Stephen Metcalfe

I had a zoom meeting with the WA Book club in Austin Texas this last week. The club’s president, RoseBetty Williams was generous enough to share her post meeting thoughts. I thought I’d share as well. My first impression? Who wrote this book?

At our WA Book Club meeting this past Wednesday, we had an extraordinary conversation with Stephen Metcalfe by zoom. He discussed his book ATTACHMENT PATTERNS and answered our questions. The discussion was enlightening, interesting and thought provoking. His honesty and lack of pretention were refreshing and captivating.

The book explores life’s challenges and tragedies through characters in COG group therapy who have PTSD and depression issues from war, car accidents, cancer, drugs, marital discord, abandonment, family relationships or the lack thereof, homosexuality, death and more.

To quote Kay B., “After reading a book like this, one feels normal”.

On page 75, Metcalfe writes, “Anxiety issues affected 40 million people in the US, that eight percent of all adults would develop post-traumatic stress disorder, that for every reported suicide there were 25 unsuccessful attempts and that over 200 billion dollars a year was spent on mental health, making it the costliest medical condition in the country…Who would have thought there could be so many different kinds of crazy. Who would have thought that so many people could have mental health problems and that they’d cost so much?”

There are so many one liners and paragraphs in the book that resonated with us. Here are just a few:

Pg 29 COG model of emotional regulation: thoughts inspire feelings, feelings lead to action and behaviors. When anxious, we avoid…when afraid, we fight or run, when we are sad, we isolate, and when we feel joy, we love.

Pg 48 Depressed people didn’t feel pleasure or happiness. They were irritable, aggressive, and they kept to themselves.

Pg 123 It can often be hard to draw the line between honest and hurtful.

Pg. 146 Art can survive anything but indifference.

Pg. 174 Focusing on the past and worrying about the future means you are missing out on the present. You’re missing out on honest to goodness life.

Pg. 188 Really, we should count our blessings while we can… Most of you have people who care about you. You have the time, no, the obligation, to love and to laugh.

Pg. 223 No fate is worse than a life without love.

Pg. 203 I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many depressed, stressed out people. We are all connected. When numbers of people are hurt, frightened and confused, we all are. It is more important than ever for human beings to be self-aware, attentive and generous in spirit with one another.

Stephen Metcalfe explained that we are all connected and those connections create and foster attachment patterns, therefore, the title of the book ATTACHMENT PATTERNS.

We highly recommend ATTACHMENT PATTERNS and give the book 5* out of 5*.