship, and instead building a secure attachment through "how we consistently respond and attune to each other" (p.122).
Simply experiencing the full "crisis of destruction" (p.134) including deep spirals and dissociations from the world. What an experience! (reads like a drug trip description)
I loved reading the book to be validated. I recall myself looking for exactly what I felt, marking it. Rereading it. Oh, it felt so affirmative.
Throughout part 1 on attachment types, I found myself reflecting on how I learned to live in this world regarding human connection. And lots of the things made sense. Even though Jessica provides a "Caveat to the Attachment Styles" (p.25-28), this part can still create an "illusion of emotional rationality" (as much as I would love for a thing like this to fully exist) and easily "rebrand emotional pain as a trait, then encourages self-regulation as the cure." (Schröter, Securely Unhinged, unpublished manuscript, 2023)
"If you are still reactive, still dysregulated, still longing too much, you are not yet healed. In other words: try harder. Buy the workbook. Take the quiz. Schedule the session. Heal faster. Love better. Show your progress." - (ibid.)
Still, there are so many questions left for me to answer and figure out. And I am so happy to have them in this book, which I will come back to very often, I suspect.
To all the lovely people in my life: I love you. I choose you. I am so thankful for your existence and presence. And I hope we will choose each other deliberately for as long as we want to.
in love we trust
September 14, 2021
I wish I'd read this at high school. I wish all my friends had read this at high school. It would have saved us a lot of pain — the pain we dealt to others, the pain others dealt to us, and the pain we dealt to ourselves.
My earliest memories of monogamy are 1) my dad reacting with either silence or rage at my mum's stream of consciousness talk during dinner time (nobody asked how anyone else's day was); 2) Disney animated flicks about heterosexual completion; and 3) that scene in Minority Report where the husband finds his wife cheating on him and he precogs her murder. These were my models for appropriate sexual, romantic and emotional coupling.
Clearly, heteronormativity and monogamy weren't the only issues here. My parents never dealt with their own fuck ups. Neither of them could relate to me or my brother emotionally. My dad was withdrawn, and my mother was narcissistic. My dad left me and my brother to do whatever we wanted without affirming us in what we were doing, and my mother used us as props for her ego-boosting stories that she narrated to our friends and family. We either didn't exist, or we existed as objects.
I hated my upbringing, but every relationship I got into became a repetition of it, because I hadn't introjected an attuned, compassionate and dialogic psychic structure. This is the one that develops in a child when their needs are met, understood and reflected back to them by their caregiver(s), leading to the development of primary narcissism (a secure foundation for self-worth), as well as the ability to articulate ones needs and find multiple avenues for their realisation (being well-adjusted in ones coping mechanisms rather than self-destructive, avoidant, or insecure). I would fall into silence when I couldn't articulate something (this even became an idealised self-image for me when I got into existential sadboi culture). I still struggle with articulating my needs, because appearing dependent fills me with crushing shame and the fear that I'll be ignored, looked down on, or rejected completely.
While this book isn't anything new to me (I read plenty of anarchist and psychotherapy texts post high school), it did remind me that knowing these theories is not enough. They need to be enacted, over and again, with our loved ones, and with patience and compassion. I'll admit, trauma recovery feels impossible to me more often than not, but I don't want to give up, because I know others have changed, and I myself have changed in small ways and in fleeting moments. I don't know if I'll ever breach the psychotic gulf between me and my parents, but I can at least be better to my friends who I run away from too much, to their pain and my own.
I realise I've mostly spoken about attachment theory. I guess bisexuality and polyamory are just baseline to me. I'll just repeat what 21yr old me thought at a party once: No one person can grant you all your desires. Love is multiple (even in monogamy), and breaking out of heteronormative possessive or codependent relations is something beautiful, freeing and worth struggling for. Fuck the patriarchy.
This book isn't deep theory, but it's incredibly practical, and a vital guide for queer communities ravaged by trauma. We can't heal with good intentions alone. This book provides tools to recognise and deal with insecurity. It's worth reading even if you're not in conflict with your partner(s), or don't even have a partner. As the saying goes, check ur self b4 u wreck ur self.
x
—
p.s. If you wanna dive into deep theory, I'd recommend Intimacy and Alienation: Memory, Trauma and Personal Being for an understanding of the dialogic self, and Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy for an understanding of attachment theory (I didn't like this book, personally and politically, but there's good info in it).
My earliest memories of monogamy are 1) my dad reacting with either silence or rage at my mum's stream of consciousness talk during dinner time (nobody asked how anyone else's day was); 2) Disney animated flicks about heterosexual completion; and 3) that scene in Minority Report where the husband finds his wife cheating on him and he precogs her murder. These were my models for appropriate sexual, romantic and emotional coupling.
