What is Your Attachment Style?

Do you know what your attachment style is?

An attachment style is something explored in attachment theory–a theory within the field of relational psychology that explores how our early experiences (typically the foundational experiences with our parents and caregivers) form “attachments” or connections to other people.

Attachment theory was developed by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1940s and then expanded upon by the research of developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth in the 1960s and 70s and now is one of the most widely studied frameworks within relational psychology. Basically it says: how your parents showed up for your emotional needs as a child establishes a blueprint for how you’ll be able to show up in your close relationships later in your life.  This blueprint will guide you on how to manage conflict in relationships, handle intimacy, manage moments of vulnerability, and respond to your own and other’s emotional needs and bids for connection. 

And this is what’s called an attachment style.

It’s your attachment style that determines how “successfully” you’re able to show up in relationships and navigate emotional needs:

• Do you shut down and turn away?

• Do you face intense moments of discomfort as moments of opportunity for greater closeness?

• Do you ask for that closeness from someone else but in turn push them away?

There are two main categories of attachment styles: secure and insecure, and three styles of insecure attachment: 

• Anxious attachment

• Avoidant attachment

• Anxious-avoidant (or disorganized)

Let’s look at the four different types of attachment styles and how they show up in relationships:

Secure attachment

What it means: If you have a secure attachment style, you feel comfortable during moments of closeness and intimacy, and you’re able to communicate your feelings and your needs–and listen to the feelings and needs of others when they’re communicated to you. 

How you develop it: Secure attachment develops from having parents and caregivers who are present, responsive and attentive to your emotional needs as a child. If you had parents who provided you with all of your physical or practical needs (food to eat, a place to live) but didn’t make you feel safe, secure, or cared for, this wouldn’t lead to a secure attachment. In order to develop a secure attachment you had to know that your emotional needs were safe with your caregivers as well as your needs for food, clothing, and physical safety. 

Characteristics include: 

• ability to trust

• high self esteem

• skilled at communication 

• empathy

• resilience

• healthy boundaries

Anxious attachment

What it means: If you have an anxious attachment style, you likely crave closeness, but fear the intimacy and vulnerability that comes with it. Because of that fear, you have difficulty building trusting, stable relationships, and may even pursue emotionally unavailable partners. It’s common for folks with an anxious attachment style to sabotage intimate relationships to avoid vulnerability or moments or emotional intimacy. You may have such a strong desire to be in a close relationship that you even overlook “red flags” or signs that a relationship is not healthy or serving you just to have a relationship.

How you develop it: Anxious attachment often develops as a result of inconsistent emotional availability from parents or caregivers. That can be through: 

• Emotionally unavailable parents or caregivers

• Parents who let their own mood determine how they responded to your feelings

• Feeling as though you had to earn love from your caregivers

• Emotionally unpredictable parents

• Parents/caregivers who didn’t respond to your emotional needs at all 

Characteristics include:

• low self esteem

• anxiety

• depression

• sense of distrust

• trouble committing in relationships

• prone to jealousy

• trouble regulating emotions

Avoidant attachment

What it means: Those with an avoidant attachment style have an intense desire for closeness coupled with a strong fear of intimacy. Folks with this attachment style struggle with trust, and intensely fear being hurt or rejected–which often leads them to avoid the exact types of relationships they directly crave. 

How you develop it: This style of attachment is often developed through traumatic experiences, when a caregiver has been neglectful or when a parent or caregiver displays frightening behavior. As a child you may learn to go to your parents for care and comfort, but when the parent is unable to provide it–or is instead frightening–you learn to withdraw. This teaches a pattern of encouraging initial closeness and then retreat (emotionally or even physically) when it is time to be vulnerable which can prevent true intimacy in relationships from occurring.  

Characteristics include: 

• low self esteem

• fear of rejection

• craving & avoiding intimacy

• push-pull dynamics 

Anxious-avoidant (or disorganized) attachment

What it means: This attachment style is a somewhat rare style of attachment that is a mix of the anxious and avoidant attachment styles, sometimes referred to as disorganized attachment. It is sometimes also called fearful-avoidant attachment. Someone with this attachment style has an intense longing for a close relationship coupled with an intense fear of vulnerability and intimacy, as well as such a strong desire to be in a close relationship that they will remain in a relationship even when it is unhealthy. They can go back and forth between signs of the two previous (anxious and avoidant) insecure attachment styles that it can be hard to identify which style they have–as they are actually a mix of both.  

How you develop it: Disorganized attachment often develops as a result of severe childhood trauma, such as physical, sexual or verbal abuse. The parent or caregiver, who was supposed to be a source of love, support and safety, instead became a source of fear or a threat. Because you were a child and depended on your parents you couldn’t avoid them entirely–and abuse doesn’t follow a rational pattern–your survival was wrapped up in an unpredictable environment and you learned in relationships there was never a safe way to behave. So even though you may crave close, safe relationships, you don’t trust that there is a way to truly show up and be safe and loved in one. 

Characteristics include:

• strong desire for closeness and connection coupled with a fear of intimacy

• feeling unlovable

• feeling unworthy of love or affection

• finds vulnerability difficult or even painful

• difficulty believing partner when they say they love you

• underlying feeling of distrust of partner’s supportive actions or attempts to connect

• constantly looking for signs of betrayal 

• mistrust

• mixed signals–clingy one moment, distant the next

• sabotaging relationships

• choosing unhealthy relationships 

Does everyone only have one attachment style?

No–your attachment style can change depending on how safe you feel within a relationship. While you may be more inclined to have an anxious attachment style, for example, if you’ve been shown repeatedly within a relationship that your feelings are safe and the relationship is a safe and secure place to be vulnerable, then you may start to show more of a secure attachment style within that relationship. 

This also means that your attachment style isn’t permanent. And with care, intention, and safety you can start to “heal” your attachment style. Knowing how your attachment style shows up is the first step, so you can begin to identify your own unhealthy patterns. 

In addition, working with a therapist can help you identify next steps in developing a more secure attachment as you process deeper issues, family history and possible trauma that has played a role in developing your attachment styles, and managing how those patterns show up in your current relationships. Our therapists are accepting new clients - schedule an appointment today to get started.