Attachment Styles… It’s Time To Be Secure

What in the world are attachment styles? And why should we care? Many people have attachment wounds that hinder the way they approach relationships and survive them. According to psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, the relationship with parents during childhood influences an individual’s social, intimate, and even working relationships. The behavior of the primary caregivers contributes to and forms the way a child perceives close relationships. Now there are four adult attachment styles:

• Anxious (Preoccupied)
• Avoidant (Dismissive)
• Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant)
• Secure

Let’s break it all down and how to get a secure attachment:

Anxious Attachment

An anxious attachment style is a type of insecure attachment. It is characterized by the fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, and codependent tendencies. This attachment style stems from inconsistent parenting that isn’t attuned to a child’s needs. As a child, you could have been often confused within your parental relationships and felt unstable.

People with an anxious attachment style often grow up thinking they are supposed to take care of other people’s feelings and often can become codependent. People with anxious attachment styles usually feel unworthy of love and need reassurance from their partners. They typically 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 alone.

Signs of Anxious Attachment

• 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

Avoidant/dismissive

Avoidant/dismissive is another insecure attachment style. It is typically defined as a failure to build long-term relationships with others due to an inability to engage in physical and emotional intimacy. In childhood, you may have had strict, emotionally distant, or absent caregivers. As a result, you may have learned to adopt a strong sense of independence, so you don’t have to rely on anyone else for care or support.

These adults may tend to navigate relationships with people at arm’s length. The need for emotional intimacy is lacking, so romantic relationships are not able to reach any level of depth. While they allow romantic partners to engage with them, they avoid getting emotionally close.

Signs of Avoidant/Dismissive:

• persistently avoid emotional or physical intimacy
• feel a strong sense of independence
• uncomfortable expressing your feelings
• dismissive of others
• 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
• “commitment issues“

Disorganized/fearful

Disorganized/fearful attachment is defined as having extremely inconsistent behavior and difficulty trusting others. The most common causes of a disorganized attachment style are childhood trauma, neglect, or abuse. Fear of their parents and their sense of safety. Children with this attachment style may often seem confused. People with disorganized attachment styles tend to have unpredictable and confusing behavior.

While they may 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.

Signs of Disorganized/Fearful:

• fear of rejection
• inability to regulate emotions
• contradictory behaviors
• high levels of anxiety
• difficulty trusting others
• signs of both avoidant and anxious attachment styles

Secure attachment

Secure attachment is defined by the ability to build healthy, long-lasting relationships. It develops from feeling secure with your caregivers from childhood and being able to ask for reassurance or validation without punishment. Your caregivers were probably emotionally available and aware of their own emotions and behaviors. Securely attached people can engage in the world with others in a healthy way.

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.

Signs of Secure Attachment:

• can regulate emotions
• seeks emotional support
• effective communication skills
• comfortable being alone
• can self-reflect in partnerships
• easy to connect with
• ability to manage conflict well
• high self-esteem
• emotionally available

How to Develop a Secure Attachment Style

Even if you didn’t have an upbringing that fostered a secure attachment style it is still possible to develop a secure one as an adult. It all starts with emotional awareness of how you feel about yourself, your ability to be loved, and your ability to be safe in a relationship.

Actively working on your relationship with yourself is key. Purging toxic relationships, building your self-esteem, and healthily expressing your emotions are all additional ways you can work to develop a secure attachment style. Additionally, make sure to lean on the support of friends and family and work on healing from past negative experiences in therapy.

Working on developing a secure attachment style is hard work but it is doable. So good luck to you all out there who are doing the work every day to be a more secure version of yourself.

How to Overcome Attachment Insecurity

If you think you’re insecurely attached, and it’s having a negative impact on your love life, here are a few common sense steps you can take to make the transition to secure attachment:

Seek a relationship with someone who is securely attached

Relationships with friends, romantic partners, a caring teacher, mentor, or therapist can all help instill a secure attachment. A positive experience with a securely attached person can override your insecurity. It can challenge you to develop yourself and grow in that relationship, ultimately healing patterns from the past.

Heal your shame and raise your self-compassion

This enables you to not take things personally, to resolve conflicts in relationships openly, and to seek a securely attached partner. Learning acceptance of yourself and others can improve all areas of your life and help you resolve conflict from a “we” perspective. Healing shame can help increase your sense of connection and belonging with others.

Learn to identify and express your needs

Learning to identify, honor, and assertively express your emotional needs can help you have a voice in your relationships and avoid co-dependency. You may also need to learn to be more assertive so that you can express your emotional needs. Taking the risk to be authentic can deepen your connection with others and reduce your shame and reactivity.

Seek Individual Therapy

Therapy can be very helpful for changing maladaptive attachment patterns. Therapy is a safe relationship where you can learn to identify and express your needs, practice communication skills, heal shame, and learn self-compassion. The experience of the therapeutic relationship itself can heal early attachment wounds and help you develop a more secure attachment style. In therapy, you can test out beliefs and assumptions with your therapist and learn to feel and react differently, which can translate to your romantic relationships. For more information, contact us, or read about our relationship counseling services or counseling for low self-esteem.

Seek Couples Therapy

In couples’ therapy, both partners can identify and challenge beliefs that promote expectations of rejection and that fuel their feelings of anger. Both partners come to understand the source of their destructive thoughts and attitudes in the context of their earliest attachments and learn emotional skills to stay connected in the moment. This emotionally focused approach provides the impetus for exploring new, more positive ways of relating, and frees people to experience genuine loving feelings and real security in their intimate relationships. For more information, read about our couples therapy or marriage counseling services.

Find out about our relationship and couples therapy services. Feel free to visit additional resources:

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About the Author:

Vanessa Clairjeune holds a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Houston and dual bachelor’s degrees in Forensic Psychology and Human Services and Community Justice from John Jay College. She integrates somatic and mindfulness techniques like DBT, Internal Family Systems, bibliotherapy, and trauma-conscious yoga into her practice. With experience in substance abuse clinics, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and student outreach, Vanessa is committed to holistic well-being, addressing issues like trauma, chronic illness, and maternal mental health, while fostering resilience and growth.