Clearly, heteronormativity and monogamy weren't the only issues here. My parents never dealt with their own fuck ups. Neither of them could relate to me or my brother emotionally. My dad was withdrawn, and my mother was narcissistic. My dad left me and my brother to do whatever we wanted without affirming us in what we were doing, and my mother used us as props for her ego-boosting stories that she narrated to our friends and family. We either didn't exist, or we existed as objects.
I hated my upbringing, but every relationship I got into became a repetition of it, because I hadn't introjected an attuned, compassionate and dialogic psychic structure. This is the one that develops in a child when their needs are met, understood and reflected back to them by their caregiver(s), leading to the development of primary narcissism (a secure foundation for self-worth), as well as the ability to articulate ones needs and find multiple avenues for their realisation (being well-adjusted in ones coping mechanisms rather than self-destructive, avoidant, or insecure). I would fall into silence when I couldn't articulate something (this even became an idealised self-image for me when I got into existential sadboi culture). I still struggle with articulating my needs, because appearing dependent fills me with crushing shame and the fear that I'll be ignored, looked down on, or rejected completely.
While this book isn't anything new to me (I read plenty of anarchist and psychotherapy texts post high school), it did remind me that knowing these theories is not enough. They need to be enacted, over and again, with our loved ones, and with patience and compassion. I'll admit, trauma recovery feels impossible to me more often than not, but I don't want to give up, because I know others have changed, and I myself have changed in small ways and in fleeting moments. I don't know if I'll ever breach the psychotic gulf between me and my parents, but I can at least be better to my friends who I run away from too much, to their pain and my own.
I realise I've mostly spoken about attachment theory. I guess bisexuality and polyamory are just baseline to me. I'll just repeat what 21yr old me thought at a party once: No one person can grant you all your desires. Love is multiple (even in monogamy), and breaking out of heteronormative possessive or codependent relations is something beautiful, freeing and worth struggling for. Fuck the patriarchy.
This book isn't deep theory, but it's incredibly practical, and a vital guide for queer communities ravaged by trauma. We can't heal with good intentions alone. This book provides tools to recognise and deal with insecurity. It's worth reading even if you're not in conflict with your partner(s), or don't even have a partner. As the saying goes, check ur self b4 u wreck ur self.
x
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p.s. If you wanna dive into deep theory, I'd recommend Intimacy and Alienation: Memory, Trauma and Personal Being for an understanding of the dialogic self, and Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy for an understanding of attachment theory (I didn't like this book, personally and politically, but there's good info in it).
January 12, 2021
A good book for anyone
This is a great book for understanding adult attachment theory. The author is not stuck in the monogamy paradigm and is more thorough in describing the theories relating to attachment. This book is not heavy on detailing all of the research around attachment. Instead, it is more focused on the application of the theories in ways that enhance your understanding of self and how the self responds and reacts to relationships based on attachment styles. I would recommend it to anyone, even those who are not polyamorous and people opposed to polyamory and strict monogamist. It's
This is a great book for understanding adult attachment theory. The author is not stuck in the monogamy paradigm and is more thorough in describing the theories relating to attachment. This book is not heavy on detailing all of the research around attachment. Instead, it is more focused on the application of the theories in ways that enhance your understanding of self and how the self responds and reacts to relationships based on attachment styles. I would recommend it to anyone, even those who are not polyamorous and people opposed to polyamory and strict monogamist. It's
August 18, 2025
beautiful introduction to attachment theory in different kinds of relationships
December 31, 2023
UPDATE, December 2023: reread because there’s an Attachment zeitgeist in the air; it has repeatedly come up in the past three weeks, in unrelated contexts, with friends from separate circles. This was by far the best book I’ve read on attachment, and damn, it still is. In the two years since I first read it I’ve practiced many of its recommendations (and, of course, neglected others). I’ve come to accept that much of my life is not fixable, but also that this is okay, that I still have the ability to become a better person regardless. Fern works from the premise that our primary relationship is with our Self. It’s not that everything else follows from that, just that our self-attachment is one crucial part of the system. This is a book for anyone who interacts with other humans in any degree. I realize the title will scare off some people, and that’s a shame.
Much has changed in the understanding of attachment since I first read Siegel many years ago; much has also changed in the acceptance and understanding of ethical nonmonogamy in the last few decades. This book starts off strong by assuming an informed reader, giving brief background while focusing more on new perspectives. It remains strong all the way through, offering respectful and insightful takes on presence, communication, relationship safety -- what we all work on every day -- and providing useful ideas on ways to look at challenges. Well-written, engaging, and mature.
Four stars, adding a half because of the final section on secure attachment with Self, and rounding up to five because so much of it hit home so aptly. Much of this is material I know; but like all such, I just need to be reminded sometimes, or to see things a different way. And the clincher: I finished the book, and am writing this, one day after performing my every-year-or-two psychedelic tune-up, this time a solo ritual in the mountains with the intention (chosen months before even starting this book) of exploring my self-love. The final sections, which I read today, are giving me tools to work with.
