Why do some people shut down when conflict arises, while others cling tight and demand answers?
The answer often lives not just in our thoughts or childhood memories, but deep in the body’s survival system.
If attachment theory explains how we respond relationally to adversity, Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory gives us a framework for how we respond physiologically — and how the body’s drive for survival can override our need for social engagement.
Polyvagal Theory helps us see how our nervous system flips between states of connection, threat, and shutdown. When we map these autonomic states to classic attachment styles — avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized — we get a clearer picture of why old patterns feel so hard to change.
In this article, we’ll break down:
- The three main states of the autonomic nervous system (ventral, sympathetic, dorsal)
- How these states interact with avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized attachment
- What to look for in the body and behavior
- And why a polyvagal lens can help guide clients (and ourselves) back to safe connection
Let’s start with the basics — and see how the body remembers.
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Attachment Styles & the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Primer for Therapists
A Primer in Polyvagal Basic
Before we map states to styles, let’s ground in the basics.
Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, describes how our autonomic nervous system helps us navigate safety, danger, and life threat. Porges demonstrated how we move through three main states, depending on how safe or unsafe we feel:
- Ventral Vagal State: Safe and Social:
When our nervous system feels safe, we access what Dr. Porges calls the social engagement system. We’re able to connect, listen, and be fully present with others. Think of this as our biological “home base” as social mammals, where trust, play, and intimacy become possible.
- Sympathetic State: Fight or Flight:
When we sense danger, our system mobilizes to protect us. Heart rate speeds up, muscles tense, and we’re primed to fight or flee. This can show up as anxiety, hypervigilance, irritability, or outbursts of anger — all ways the body tries to keep us safe through action.
- Dorsal Vagal State: Shutdown or Freeze:
When a threat feels overwhelming or escape isn’t possible, the system may shut down. We feel numb, disconnected, or “checked out.” It’s the body’s last resort to guard us from unbearable overwhelm. In therapy, this can look like dissociation, indecision, or a drifting sense of avoidance.
Much like the different attachment styles, these states aren’t “good” or “bad” — they’re adaptive survival responses. But when they get stuck on repeat, they shape how we relate to others, and how safe connection feels in our bodies.
Mapping States to Styles
We are all designed to flow between these states in an easy, flexible way. We need sympathetic energy to get out of bed, solve problems, and move through our days. We need the dorsal pathway to allow the body to slow down, digest, rest, and repair. And ideally, we land in ventral vagal when it’s time to connect with our loved ones, play with our children or pets, and relate to others with openness and curiosity.
However, because our sense of safety and our physiological state are so tightly linked, certain patterns can take hold, especially when we look through the lens of attachment. Early relational experiences teach our nervous system what to expect from connection. Over time, these expectations get “wired” into the body.
When we map the three core autonomic states to the familiar attachment styles, we can see how these patterns show up — not just in thoughts and feelings, but in muscle tone, energy levels, and the subtle ways the body signals connection or withdrawal.
It’s important to note: nervous system states aren’t direct correlations with any one attachment style. Rather, Polyvagal Theory gives us a framework to notice how each style tends to “live” in certain physiological states, and how the nervous system can find familiar ground — even when that ground doesn’t feel good.
These aren’t fixed rules, just patterns we often see in the therapy room, in our clients, and in ourselves.
Avoidant Attachment and the Dorsal Vagal State
People with avoidant attachment strategies often feel safest when they dial down connection. The body’s dorsal vagal pathway — which supports shutdown — can become a familiar refuge when closeness feels risky or overwhelming.
A disconnection from their own needs was once a way to survive. To keep that survival strategy in place, the attachment system itself had to be muted — feelings and needs pushed out of awareness. This can often show up in therapy as a client who appears dismissive or detached from their past, claiming “My childhood wasn’t that bad.”
In the present, dorsal dominance can look like inhibited physical gestures or a subtle loss of reaching for connection, even a sense of numbness or dissociation from bodily sensations. These clients aren’t just choosing distance; their nervous system has learned that distance is safety.
This doesn’t mean avoidant clients are always shut down, but we may see signs like flat affect, emotional numbness, or a tendency to disengage when relationships get stressful. The shutdown state protects them from the perceived threat of being too close, too vulnerable, or too dependent on others.
Ambivalent Attachment and the Sympathetic State
People with ambivalent (anxious) attachment strategies often carry more sympathetic energy into their relationships. This mobilized state keeps the body ready to protest, pursue, and signal for closeness at all costs.
In this style, the “signal cry” for attachment — that deep, wired-in call for care — stays switched on. The nervous system can’t settle because it’s bracing for loss or rejection, even when things are stable.
This chronic overactivation shows up as restlessness, muscle tension, shallow breath, and an urgency to do something — call, text, check, cling. It’s a search for external regulation to calm an inner alarm. For some, this long-term sympathetic strain can even link to chronic health issues, as the body rarely gets the chance to fully drop into rest.
The ambivalent nervous system isn’t dramatic or needy, it’s simply working overtime to keep connection close enough to feel safe.
Disorganized Attachment and the Push-Pull of Blended States
Disorganized attachment often reflects a deep conflict in the nervous system: when the attachment system and the survival instinct pull in opposite directions. The same caregiver who offered connection may also have been a source of fear. This splits the body’s impulses as we become stuck between moving closer, or protecting ourselves by pulling away.
This tug-of-war shows up in blended states: sympathetic overdrive mixed with dorsal shutdown. The result is often a freeze response as the body becomes immobilized, stuck between wanting closeness and needing to flee.
Dissociation is common here and can look deceptively calm on the outside. But it’s really the nervous system’s way of going numb in the face of overwhelm. Over time, this constant orientation to threat colors how we see the world, ourselves, and others — always scanning for danger, even in safe moments.
This can fuel controlling behaviors, which are often an attempt to manage unpredictable relationships or a chaotic inner world by trying to create certainty on the outside.
Blended states remind us how complex survival can be, and how much courage it takes to bring the body back to safe connection, one small moment at a time.
Why It Matters
Mapping autonomic states to attachment styles reminds us that our struggles with closeness and distance aren’t just “in our heads.” They live in our bodies — in muscle tone, breath, gestures, and the subtle signals we send and receive.
When we understand these patterns as survival responses, we can meet them with more compassion and more skill. We can stop trying to talk ourselves or our clients out of shutdown or panic — and instead guide the nervous system, bit by bit, back to safe connection.
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