Understanding Attachment Styles & Their Impact
Have you ever wondered where your relationship style comes from? No two relationships are the same. How you find, start, engage, and act in relationships is unique to you, depending on your style and preferences.
You might choose partners who are similar to the people you observed while you were growing up, such as your parents, family friends, siblings, or neighbors.
While you may have picked up some traits, actions, and behaviors, the attachment style you formed with your primary caregiver as a child greatly contributes to and influences your adult relationships.
Let’s learn more about attachment styles and how they affect your relationships.
What is an Attachment Style?
An attachment style is the pattern of behavior in close relationships. It is significantly influenced by a person’s primary caregivers and how they were treated and cared for growing up. An attachment style can impact multiple areas of a person’s life, including their overall mental health and wellness, satisfaction in relationships, and social well-being.
What are the Different Attachment Styles?
There are four types of attachment styles:
Secure attachment
Avoidant-Dismissive attachment
Disorganized attachment
Anxious attachment
Secure Attachment
A secure attachment style is formed when a primary caregiver makes their child feel safe and secure. This means that the primary caregiver can consistently respond to the emotional and physical needs of the child.
Forming a secure attachment style as a child makes a person more likely to be self-confident, hopeful about their outlook on life, and trusting in themselves and others. People with secure attachment styles are also more likely to better manage conflict when it occurs, better manage the complexities and ups and downs of relationships, and let themselves be more intimate.
Insecure Attachment Styles
There are three different types of insecure attachment styles: avoidant-dismissive attachment, disorganized attachment, and anxious attachment. An insecure attachment style is formed when a primary caregiver provides inconsistent, confusing, or fearful support and communication. These types of caregivers were unlikely to meet a child’s wants and needs and probably had a more difficult time understanding and expressing their own wants and needs.
An insecure attachment style means that a person has a harder time building and maintaining relationships or being intimate. They also appear to be too anxious, fearful, or even clingy in relationships. Let’s learn more about the three different types of insecure attachment.
Avoidant-Dismissive Attachment
An avoidant-dismissive attachment style is formed when a primary caregiver rejects a child or is unavailable for them. This type of interaction caused a child to distance themselves from their primary caregiver and learn to self-soothe.
People with avoidant attachment styles avoid intimacy and getting close to others since they never experienced it. This can cause them to become extremely independent, even to the point of pushing others away.
Disorganized Attachment
A disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment style is formed when a child experiences a traumatic event like childhood abuse, neglect, or trauma.
Individuals with this attachment style don’t feel they deserve to be close to or loved by someone else. Even when craving this type of connection, they feel unworthy and undeserving and are afraid of getting hurt again.
Anxious Attachment
An anxious style is formed when a primary caregiver is inconsistent with their parenting style. They may have sometimes responded to a child’s needs, but other times, they were distracted or even completely unavailable. This lack of schedule and routine could cause feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.
Individuals who adopt this attachment style are afraid they will come off as too strong, clingy, or needy. They constantly wonder if their partner truly loves them.
Next Steps
Whether you have a secure or insecure attachment style, relationship problems will arise at some point. However, you can improve your attachment style to create a healthier and more secure one. You can also make certain lifestyle changes on your own. Therapy can assist you in improving your communication skills, building your emotional intelligence, developing healthier connections, and resolving any past traumas. Reach out to JoyFeel Therapy today to learn more.