Acknowledgments

Books about human connection are, appropriately, made possible by human connection.

I am grateful, first, to the researchers whose work fills these pages. The scientists, clinicians, and theorists whose decades of careful inquiry underpin every chapter here did work that deserved a wider audience. This book is, in part, an act of translation — an attempt to carry their findings from journal articles into everyday life. Any errors in that translation are mine alone.

To the many clinicians and practitioners who shared perspectives over the years — in conversations, in workshops, in the margins of papers — thank you. The gap between research and lived practice is where the most interesting psychology happens, and you inhabit that gap every day.

To the workshop participants, students, and readers who told me what they actually found useful, and what they wished existed: this book is what I was trying to build when you said those things. I hope it is close.

To the editorial team: thank you for your patience, your precision, and your willingness to push back when something was unclear or oversimplified. Better questions make better books.

To my colleagues who read early drafts and offered criticism without blunting it: you saved me from several errors and at least a dozen passages of needless jargon.

To everyone who has, at some point, felt confused by their own behavior or baffled by someone else's — and who kept looking for answers anyway: this book is for you. Your curiosity is not self-indulgence. It is the beginning of something useful.

Finally: to the people in my life who have tolerated my persistent habit of narrating our shared experiences in terms of attachment theory, cognitive biases, and emotion regulation — thank you for your patience. You know who you are, and I am, among other things, very grateful.