How Attachment Styles Are Created and How They Impact Our Relationships As Adults
We all have a specific way of relating to others in relationships. It's called our attachment style. Attachment theory is the framework that explains why we have these different styles and how they impact our relationships as adults. Because the majority of our early relationships are with primary caregivers, we learn how to attach in our first few years. The way we attach shapes the way we interact with others throughout our lives. There are four basic attachment styles: secure, anxious, dismissive/avoidant, and fearful/avoidant also known as disorganized.
Secure attachment is created when there is a deeply secure attachment happening between a child and a caregiver. That means that the caregiver is present for the child and responsive a good amount of the time. It's not about perfection, it's about having a parent or a caregiver that's present and who's trying to figure out what the baby needs and adapting in an appropriate way to that. People with a secure attachment style tend to be more open and honest when discussing their feelings and experiences. They are able to form deep and meaningful relationships with other people because they can trust them. They also don’t feel the need to be overly involved in their relationships, which makes it easier to maintain good boundaries and keep independence intact.
Anxious attachment styles are often developed when children don't have a consistent caregiver because their parents have to work or take care of other siblings at home or maybe their parents are going through some sort of crisis or mental health struggles themselves. Whatever it may be, if children don't have a consistent caregiver, then they might develop an anxious attachment style as adults because it's so hard for them to trust someone else or believe that someone else will be consistently present in their lives. A fear of abandonment can start to develop and it makes so much sense when you understand that earlier experience.
If you have an anxious attachment style, you're probably someone who craves closeness and intimacy in your relationships. You may be so insecure about the relationship that you don't allow your partner to get as close as you would like them to. Individuals with an anxious attachment style crave closeness but are often afraid to get too close because they are worried that their partner will abandon them. They also have difficulties in trusting others and may feel jealous or possessive in relationships.
Dismissive/avoidant attachment is a style of relating that takes form when a caregiver doesn't meet their child's emotional needs enough of the time or very rarely. This can lead to the child learning to self-soothe themselves instead of having an empathetic experience with their caregiver, where they learn to soothe themselves through mirrored co-regulation.
The result is an adult who is usually very self-sufficient, and very responsible—they need to be in control of their lives and don't like feeling too dependent on others or having their needs taken care of by someone else—even if that person is their partner!
In adulthood, they can really struggle in relationships because having someone else want to be in their presence and want that deep attachment can feel threatening. They grow up into people that are very self-sufficient, and very responsible. This means leaning into relationships can be a lot more challenging. They are often uncomfortable with closeness and usually prioritize independence over intimacy in relationships (and often in other areas of life as well).
If you are dismissive/avoidant you may find it challenging to be close with others and tend to avoid emotional closeness, but this doesn’t mean that you don’t care about your partner or value the relationship. In fact, it’s possible that you do care deeply about them and are just uncomfortable with being intimate and dependent on them.
Fearful/avoidant, also called disorganized attachment is usually the result of an unstable and inconsistent caregiver-child relationship in which there was abuse or neglect. The child learns to distrust their caregivers and becomes fearful of them, but also feels a need for them as well. This can lead to disorientation, confusion, and anxiety about what to expect from their caregivers and whether they will meet their needs at all. Children with a disorganized attachment style are not able to truly adapt to the caregivers’ behavior, as they never know what comes next. Such children lack coherence in their own behavior towards the caregivers: they might seek closeness, but at the same time reject their caregivers’ proximity and distance themselves due to fear. These children become very wary of others and often avoid intimacy as they grow up.
Adults with a disorganized attachment style lack a coherent approach towards relationships. On the one hand, they want to belong. They want to love and be loved. While on the other hand, they are afraid to let anyone in. They have a strong fear that the people who are closest to them will hurt them. Adults with a disorganized attachment style fear intimacy and avoid proximity, similar to individuals with an avoidant attachment style. The main difference for disorganized adults is that they want relationships. They do not reject emotional intimacy; they are simply afraid of it. Adults with a disorganized attachment style continue to view the attachment figure (once, their caregiver, and now, their partner) as unpredictable. They have trouble believing that their partner will love and support them as they are.
We spoke with Relationship Coach Silvy Khoucasian about how attachment styles are created and how they impact our relationships as adults.
“What happens with people that tend to be more secure is because they have that framework of knowing what it feels like to be in relationships that are really responsive, they have more trust, they also feel more confident to teach people how to show up for them. So if they started to sense that someone was not going to show up for them, they’re more likely to leave. And so it's also helpful to understand attachment theory because it can show us what we're vulnerable to. Like, if we have anxiety, we can probably know that we're going to tend to be drawn to people that help to recreate that pattern. That doesn't mean you can't change that relationship dynamic, but it just means it’s important to pay attention to if the relationship does that have potential to grow and be healthy or is it going to just continue the pattern of anxiety and loop us over and over again, in a way that's just extremely painful?”
When do we develop our attachment style?
“Most of the research points to it being a pretty short two to three year window. So it's the first few years of course, like, you know, other things are impacting the child, high school experiences, all kinds of things are impacting but that attachment piece. The ability to bond and attach to a romantic partner, especially, but also to friends. That's according to the attachment theory framework. That is what becomes mirrored through what the attachment was like in childhood.”
Seeing how attachment style does form in the first few years, how can we learn to change our style, or work with it as adults to better our relationships?
“That's the biggest question people want to know is how do I fix it? How do I change it? And the beautiful news is you don't have to become this different person, you get to still be you. You know, I have anxious and avoidant tendencies, and they're still there, I still have them and you know what I help people with, and what I remind them of is that it's about creating new agreements in your relationships that are going to protect your relationships. So if I know that when I get anxious, I'm gonna send my partner a bunch of text messages, I'm probably going to want to work on some self-soothing. Let me create some tools in my own tool belt so that I can take care of myself, maybe I call a friend, or maybe I've worked on this and I know enough, I have enough evidence that my partner has shown up for me, my partner communicates that they love me, everything's okay. So, with anxious clients, we do a lot of work around that self-soothing, but also coming up with agreements in your relationship, like your partner, or your partners or a friend, knowing what your sensitivities are and being willing to work with you.”
How would you recommend talking openly about attachment issues you notice in others?
“I actually get this question quite a bit, I often tell people, you know, there's really no way of getting this wrong. As long as you're bringing this up in a way that's sensitive, and not blaming or shaming you can literally get away with saying anything. And I think if I were to give just a practical example of what that could look like, it would be something like, “I'm learning about this new map. It's called attachment theory, attachment styles. It's so fascinating. What I saw myself through discovering this map was X, Y, and Z. I noticed that this is how I show up and this is what I would love to actually work on and be better at in our relationship. Would you be okay with exploring this or talking about this, or reading this or doing this course with me?” Inviting them more from a place of this is how it shows up for me, rather than this is what I think is wrong with you and seeing if there's an open space to talk about it.”
Listen to our full conversation with Silvy Khoucasian on Let’s Talk Love.
