Understanding Your Attachment Style: The Key to Healthy Relationships
Do you ever feel like you're just not sure how to act around other people?
That's because, whether we like it or not, we all have an interpersonal attachment style, a way of relating to others that is based on our early experiences with caregivers. And our attachment style can play a huge role in the success (or failure) of our adult relationships.
In this blog post, we'll explore what attachment styles are, and take a closer look at how they might affect your relationships.
I'll also offer some tips on how to manage your attachment style for the benefit of both you and your loved one, whether it’s your Dad or your girlfriend.
I’ll use words like partner, loved ones, family, so apply what feels most right for you and your current situation. Read on if you're ready to learn more about yourself and the people around you!
What is attachment?
Attachment, in short, is the emotional bond between people. It's a way of connecting with someone else, and it's essential to the health and success of a relationship. Attachment styles are the individual ways that each person relates to others in their life, based on their early childhood experiences.
British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby was one of the first to study attachment theory in the 1950s when he wrote about how infants form an emotional bond with their caregivers. He observed that babies become attached to their caregivers in different ways, depending on the quality of care they receive.
Essentially, our attachment style is formed when we're young and it continues to shape how we interact with people throughout our lives.
If your primary caretaker responded quickly to your cries and interpreted your physical and emotional needs correctly as an infant, then you most likely developed a secure attachment. You learned early in life that the world isn’t so scary, because your caregivers met your needs.
More specifically, because your needs can be met. This will translate into self-confidence and trust in adulthood; allowing you to manage conflict in a healthy manner, respond well during intimacy, and handle the highs and lows of romantic relationships with ease.
On the other hand, if primary caregivers had trouble responding to your needs due to their own limitations or lack of understanding, then you may have developed an insecure attachment style.
Your caregivers may have struggled with their own mental health, didn’t know how to give you what you needed, got angry when you cried, etc. This taught you early on in life that your needs aren’t always met as your providers struggle to be consistent.
This means that as an adult, you’re likely to struggle with self-doubt and feel uncomfortable with physical and emotional closeness in relationships. You may struggle to trust lovers and friends because you know what it means to have people disappoint, neglect, or struggle to take care of you.
Attachment styles and how they affect relationships
When it comes to identifying your own attachment style, there are four general categories (with names that change all the time): secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant (aka disorganized).
Each one of these categories is associated with different approaches to relationships.
1. Secure attachment style
Secure attachments are formed when the caregiver is consistently available and responsive to the child’s needs. The child is provided with a safe space to feel, explore, make mistakes, and achieve.
People with this type of attachment style tend to have healthy relationships, as they are comfortable expressing their emotions and feel secure in the relationship. Their parents created an environment growing up that let the child be who they are without judgment.
They are not afraid of intimacy, asking for what they want and need, and are often very trusting and understanding of their partners. People with secure attachments can easily express their needs without fear of judgment or rejection.
All other attachment styles stem from a lack of secure attachment, and are therefore “insecure”.
Having a secure attachment style doesn't mean they won't ever have issues in their relationships; it simply means that conflict resolution and openness to intimacy will be much easier, making it the healthiest type of attachment.
2. Anxious-preoccupied attachment style
Anxious-preoccupied attachment is the result of inconsistent caregiving in childhood; some days the caregiver was there for them, and other times they weren’t. This is the parent or caregiver who forgot to pick their kid up from school once in a while.
People with this type of attachment style experience a lot of anxiety in relationships, as their need for closeness is often unmet.
They tend to worry about whether their partner truly loves them or not and have difficulty trusting others. They can also become overly clingy and dependent on the other person.
As an adult, they may struggle with self confidence, searching for that self worth within their relationship with another person like Mom or partner.
They are more likely to be jealous or possessive and may even feel like their partner doesn’t really care about them, despite their partner’s reassurances.
3. Dismissive-avoidant attachment style
Dismissive-avoidant attachment style is the result of a caregiver who was emotionally unavailable or unresponsive most of the time. This stems from the parent who gave the silent treatment, the caregiver who dismissed the child’s tears, the adult who told their kids to “suck it up.”
Adults with this type of attachment tend to have trouble feeling close and trusting others, as they learned at an early age that relying on someone else isn’t safe.
They may be neglectful of their partner's needs, keep secrets, have an affair outside the relationship, or end things without any notice. They may behave in ways to protect themselves without realizing how harmful those choices are to both themselves and their loved ones.
They may find it difficult to open up and share their feelings, as they fear that doing so will make them vulnerable. They are also more likely to engage in “self-reliance” and keep themselves emotionally distant from others.
4. Fearful-avoidant attachment style (aka disorganized)
Fearful-avoidant attachment style is the result of a childhood with an unpredictable caregiver. A combination of both the anxious and avoidant styles, this attachment style is characterized by ambivalence and confusion when it comes to relationships.
This doesn’t have to be extreme neglect and abuse to be horribly impactful on a child. When a child learns early on in life that they cannot depend on the adults around them, their world view changes.
People with this type of attachment may both crave and fear closeness. They want to be loved and feel secure in a relationship but at the same time often believe that they’re unworthy of love or that relationships are ultimately doomed to fail.
They may also find themselves fluctuating between being overly dependent and completely avoiding their partner. This behavior creates conflict in close relationships, leaving family and friends to wonder where they stand.
Strategies for changing your attachment style
No matter what your attachment style is, it is your responsibility in adulthood to learn about it to better your current and future relationships.
Here are some strategies you can use to become more secure in your attachments:
Become aware of your feelings and needs
Identify the moments when you feel most anxious or fearful, and then work on expressing yourself calmly and clearly. Make sure you communicate what you truly need without pressuring your partner.
Practice self-care
It can be hard to build a secure attachment if you don’t have a good understanding of what it means to take care of yourself first.
Prioritize meeting your own needs before those of your loved ones.
This is important for building trust and security in a relationship, as it shows that both people can be vulnerable without fear of judgment or abandonment.
Connect with your partner’s feelings
It can be difficult to feel close to someone if you don’t understand their feelings and needs.
Make time to listen to your partner and attempt to understand their perspective.
This will help create a deeper connection between the two of you and foster a secure attachment.
Seek therapy
If you’re struggling to change your attachment style, therapy can help.
An experienced therapist can help you understand the root of your insecurity and provide strategies for overcoming it and building stronger relationships.
Whether it's individual therapy or couples counseling, seeking help can make a world of difference.
At The Sassy Shrink, we offer personalized online attachment-based therapy to help you explore your attachment style, heal past traumas, develop healthy boundaries, and cultivate positive relationships.
Our approach helps you dive deeper into understanding yourself and connecting with others in a more meaningful way.
Conclusion
Even though adult relationships don't always reflect the earlier attachments in childhood, it is clear that early caregiver-child bonds are essential for healthy development.
If you take time to recognize and appreciate how your first attachments may influence present-day relationships, then you can gain a more profound understanding of yourself as well as an insight into interpersonal relationships.
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