This February we focus on relationship health as we Explore…What is Your Attachment Style?
Attachment Style Theory
Founded by psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1950s and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, attachment theory outlines how your bond with your primary caregivers sets the foundation for how you navigate relationships throughout life.
There are 4 Main Types of Attachment Styles:
1. Secure Attachment Style
An ability to build healthy, long-lasting relationships
Signs of a Secure Attachment Style include:
ability to regulate your emotions
easily trusting others
effective communication skills
ability to seek emotional support
comfortable being alone
comfortable in close relationships
ability to self-reflect in partnerships
being easy to connect with
ability to manage conflict well
high self-esteem
ability to be emotionally available
How it develops
Secure attachment is the result of feeling secure with your caregivers from childhood and being able to ask for reassurance or validation without punishment.
How it manifests in relationships
As a result, people with secure attachment styles tend to navigate relationships well. They’re generally positive, trusting, and loving to their partners. Securely attached people feel that they’re worthy of love and don’t need external reassurance.
2. Avoidant Attachment Style
Aka dismissive, or anxious-avoidant in children is defined by a struggle to build long-term relationships with others due to difficulty engaging in physical and emotional intimacy.
How it develops
In childhood, you may have had strict or emotionally distant or absent caregivers. The child has to be overly independent or parents were slow to respond to the child’s emotional needs.
Signs of an avoidant attachment style include:
persistently avoid emotional or physical intimacy
feel a strong sense of independence
are uncomfortable expressing your feelings
have a hard time trusting people
feel threatened by anyone who tries to get close to you
spend more time alone than interacting with others
believe you don’t need others in your life
How it manifests in relationships
Anxious-avoidant attached adults may tend to navigate relationships at an arm’s length and avoid sharing deeper emotions.
3. Anxious Attachment Style
Aka preoccupied, or anxious-ambivalent in children is characterized by:
fear of rejection
fear of abandonment
depending on a partner for validation and emotional regulation
codependent tendencies
How it develops
This attachment style stems from inconsistent parenting that isn’t attuned to a child’s needs.
These children have difficulty understanding their caregivers and have no security for what to expect from them moving forward. Sometimes, the parents will be supportive and responsive to the child’s needs while at other times, they will not be attuned to their children.
If you have an anxious attachment style, you may have had parents that were easily overwhelmed, sometimes attentive and then push you away, or made you responsible for how they felt.
Therefore, these children often grow up thinking they are supposed to take care of other people’s feelings and often become codependent.
Signs you might have an anxious attachment style:
clingy tendencies
highly sensitive to criticism (real or perceived)
needing approval from others
jealous tendencies
difficulty being alone
low self-esteem
feeling unworthy of love
intense fear of rejection
significant fear of abandonment
difficulty trusting others
How it manifests in relationships
People with anxious attachment styles usually feel unworthy of love and need constant reassurance from their partners. They often blame themselves for challenges in the relationship and can exhibit frequent and intense jealousy or distrust due to poor self-esteem. Ultimately, there’s a deep-rooted fear of being abandoned, rejected, or left alone.
4. Disorganized Attachment Style
Aka fearful-avoidant in children: anxious-disorganized attachment is defined as having extremely inconsistent behavior and difficulty trusting others.
How it develops
The most common causes of a disorganized attachment style are childhood trauma, neglect, or abuse. Fear of their parents (their sense of safety) is also present.
Children with this attachment style may seem confused. Caregivers are inconsistent and are often seen as sources of comfort and fear by their children, which leads to their disorganized behaviors.
Signs of a disorganized attachment style include:
fear of rejection
inability to regulate emotions
contradictory behaviors
high levels of anxiety
difficulty trusting others
signs of both avoidant and anxious attachment styles
How it manifests in relationships
In relationships, people with disorganized attachment styles tend to have unpredictable and confusing behavior. They alternate between being aloof and independent and being clingy and emotional.
While they desperately seek love, they also push partners away because of the fear of love. They believe that they’ll always be rejected, but they don’t avoid emotional intimacy. They fear it, and they also consistently seek it out, only to reject it again.
They perceive their partners as unpredictable, and they themselves behave in unpredictable ways within their relationships as they continue to wrestle between the need for security and fear.
The Good News about Attachment Style, Adulthood, and Romantic Relationships
We unconsciously expect our romantic partners to act as our parents did, and therefore, we act in certain ways due to these expectations.
The great news is regardless of your primary relationships, you can change attachment styles and develop healthy and secure bonds in future relationships!
