What’s Your Attachment Style?

There is a lot of discussion nowadays around attachment styles.

When it comes to attachment, it all begins in our childhood. The style which we develop depends on how our caregivers interacted with us and whether or not they met our needs (both physical and, importantly, our emotional needs). It’s worth noting that even the most well-intentioned caregivers may not be properly attuned to a child. Meaning, you could say you had “good” parents who met many needs, but they still unintentionally may have dropped the ball on some stuff, so to speak.

Hopefully, we grew up in a home with parents who were sensitive to our needs and were well-attuned to us. They modeled good communication skills. They made us feel as if we mattered and that our needs were important. They helped us become secure.

But we might have had parents who were emotionally not available. They were maybe simply preoccupied with other things. Or, worse, they could just have been unkind and mean. And we ended up becoming insecure. Because of this experience, we determined we needed to shrink down. We determined that we were inconvenient and a burden to them. We could not dare to ask for much. Alternatively, we could even go in the opposite extreme, becoming demanding. Both become beliefs which get filed away in our brain and the beliefs impacts our adult relationships and choices.

The attachment style we have tends to be the result of a combination of both nature and nurture. And our style can shift, both over time and within different circumstances. One important and positive thing to note is that no matter our current style, we can work to become more securely attached. Growth and change are always possible. We will need a combination of self-understanding, some personal effort, and perhaps, too, some external guidance to make that change happen. No matter what our nature or childhood experiences were, these things no longer have to have as deep an influence over us. We can make new choices and show up differently in our relationships. Our attachment style can be challenging to transform, yet at the very least some small adjustments can mean that our style is no longer as disruptive to our relationships.

Awareness and insight are important first steps.

To simplify things, there are two questions for you to consider in beginning to understand what your attachment style might be:

Do you have a positive or negative view of yourself?

Do you have a positive or negative view of other people?

Given there are two questions here, there are four possible outcomes.

If you have a positive view of yourself and of others, this is a secure attachment.

If you have a negative view of yourself, but a positive view of others, that would be considered anxious attachment, meaning a fear of distance.

If you have a positive view of yourself, yet a negative view of others, you have an avoidant attachment, equating to a fear of closeness.

Finally, if you have a negative view of yourself, along with a negative view of others, then this would be fearful or disorganized attachment. This is a combination of both anxious and avoidant, and you view the world as frightening and the people in it as unreliable.

Overall, things boil down to trust – can you trust yourself and can you trust others? Depending on the answer, certain behaviors will tend to flow from that belief.