Neuroscientist Amir Levine has released a new book, Secure, offering practical tools to help people develop secure attachment styles linked to longer life and better health.
Levine, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, co-wrote the 2010 bestseller Attached, which introduced attachment theory to a wide audience. That book categorized people as anxious, avoidant, fearful-avoidant, or secure based on their behavior in relationships.
After years of receiving emails from readers worldwide describing how Attached changed their lives, Levine compiled those insights with neuroscience research and clinical work to create a guide for becoming more secure. One reader from Iran told him she left an avoidant partner, found a secure one, and experienced her first orgasm due to improved communication.
According to Levine, living in a secure state doesn’t just improve relationships—it rewires the brain to reduce stress and inflammation, leading to better health outcomes. He cited a 1997 study where people with strong social connections were less likely to develop symptoms after being exposed to a cold virus.
Levine emphasized that secure connections have a powerful impact on longevity, referencing a meta-analysis of 300,000 people followed for months to 58 years that found secure bonds cut mortality by 50%. “No amount of supplements and peptides even gets close to that,” he said, noting that centenarians often live in tight-knit communities.
In his new book, Levine outlines the “five pillars of a secure life”: consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable—or CARRP. He shared a personal example of how using this framework repaired a 20-year friendship that had suffered periods of estrangement.
He also advises people to focus their attention on those who reliably respond to them, rather than chasing unresponsive contacts, explaining that the brain interprets delayed replies as distress signals. Understanding individual texting cadences—knowing that some people expect weekly replies while others desire immediate responses—helps maintain secure interactions.
Levine explained that fearful-avoidant individuals crave closeness but fear it simultaneously, often sending mixed signals, while avoidant people want relationships but create distance when intimacy increases. Secure individuals, by contrast, comfortably give and receive closeness without taking space personally.
He said he wrote Secure because, after Attached, many patients and readers asked him how to actually turn into more secure—a question he couldn’t answer clinically at the time, as attachment research had not been translated into medical practice.
What are the four main attachment styles described by Amir Levine?
The four attachment styles are anxious (fearful of abandonment, hypervigilant to relationship threats), avoidant (uncomfortable with closeness, creates distance), fearful-avoidant (simultaneously craves and fears intimacy), and secure (comfortable with closeness and independence, skilled at creating safe relational spaces).
How does Levine suggest people use the CARRP framework in daily interactions?
Levine recommends applying the CARRP principles—being consistent, available, responsive, reliable, and predictable—as a shorthand to communicate needs and repair relationships, as demonstrated when a friend used it to address his lack of responsiveness during a busy period.