Our attachment style shapes how we seek out and perceive love, support, and comfort from others. It influences our behaviors, expectations, and reactions within relationships. Our trust in others, fear of abandonment, need for distance, or inconsistent interactions stem from attachment patterns formed early in life.
Attachment theory, developed by therapist John Bowlby, provides the framework for understanding how the attachment system develops and presents in our relationships.
Bowlby proposed that early bonds, especially between a child and their primary caregiver, play a crucial role in a child’s development and continue to influence their social relationships throughout life.
These early learned patterns carry into our adult relationships as we navigate more complex needs.
What are the four attachment styles and how are they expressed by adults within a relationship? How does each style develop? And how do they shape our experiences and the way we respond to adversity and conflict?
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An Overview of Attachment Styles
There are four main attachment styles: secure, avoidant, ambivalent/anxious, and disorganized.
Learning about our attachment style allows us to identify the underlying behaviors and patterns associated with it. By understanding these patterns, we can address the root causes of our challenges, strengthen secure attachment skills, build resilience and improve our relationships.
It’s important to remember that attachment styles are not fixed. Most people exhibit a combination of styles depending on factors like environment, social support, stress or trauma experiences,, and the people we interact with.
For example, you might have a secure attachment style with close friends, but an ambivalent style with a new romantic partner.
When you take our attachment quiz, your results will likely show a mix of secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized styles—reflecting the complexity of human relationships and experiences.
Secure attachment is our original blueprint––we are biologically programmed for this to be our natural state. When securely attached, we can best connect and relate to others (and ourselves) best.
Remember, whatever attachment style we have today is an adaptation that initially developed to ensure our survival and keep us safe.
Insecure attachment patterns formed as a way to help us survive dangerous or neglectful situations, which means they are not fixed or set in stone.
It’s also important to recognize that how we experienced relationships as children differs from how we interact in relationships as adults. This means that each attachment has a corresponding “adult presentation,” which we outline below to help you better understand the dynamics.
Secure Attachment (Healthy Autonomy)
Secure attachment stems from attunement––the ability to recognize and respond to need effectively and consistently. It is how we “tune into” and resonate with someone’s thoughts and feelings.
People with secure attachment generally experienced consistent care, love, and support from responsive caregivers.
They generally trust others, are comfortable expressing their needs, and handle conflict and setbacks with resilience. This “healthy autonomy” allows them to maintain independence while also forming close, trusting relationships.
How secure attachment develops:
- Parents and caregivers are tuned in to the child’s needs and respond when the child wants warmth, connection, and physical contact.
- Children are confident that the parent will respond to their cries, so they feel safe and loved in their presence.
- Parents let the child explore while making themselves available as a “home base” when the child needs to reconnect for security.
How adults with secure attachment respond to stress and trauma:
- They generally exhibit greater resilience, meaning they’re better able to deal with stress and conflict in healthy ways.
- They are able to maintain safety for themselves and others.
- They are adept at self- and co-regulation, so they can rely on these skills when faced with stress or adversity.
Avoidant Attachment (Dismissive)
Avoidant attachment emerges when caregivers remain emotionally unavailable, insensitive, rejecting, or neglectful to a child’s need for connection. The attachment system copes by disconnecting physically and emotionally.
Without intimate nurturing, the brain’s neurobiology never receives the signals and stimulation it needs to build social responses and develop proper bonding. As a result, the child learns to withdraw and isolate, feeling they’re “on their own” and must fend for themselves.
While people with avoidant attachment desire love and intimacy, they struggle to ask for help or express their needs in relationships.
They often appear “dismissive,” undervaluing close relationships, seeming self-reliant and emotionally distant as a defense mechanism.
Trust poses the greatest challenge for those with attachment injuries. Healing occurs through consistent messages affirming the importance of their needs. A steady, reliable presence supports safety and helps build trust slowly in those with the avoidant attachment adaptation.
How avoidant attachment develops:
- Caregivers were often…
- Tuned out, absent, neglectful, or rejecting.
- Struggling with their own attachment injuries, work demands, illness, or familial/ cultural challenges.
- The child learns to self-regulate and meet their own needs after their cues for connection were repeatedly ignored or unmet.
Adults with avoidant attachment adaptation respond to stress and trauma by:
- Defaulting to the “flight” or “freeze” reactions (of the threat response).
