4 Types of Attachment Styles
Do You Know Which Attachment Style You Have?
In my work, I often hold space for people to understand and process how the perceptions and beliefs formed at a very young age (childhood and adolescence) might impact or even drive their adulthood. However, this theme popped up in my personal life this week, so it stayed with me longer than I would have liked to.
It can be beneficial to understand that as young people, we may develop distorted perceptions of the outside world, influencing how we perceive relationships and develop our internal world. For example, if our parents spoke loudly or yelled at one another—without fighting, just yelling from one room to another—a child could develop a fear of loudness. Everything loud or perceived as a sharp sound in adulthood could trigger the initial feeling of fear developed in childhood. How we interact with our primary caregivers in childhood significantly impacts the formation of our attachment style. That initial environment, bond, relationships, and care represent the foundations of our personality.
The Four Main Attachment Styles
1. Securely Attached Individuals:
View themselves as worthy and lovable.
Are comfortable depending on others and having others rely on them.
Do not worry about being abandoned by others.
Their relationships are characterized by longevity, trust, commitment, and interdependence, more so than those of insecurely attached people.
Are readily able to seek and provide support in their relationships.
2. Dismissing-Avoidant Individuals:
View themselves as worthy and lovable.
View others as generally untrustworthy, unresponsive, and inattentive.
Maintain that they are comfortable without close relationships.
Prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on them.
Tend to keep others at a distance and avoid intimacy in relationships.
3. Anxious-Resistant Individuals:
View themselves as unworthy and unlovable.
Perceive others to be generally trustworthy, responsive, and attentive.
Are often preoccupied with and worry about their close relationships.
Are afraid that they will be abandoned or rejected by others.
Are uncomfortable being without close relationships.
4. Fearful-Avoidant Individuals:
View themselves as unworthy and unlovable.
View others as generally untrustworthy, unresponsive, and inattentive.
Are uncomfortable being close to or intimate with others.
Want emotionally close relationships but find it difficult to trust others or depend on them.
Are afraid of being hurt if they allow others to get close to them.
Understanding Your Attachment Style
Are you aware of how you have come to develop your attachment style?
Regardless of what beliefs you developed as a child, psychotherapy can help you identify them, process them, and transform them as an adult so you can improve the quality of your life. The good thing is that we can “reparent our inner child.” However, it is essential to highlight that this process can only be achieved in a safe space held by a professional capable of providing empathy and nonjudgment.
