According to psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, one’s relationship with their parent during childhood has an influence on their social, intimate, and even relationships at work in the future.
The behavior of the primary caregivers contributes to and forms the way a child perceives close relationships.
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:
An anxious attachment style is a type of insecure attachment. It is characterized by 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.
They often grow up thinking they are supposed to take care of other people’s feelings and often become codependent. 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 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 is another insecure attachment style. It is typically defined by failures 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
are uncomfortable expressing your feelings
are 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 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 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:
•ability to regulate your emotions
•ability to seek emotional support
•effective communication skills
•comfortable being alone
•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 to Develop a Secure Attachment Style:
Even if you didn't have an upbringing that fostered a secure attachment style and you have an anxious or avoidant attachment style, it's still possible to develop a secure one as an adult. It starts with emotional awareness of how you feel about yourself, your ability to be loved, and your ability to be safe.
Actively work on your relationship with yourself. Purge toxic or counterproductive relationships. Build your self-esteem. Healthily express your emotions. Lean on the support of friends and family. Work on healing from past negative experiences in therapy.
EFT (Emotionally-focused therapy) can help. It was developed around the principles of attachment theory. EFT can help you learn how you may have developed unhealthy coping strategies in response to past emotional trauma. It can also provide you with tools to see how these unhealthy strategies create negative patterns that can prevent meaningful emotional connection and secure attachment.
Working on developing a secure attachment style is hard. I'm currently working on it myself. So good luck to you all out there doing the work every day to be a better you.
Trying to see which attachment style is yours, take the quiz here https://vivianbaruch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-07-17-Know_your_Adult_Attachment_Style_MINI_E-Questionnaire-Diane-Poole-Heller.pdf
-Love Always,
VanessaClair
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