Psychiatrist Amir Levine’s first book explored different types of attachment. In his follow up, he explains how anyone can become more secure

Amir Levine has been quietly working towards a second book for 16 years. When Attached, which he co-wrote with Rachel Heller, was published in 2010, it brought the categories for how we behave in relationships – AKA attachment styles – into the public consciousness. According to attachment theory, you could be anxious (often resulting in social hypervigilance), avoidant (independent, suppressing difficult emotions), fearful-avoidant (craving closeness, but often retreating in fear) or secure. Knowing which you were and where significant others sat on this spectrum provided helpful insights for self-awareness and relationship harmony.

Since then, Levine has received countless emails from readers around the world either seeking his advice or telling him how the book changed their life. “I got an email from a woman from Iran,” he recalls. “She said that she realised she was with someone very avoidant. She was able to cut off from him and she found someone else who was secure.” Also, because she felt better equipped “to communicate her needs with this new partner, she reached an orgasm for the first time”. From all of these stories, as well as research into the neuroscience of attachment and neuroplasticity and working with therapy clients, Levine has now compiled the tools needed to help anyone become more secure.

Commentators have said that the US president’s clownishness and lack of ideology somehow make him less dangerous. They’re wrong

Over the past few weeks, a random kaleidoscope of images has been flashing through my head. Some are characters from movies not seen since childhood. Others are snippets from literature or iconic art. What joins them all is an exaggerated, almost kitschy evil.

These images seem to be standing in for the real carnage my brain is trying to process: the bodies pulled from the rubble in Gaza, a school full of young pupils blown apart in Iran. The more than 1 million people in southern Lebanon expelled en masse from their homes. (Alex in the film of A Clockwork Orange appears, eyes clamped open as liquid is dripped into them, unable to blink away what is scorching his vision.)

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

From the secret gay life of a British-Caribbean man to that controversial shared Booker win, the author has blazed a trail across the literary landscape. Here are seven of her top titles

Even by Evaristo’s experimental standards, this book is a highly ambitious mash-up of forms and stories. It takes a mismatched couple, strait-laced Stanley and ebullient Jessie, on a road trip across Europe where they meet the ghosts of black historical figures, from Alexander Pushkin to Mary Seacole. We learn a lot along the way, but the real engine of the story is Stanley and Jessie’s combative relationship. Told in a blend of prose, poetry, scripts, memos, legal documents, budget spreadsheets … and road signs, Soul Tourists ultimately wobbles under the weight of both its own good intentions and its skittish variety, but it has charm and energy to burn.

A Lancashire council tries hard to keep wealth and power in the area, despite such ideas being out of fashion in Westminster. But Reform could unravel it all

What legacy will Labour leave when it loses power? For its ministers and MPs, that question looms in the far distance, with the next general election probably not for three years and the current political fragmentation making its outcome almost impossible to predict. But for many Labour councils, facing the electorate in less than three weeks with the party catastrophically low in the polls, now is a time for desperate campaigning mixed with private contemplation of a bleaker, quite possibly powerless future.

Energetic and effective Labour councils may meet the same fate as complacent and mediocre ones, as local elections often follow national trends. The last time an unpopular, midterm Labour government faced such ominous local contests may have been many decades ago, in 1968. Then the party lost more than three-quarters of its councils in London alone, including traditional strongholds such as Hackney, Islington and Camden. Across Britain today, Labour activists and councillors are talking to each other in anxious mutters about a national wipeout happening again.

The children’s author answers questions from readers, friends and writers on losing his son Eddie, surviving Covid, who he’d invite to his perfect birthday dinner and where he goes for inspiration

Whether you know him from reading his classic picture book We’re Going on A Bear Hunt as a child, from his viral YouTube videos or his tireless support for children’s literacy and the NHS, Michael Rosen has been a household name in the UK for decades. As he turns 80, we gave his peers and Guardian readers the opportunity to put to him the questions they’ve always wanted to ask.

Which do you prefer, asking or answering questions? Roger McGough, poet
Probably asking. I always worry if I’m answering questions I’m being boring. It feels quite exciting if you ask questions. And, as Roger knows, the moment you pick up a pen and start to write, you’re actually asking questions. You’re saying: “What’s the next word? What’s the next phrase? Why am I writing in this shape? Why am I writing in this tone of voice?”

Social workers in England say they often have no choice but to place children in unregistered settings because no one else will take them

• Big rise in children in unregulated social care settings

The sinking feeling is familiar now, says Anna*. It’s Friday, the clock is ticking, and there is a vulnerable child in her care for whom – despite hitting the phones for days – she cannot find a place. Once the foster carers have been exhausted, and the registered private children’s homes begged, there is nothing for it but to look elsewhere.

“It always seems to be on a Friday that you are struggling to place a child,” says the social worker. “They need somewhere safe tonight. You’re calling everywhere, already knowing the answer will be, ‘we haven’t got any spaces’. And then you’re left with what’s left of a hotel, a caravan … somewhere you know isn’t right, but you don’t have a choice.”

Prime minister to deliver high-stakes statement to MPs over vetting controversy that has put his position in peril

Keir Starmer will deliver a high-stakes statement to MPs on Monday as he struggles to overcome fears inside his government that the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal could yet cost him his leadership.

In what is set to be a dramatic showdown, the prime minister will set out how Mandelson was able to take up his role as UK ambassador without the Foreign Office revealing it had overruled the decision to fail his vetting.

Donald Trump said on Sunday that US marines had taken custody of a vessel that tried to get past the American blockade on Iranian ports

• Tehran has ‘no plans to participate’ in new talks, state media reports, as it accuses US of violating ceasefire

The US has just released some more footage of the encounter with the Iranian flagged vessel, the M/V Touska.

In a post on X, US Central Command said US Marines had departed the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli by helicopter and rappelled onto the Iranian-flagged vessel.

Twin reports from top accounting firms underline scale of economic threat as Iran war shatters business confidence

A quarter of a million people could lose their jobs by the middle of next year as Britain “flirts with recession”, analysis suggests, after business confidence was shattered by the US-Israel war on Iran.

As the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, summoned bank chiefs for talks aimed at containing the fallout, twin reports from top accounting firms underlined the scale of the economic threat facing the UK.

Boy, 17, and man, 19, detained as Met says it is investigating claims a series of antisemitic attacks are linked to Iran

Two teenagers have been arrested over an arson attack at a synagogue in north-west London over the weekend, the Metropolitan police have said.

Matt Jukes, the deputy commissioner of the Met, said a 17-year-old boy and 19-year-old man had been detained, as he confirmed officers were investigating claims a series of antisemitic attacks in the UK were linked to Iranian-backed proxies.