- Fleeing (physically or emotionally), checking out, or shutting down.
- Avoiding expressions of needs, feelings, or requests for help and connection from others.
- Emphasizing self-sufficiency and avoiding situations of dependence.
- Dissociating (mentally disconnect from the present) or compartmentalizing (separate traumatic experiences from conscious awareness) in an attempt to cope with overwhelming emotions.
Ambivalent/Anxious Attachment (Preoccupied)
Ambivalent attachment develops from inconsistent, “on again, off again” caregiving during early childhood. This inconsistency turns connection into a gamble—causing the child to become hypervigilant, always scanning for cues about how their behavior might influence the caregiver’s attention or response.
People with ambivalent attachment often ignore their own needs and may overwhelm others with unrealistic demands or expectations. While they have a strong desire for connection, they simultaneously fear the loss of that connection.
This can lead to feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and even a sense of being unlovable or undeserving of love. Adults with anxious attachment may become “preoccupied”—overly focused on their relationships, constantly seeking reassurance and approval from others.
Healing for those with ambivalent attachment involves recognizing and addressing their own needs, practicing self-regulation, and learning to transform complaints into clear expressions of their wants and needs.
How ambivalent attachment develops:
- Caregivers tended to…
- Respond inconsistently, displaying on-again and off-again patterns of connection and responsiveness.
- Ignore the child until their signal cry becomes loud or extreme, or the child acts out or becomes ill.
- Caregivers may struggle with their own attachment wounds, mental health issues, or other family/cultural dynamics.
- In some situations, the child was expected to fulfill the needs of adults, resulting in a “role reversal” and “parentification.”
Adults with ambivalent attachment respond to trauma by:
- Defaulting to a “fight” response, which means they take action against someone. Alternatively they might, “fawn,” acting to please others to avoid conflict. In both cases, the behavior focuses on the “other.”
- Mobilizing their body and nervous system into action, feeling a need to get loud or extreme, to avoid being ignored.
- Feeling dependent on others to meet their needs and keep them safe.
- Using reactive strategies to elicit a response from others.
Disorganized Attachment (Fearful-Avoidant)
Disorganized attachment, the most complex adaptation, forms when the attachment system becomes entangled with the threat response (our fight/flight/freeze survival instinct).
This occurs when the primary caregiver—the child’s source of safety—is also a source of fear or threat, often in chaotic or abusive situations.
The disorganized attachment style can manifest in unpredictable behavior patterns, marked by sudden shifts, resembling a mix of avoidant and ambivalent. Survival defenses remain constantly “on,” ready to respond to threats.
As adults, these people desire close relationships but simultaneously “fear” and “avoid” rejection and emotional intimacy due to early traumatic experiences.
People with disorganized attachment adaptation often find navigating relationships and intimacy dangerous, but progress is possible. Understanding this adaptation and its unique challenges is a great first step.
Often, progress requires help from a professional therapist experienced in trauma and relational wounding.
How disorganized attachment develops…
- Caregivers become a source of fear or threat.
- Children experience or witness physical, verbal, or sexual abuse, or other childhood traumas.
- Caregivers have unresolved trauma themselves, leading to unpredictable and alarming behaviors.
- Since the caregivers’ behaviors were unpredictable and alarming, the child becomes uncertain about how to act or respond––making their attempts to connect or seek comfort seem erratic.
Adults with disorganized attachment respond to trauma by:
- Experiencing intense and perplexing reactions to stress, quickly shifting into states of fear or overwhelm where they either withdraw or respond chaotically.
- Alternating between ambivalent and avoidant behavioral patterns, where they feel “caught in a bind” between needing others for emotional regulation, yet finding it hard to trust them.
- Dissociating or “checking out” from uncomfortable or potentially painful situations when they see no other way out.
- Avoiding close relationships with anyone because it feels unsafe to their bodies and nervous systems.
How Understanding Your Attachment Style Can Help You
Our goal is to return to our original secure attachment blueprint and to build our secure attachment skills.
Fortunately, we are all wired for secure attachment. We are biologically predisposed to attach to our caregivers as children and our loved ones and friends as adults.
Identifying and understanding your attachment style allows you to start adopting behaviors that build stronger and healthier relationships with those you care about.
Whether you’re exploring attachment styles for yourself or your clients, attachment theory can help address a range of personal and relationship challenges.
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