Like many of us, I am a work in progress; it has taken me a lifetime to learn to love better, and I expect it will take the rest of my lifetime to continue learning and improving. Much like planting the proverbial tree, the best time for me to have had this book was thirty years ago, but the second best time is right now.
Much has changed in the understanding of attachment since I first read Siegel many years ago; much has also changed in the acceptance and understanding of ethical nonmonogamy in the last few decades. This book starts off strong by assuming an informed reader, giving brief background while focusing more on new perspectives. It remains strong all the way through, offering respectful and insightful takes on presence, communication, relationship safety -- what we all work on every day -- and providing useful ideas on ways to look at challenges. Well-written, engaging, and mature.
Four stars, adding a half because of the final section on secure attachment with Self, and rounding up to five because so much of it hit home so aptly. Much of this is material I know; but like all such, I just need to be reminded sometimes, or to see things a different way. And the clincher: I finished the book, and am writing this, one day after performing my every-year-or-two psychedelic tune-up, this time a solo ritual in the mountains with the intention (chosen months before even starting this book) of exploring my self-love. The final sections, which I read today, are giving me tools to work with.
Like many of us, I am a work in progress; it has taken me a lifetime to learn to love better, and I expect it will take the rest of my lifetime to continue learning and improving. Much like planting the proverbial tree, the best time for me to have had this book was thirty years ago, but the second best time is right now.
July 2, 2022
The intent of this book was to cover the intersection of ethical/consensual non-monogamy (ENM/CNM) and adult attachment theory, something which has not appeared in the popular press to date. In reality it does much more than that - it is a far more comprehensive discussion of adult attachment theory than other popular press treatments (e.g., "Attached"). Whereas earlier books pathologized all attachment styles other than secure attachment, this book provides a much more empathetic treatment, tracing the origins of each behavior and their (often) childhood sources. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about their own attachment style and understanding the origins of their (and others') behaviors, even for those who are uninterested in polyamory. That said, I found the first half explaining and naming the attachment behaviors far more helpful and eye-opening than the set of strategies presented in the second half.
January 13, 2022
A MUST read for anybody practicing or considering practicing ethical-non-monogamy, maybe even for anybody to be honest. This is a wonderful book that really forces you to take a look at your safety blankets and insecure attachment styles. I really loved this book pointing out monogamy is less of a default and more of a safety blanket for most people that can not place their own sense of safety outside of a concept of exclusivity.
I recommend printing the pdf figures that this book comes with to follow along with, as well as copying the chapter-end reflection questions, as I found the reflections to be supremely telling and helpful.
Very enlightening, I read somewhere that there is hopefully a workbook coming out soon, and I will be purchasing it if this is the case, as I read this via audiobook, and I wouldn't mind a refresher a year or so from now!
I recommend printing the pdf figures that this book comes with to follow along with, as well as copying the chapter-end reflection questions, as I found the reflections to be supremely telling and helpful.
Very enlightening, I read somewhere that there is hopefully a workbook coming out soon, and I will be purchasing it if this is the case, as I read this via audiobook, and I wouldn't mind a refresher a year or so from now!
December 21, 2020
The first third of this book covers attachment styles. The second third describes polyamory. The final third contains useful advice for people currently practicing polyamory.
The first two thirds are well written, so if you're unfamiliar with either poly or attachment, they're worth the read. The final third is the main point of the book, and it's good, if a bit short.
The book advice tends to prioritize relationships over individuals. I don’t like this philosophically, but I’ll grant that many people do and will find it useful.
The book ends with the somewhat dire warning- the author has evidently never seen a polyamorous relationship overcome attachment issues without ceasing to be polyamorous. I hope we can do better.
The first two thirds are well written, so if you're unfamiliar with either poly or attachment, they're worth the read. The final third is the main point of the book, and it's good, if a bit short.
The book advice tends to prioritize relationships over individuals. I don’t like this philosophically, but I’ll grant that many people do and will find it useful.
The book ends with the somewhat dire warning- the author has evidently never seen a polyamorous relationship overcome attachment issues without ceasing to be polyamorous. I hope we can do better.
November 19, 2021
new essential reading for not just polyamorous & ethically nonmonogamous people, but also for anybody who wants to cultivate conscious, intentional relationships. this book has some of the best descriptions of attachment theory that I've read, and some excellent exercises for increasing security in attachment, in polyamorous relationships or not.
March 7, 2024
first I have to thanks my insomnia to have finished this book so quickly
now, the format of this book is pretty cool and can serve as a guide which is always useful
I skipped a few part that seemed obvious to me but always read the tiny summary at the end of each chapter which were really interesting and reflective
now, the format of this book is pretty cool and can serve as a guide which is always useful
I skipped a few part that seemed obvious to me but always read the tiny summary at the end of each chapter which were really interesting and reflective
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