4 Possible Attachment Styles
A few weeks ago, I wrote about secure attachment in healthy relationships and talked about the most foundational aspect in a secure attachment: Emotional Responsiveness.
Today I'm revisiting the issue of attachment, but I want to focus on attachment styles. In this week's newsletter, I will give some background info on the attachment system and on the different attachment styles. In next week’s newsletter, I will help you understand how you and your partner’s attachment styles impact your relationship.
What is the human attachment system?
There are a million excellent resources on this topic if you want to dig into it more (my fave books on attachment styles are Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson, Wired for Love by Stan Tatkin, and the Attachment Theory Workbook for Couples by Elizabeth Gillette). But for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to briefly describe what the attachment system is and how it’s developed.
Simply put, your attachment system is your body’s biological, innate drive to have a safe, supportive person (or people) in your life who cares deeply about you and is accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaged when you need them. As children, we try to get this need met by our caregiver(s). As adults, we typically try to get this need met by a partner.
The level of security we feel in these primary attachment relationships depends on the quality of responsiveness we receive from our partner (and used to receive from our caregiver(s) when we were children) when we reach out for connection and comfort.
When we reach out, are we met with warmth and care, or rejection and disinterest? Do we feel important and attended to, or do we feel like we are a burden or inconvenience? Do we feel validated and understood, or dismissed and pushed away?
No partner (or parent!) is able to respond warmly 100% of the time. Thankfully, it is the overall way that we respond to our partners (and our children!) that helps us feel secure (or insecure).
What are the 4 possible attachment styles?
Your attachment style is determined by understanding the ways in which you reach out for your partner for support and comfort + how you tend to feel and react when they don’t respond in the ways that you need. There is one secure style (called Secure Attachment) and three insecure styles (Anxious Attachment, Avoidant Attachment, and Disorganized Attachment).
A few important things to note:
Most of us develop our attachment style in childhood based on our relationship with our caregiver(s).
Many of us continue this same style into our primary attachment relationship with a partner in adulthood.
Our attachment style only shows up in our closest relationships that involve a lot of emotional investment and intimacy. Our interactions in casual relationships are much less indicative of our attachment style.
Most of us are on a continuum. Meaning that, we lie somewhere in between two different styles, rather than being extremely one type and not any of the others.
If you have a naturally insecure style, it is possible to grow and heal your attachment wounds and develop what’s called an earned Secure Attachment with your partner in a loving, supportive adult relationship.
Many of us who have an earned secure attachment will still lean in one direction or another when in distress. (i.e. I have an earned secure attachment with my partner, but when our relationship is struggling, I tend to function in an anxiously attached way - which is how I functioned as a child).
Do you know your attachment style?
I’m going to briefly describe each style here and give you some clues to help you figure out which one you most identify with.
Even though there are 4 attachment styles, I’m only going to cover 3 of them here: anxious, avoidant, and secure. Disorganized attachment is the most rare attachment style and research shows that most of us fall into the secure, anxious, or avoidant types. Additionally, I’ve found in my clinical work over the years that disorganized attachment is complicated and difficult for individuals to identify and is best suited for a therapy setting.
Anxious Attachment Style:
Biggest Fear: Abandonment
Deepest Need: To feel emotionally validated
Common Traits in Adult Relationships:
People with this style crave consistent, caring, accepting relationships with a partner, but are often afraid of being abandoned by their loved ones.
Although loving, their caregiver(s) was often inconsistent in their responses to this person in childhood. So in adulthood, they often experience anxiety about whether or not a partner will show up and be consistently present and loving in their responses.
Because of this fear, they may spend a lot of time focusing on or worrying about the health or stability of the relationship.
They are often very good at understanding and expressing their emotions when they are feeling more calm and secure, but may struggle to communicate as effectively when they are upset or feeling triggered.
They are often looking for reassurance from their partner that “everything is okay” and may have difficulty trusting this even if given reassurance.
People with anxious attachment styles may logically be agreeable to some separateness or time away from their partner, but may struggle to not feel anxious in preparation for or during the time away.
Often people with this style feel as if they are the only one working on the relationship (sometimes this belief is true, and sometimes it is not).
They are often emotionally expressive and have a lot to say about the distress in the relationship.
When they are feeling distressed, anxious, or disconnected in the relationship, their complaint may come out as blame, criticism, or attacks on their partner.
They often feel an urgent need to work through problems when they arise.
They often experience their partner’s defensiveness or lack of closeness as confirmation that they are “too much” or unlovable.
People with this style tend to naturally reach for their partner when they are distressed, but may struggle to self-soothe on their own.
Avoidant Attachment Style:
Biggest Fear: Being a failure
Deepest Need: To be accepted
Common Traits in Adult Relationships:
People with this style often rely on reason and logic to deal with relationship struggles and may feel very frustrated when this is not successful in working through issues with a partner.
They often have a difficult time knowing or expressing how they are feeling.
They often have a desire to feel emotionally close to their partner, but they may feel uncomfortable or confused with how to do that. They often experience a sense of not quite knowing how to connect with their partner because they didn’t learn to do that in childhood.
People with this style often experience their partner’s request for more connection as blame or criticism.
They often feel defensive or may shut down emotionally when their partner makes a complaint about the relationship because it triggers their fear of being flawed or being a failure. This response often makes their partner feel pushed away or uncared for.
Sometimes people with this style will hide their mistakes from their partner, or may lie about their mistakes to cover them up.
They often are desiring more independent time than their partner does, which then can cause conflict because their own need for autonomy creates anxiety for their partner.
People with this style tend to naturally auto-regulate their own distress, rather than reaching for their partner when they are upset.
Secure Attachment:
Biggest Fear: Generally feel less fear around relationships because they trust their needs will be met.
Deepest Need: To continue to feel loved, secure, and safe in their relationship.
Common Traits in Adult Relationships:
People with this style feel comfortable and safe in relationships.
They are generally able to stay emotionally regulated in relationships: they can connect to and express their own feelings, and they have internal resources for not letting their feelings overwhelm them.
They are generally able to share their own feelings with their partner, as well as get curious about their partner’s feelings (instead of blocking them or pushing them away).
They are able to hold a more balanced view of themselves and their partner (neither of them is all right or all wrong).
People with this style enjoy feeling close and connected with their partner, but can stay grounded and secure when they are separate. The more connected they feel to their partner, the more they are able to feel good about separateness.
They feel confident reaching out to their partner when they are in emotional distress.
They know what comfort feels like and are good at cultivating relationships in life with people who know how to give it.
They are typically able to manage conflict without blaming, criticizing, shutting down, getting defensive, or attacks.
Others experience someone with this style as being consistent, reliable, and responsive in relationships.
When there is conflict in their relationship, they understand that this is normal but they also want to resolve it quickly so they can get back to feeling connected.
Which one are you?
I’d encourage you to read through the above lists several times and pay attention to how you feel and which parts feel most true for you.
As I mentioned before, many of us are somewhere in between two styles. It is very common to resonate with parts of one of the insecure style (anxious or avoidant) and parts of the secure style.
If that describes you, you might think about yourself as someone who tends to function in the anxious (or avoidant) style, but you are working towards the secure style. Or that when you are feeling good in the relationship, you function more securely; and then you tend to function in the anxious (or avoidant) style when there is a lot of stress or changes in the relationship (for instance, after a big life transition like having a baby or moving).
Let me know if this was helpful for you. I know this is a big topic and can bring up a lot of feelings or questions. I would love to hear from you about what you may have learned about yourself or to answer any questions you have.