Knowing your attachment style can help you understand your relationships with others. Understanding your partner or friend’s attachment style will help you understand why they do the things that they do. Our attachments styles develop in our early childhood, as result of the relationship with our parents or caregivers. These attachment styles develop and affect our relationships into adulthood. There are four attachment styles: anxious, avoidant/dismissive, disorganized/fearful, and secure.
Anxious attachment style is characterized by a deep fear of abandonment. People with this attachment style will have negative self-esteem, whereas they view others in a more positive light. Living alone and without their partner causes high anxiety. Having a secure relationship with attention, care, and responsiveness from a partner is a priority in the life of someone with anxious attachments. A perceived absence of support within the relationship will cause an anxiously attached person to become clingy and demanding, increasing the preoccupation of the relationship and desperate for more intimacy and reassurance. Relationships are extremely values by an anxious attachment style, and there is a worry that their partner may not be as invested in the relationship as they are. They will struggle to communicate their own needs and lack trust in others.
Avoidant Dismissive attachment styles do not need relationships to feel complete and whole. They are very independent, and self-reliant on an emotional level. They do not seek approval from others in social settings. Intimacy and emotional closeness are avoided and relationships are downplayed. While in a relationship, people with avoidant attachment styles may withdraw if they feel like the other person is trying to get too close. They will hide their feelings and do not like to share emotions with others.
Disorganized/ fearful avoidant attachment styles carry traits from both anxious and avoidant attachments, depending on individual mood or circumstance. They desire strong relationships, yet they fear relationships at the same time. They focus on the partner as the source of desire and fear of relationships. While they want to be intimate and close to their partners, they are afraid of trusting others. To avoid getting hurt, they will try to avoid strong emotional attachments. Emotional regulation is difficult. They fear rejection and have low self-esteem but are still more dependent in relationships than one who is avoidant dismissive.
A secure attachment style will foster relationships where both parties can be depended on and relied upon. Someone with a secure relationship style will have a healthy relationship, but they do not fear being alone. They have a positive view of both themselves and others. They do not seek approval or validation from others. Emotional regulation comes easily, and they can help their partners regulate their emotions as well. People with secure attachments will communicate well and are cooperative and flexible within relationships. They have the ability to trust others. A secure attachment has formed in early childhood by receiving consistent dependable care with needs met, which enables the child to grow and become independent.
Here are some quotes from Diane Poole Heller : “Although secure attachment can sound out of reach or like a fantasy goal for many of us, it’s how we’re fundamentally designed to operate. No matter how unattainable it seems, secure attachment is always there, just waiting to be uncovered, recalled, practiced, and expressed. We might lose access to it from time to time, but we never lose our inherent capacity for secure attachment.” “Any activity can serve to foster more secure attachment with your partner, child, family member, or friend when enacted with joint attention. You could be watching a movie on the flat-screen from your couch and still practice joint attention (for example, occasionally making eye contact with each other, laughing together, or having a conversation later about the film).” “As we familiarize ourself more with secure attachment, our relationships become easier and more rewarding—we’re less reactive, more receptive, more available for connection, healthier, and much more likely to bring out the securely attached tendencies in others.” – Diane Poole Helle