What does Attachment have to do with my relationships as an adult?

Attachment Styles:

the way we perceive and respond to intimacy in relationships.

Attachment styles were first described in the psychological theory known as Attachment Theory.

What is Attachment Theory?

Attachment theory was formulated by the psychoanalyst John Bowlby.

Infant Attachment is a psychological term that refers to the emotional bond that emerges during the first year of life between an infant and one or a few significant adult caregivers.

The emotional bond between the infant and their primary caretaker contributes to the infant forming a feeling of security or trust in themselves.

Attachment by the infant is secure or insecure.

When an infant has a secure attachment  with their caregiver, the child seeks to be close to that person when they feel tense or anxious. When an infant has an insecure relationship with their primary caretaker, feeling tense or anxious leads to them avoiding the caretaker or experiencing conflict between approaching and avoiding their caregiver. A fourth category of insecure attachment is disorganized attachment where the child reacts strangely or by freezing or acting with confusion.

What does Attachment Theory have to do with my relationships as an adult?

Attachment is a human need.

Connection is a human need.

Independence is a human need.

Until ages three or four, a child’s social experiences form an internal working model that the child will use throughout their continuing development and in their forming of future relationships throughout their lives.  The continuum of the way they perceive attachment, between attachment and separation, relatedness and self-definition, or intimacy and autonomy is a fundamental aspect of the development of their personality. Attachment may also influence self-definition and feelings and beliefs about self-worth.

Considering our attachment style and our partner's attachment style can help us to relate to each other and form healthier relationships.

Most people have one of 3 attachment styles:

Secure Attachment

Anxious Attachment

Avoidant Attachment

Secure Attachment

People with secure attachment feel comfortable with intimacy and balance the needs for intimacy and autonomy. They find it is easy to be warm and loving toward their partner and have an accurate sense of their partner's feelings and desires. They are open to hearing their partner's needs and don't fear being supportive.

Even if only one person in a partnership has a securely attached style, that person can influence the relationship in positive ways with the behaviors that come more naturally to securely attached persons, than they do to anxious or avoidant attached persons.

Securely attached people tend to be more flexible, are not as defensive about criticism, and are open minded when it comes to change.  They are responsive to their partner's needs. Most importantly they understand and rely on effective communication.

Anxious Attachment

People with anxious attachment crave closeness. They look for signs that their partner wants to pull away and will worry about their relationships when they perceive the other person wants more space for individuality. They search for the feeling and display of intimacy.

Anxious attachment individuals have a greater capacity for intimacy than most.  Hyper-vigilance to the behaviors of those they are close to gives anxiously attached individuals a keen awareness of the feelings and behaviors of people around them, making them insightful. This can be a strong advantage in life. However, if their awareness and sensitivity leads to behaviors in which they take their partner's distance personally or expend excessive energy worrying about and protesting their partner's behaviors, there is likely to be unhealthy levels of conflict and drama in the relationship. They may tend to worry that their partner does not want to be as close to them and are very sensitive to picking up cues that their partner seeks distance from them. For example, they will notice and feel insecure when their partner does not quickly return a text.

The efforts by anxiously attached people to keep the other close are called activating strategies. These strategies include obsessing about their partner, assuming there is no other person in the world who would love them but the other, and thinking that there are so few people they could be compatible with that they will never find another partner. They have a hard time letting go of even very unhappy relationships. They may do things to get their partner's immediate attention including acting opposite of what they want by acting completely disinterested in them.

Activating strategies may continue until their partner acts in a way that causes them to feel secure in the relationship again. Anxious feelings and activating strategies in excess can lead to a life characterized by frequently alternating highs and lows.

Acknowledging their needs for intimacy with potential partners will lead anxiously attached people to healthier match ups. Being open about their need for availability, intimacy, and security in a relationship takes courage but is wise. A partner with a secure attachment style will help them to find balance.

Dating someone with an avoidant attachment style will be particularly difficult. Avoidant potential partners alert others to their style by sending mixed messages or suggesting that another person's need for intimacy is needy.

A person with anxious attachment feels most secure when their partner acts consistently and communicates well. If they can postpone reacting and avoid jumping to conclusions, they may be able to enjoy the strengths of this attachment style and minimize the negative energy expenditures.

Avoidant Attachment

People with avoidant attachment are wary of intimacy in relationships, fear too much closeness, and are not very sensitive to their partner's emotional shifts. They believe being close to another comes at the expense of their autonomy or independence and will lead to enmeshment. Avoidantly attached people value independence and autonomy over closeness and intimacy. Too much closeness leaves them feeling uncomfortable or trapped. They worry that the relationship will get in the way of their independent lives.

A person with anxious attachment wants closeness but is worried that the closeness will grow to be too intense and the relationship may swallow them up. They worry losing their independence more than worrying about closeness or rejection. Because of their wariness to intimacy they struggle with opening up to their partners.

When feeling the discomfort of closeness, avoidant attachment people will engage in deactivating strategies in order to decrease intimacy. These include: focusing on a partner's small imperfections, idealizing a former partner with whom they no longer have to have intimacy concerns about, and forming relationships with people who are unable to commit.

With mindfulness about deactivating strategies, an avoidant person can come to identify when they are trying to distance from another out of fear of intimacy.

There is a fourth form of attachment style that is far less common and is a combination of anxious and avoidant. These person's will display both anxious and avoidant behaviors.

The two distinct processes of developing intimacy and autonomy are synergistic and interdependent in normal development.  

Satisfying relationships are dependent upon a mature self-definition and strong sense of identity.  Conversely, the development of increasingly mature, reciprocal, and satisfying interpersonal relationships depends on the development of a more mature self-definition or identity. Healthy relationships foster this interdependence.

Balancing intimacy and autonomy is an ongoing process for all of us. Mindfulness to activating and deactivating behaviors can limit these behaviors allowing for more direct communication about an individual's needs.