From the moment we are born, we rely on our caregivers to fulfill our basic needs: shelter, food, and attention. As we become more independent with age, we balance support needs between our caregivers, self-reliance, friends, and communities such as school.
When caregivers consistently satisfy our needs and support independent growth, we learn to trust others and perceive our wants are valid. Moreover, we cultivate the ability to regulate emotions on our own and believe it is acceptable to seek help from others.
What happens when our caregivers do not support us warmly, with regularity, or at all? We are prevented from entrusting relationships as safe places. The closeness or distance we seek from friends, intimate partners, and family is altered. Our attitude towards relationships and the manner in which we connect with others is deemed in the psychology world as “attachment styles”, and originated with researchers John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in the 1960s. Research conducted since Bowlby and Ainsworth has supported the notion that attachment styles formed in childhood persist into adult relationships, though our support needs are more nuanced.
Can Attachment Styles Change?
The good news about attachment styles? They are not permanent. Experiencing a healthy - and therefore corrective - relationship with an intimate partner, friend, family member, or therapist can serve as a healing force and change attachment style over time.
The Four Attachment Styles and How They Affect Communication
Before exploring the four attachment styles, remember that these descriptions aren't comprehensive and won't capture the nuance of every person's experiences.
We may recognize ourselves in more than one attachment pattern, and the strategies we rely on can shift between relationships or circumstances.
Rather than using attachment styles as fixed labels for ourselves or others, consider them an opportunity to get curious about the ways we've learned to seek connection, protect ourselves, and communicate our needs.
Secure Attachment
Individuals with secure attachment often experienced caregivers who were emotionally available, responsive, and supportive of their growing independence.
In adult relationships, secure attachment may look like feeling comfortable expressing needs, communicating emotions openly, and trusting that conflict or distance doesn't necessarily threaten the relationship.
Securely attached individuals tend to feel comfortable leaning on others for support while maintaining a sense of independence. They recognize that their needs are worthy of attention and that relationships can make space for both connection and autonomy.
Anxious (Preoccupied) Attachment
Anxious attachment often develops in relationships where emotional support and responsiveness have been inconsistent or unpredictable.
Without confidence that our needs will be met, we may become especially sensitive to signs of rejection or disconnection. In adult relationships, this can show up as reassurance-seeking, people-pleasing, difficulty tolerating distance, or sacrificing our own needs to maintain closeness.
Communication may become driven by fears of abandonment, making it difficult to express what we need without worrying about how the other person will respond.
These strategies often reflect a deeply understandable longing for connection and reassurance.
For those who recognize themselves in these experiences, anxiety therapy can offer support in understanding the fears and protective patterns that emerge in relationships.
Avoidant (Dismissive) Attachment
Avoidant attachment can develop when caregivers are emotionally unavailable, dismissive of emotional needs, or place a strong emphasis on independence.
When seeking support repeatedly leads to disappointment or disconnection, we may learn that relying on ourselves feels safer than depending on others.
In adult relationships, avoidant attachment can show up as discomfort with vulnerability, difficulty expressing emotions, or a tendency to withdraw when conflict or intimacy feels overwhelming.
Rather than communicating a need for reassurance or support, individuals with avoidant attachment strategies may minimize their feelings, create distance, or turn inward to manage distress.
Although these behaviors can be perceived as disinterest or rejection, they may serve as protective strategies developed long before the current relationship began.
Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) Attachment
Disorganized or fearful-avoidant attachment can involve a mix of anxious and avoidant strategies, often reflecting experiences in which closeness has felt both deeply needed and potentially unsafe.
Individuals with these patterns may long for intimacy while simultaneously fearing vulnerability, rejection, or betrayal.
In relationships, this can create an internal push and pull between seeking connection and protecting ourselves through distance. Communication may become especially difficult when the desire for closeness activates fears about what might happen if we allow ourselves to depend on someone.
For many, these conflicting responses reflect earlier experiences in which relationships were a source of both comfort and distress.
How Can I Change My Attachment Style?
Understanding our attachment patterns can help us recognize why certain interactions feel so threatening, why we struggle to express our needs, or why closeness sometimes brings up the urge to pull away.
But insight alone doesn't always change the emotional responses we've spent years relying on for protection.
Sometimes, a healing relationship can help soften our fears of abandonment, make vulnerability feel less threatening, and create greater comfort with both independence and connection.
Self-reflection can also help us recognize what our core needs are, how we've learned to communicate them, and whether our current relationships offer the support and responsiveness we're longing for.
If you're interested in exploring how these patterns play out in romantic relationships, our article on how attachment styles shape relationships offers additional insight and journal prompts.
How Attachment-Focused Trauma Therapy Can Help
In attachment-focused trauma therapy, we explore how early relational experiences continue to shape the ways we connect with ourselves and others.
Together, you may:
Experience a safe, supportive therapeutic relationship where your needs and emotions are welcomed.
Reflect on how your early relationships shaped your expectations of closeness, trust, and support.
Explore the fears, frustrations, and protective strategies that arise when navigating relationships.
Develop greater awareness of your emotional needs and new ways to communicate them.
Begin to experience relationships with greater security, openness, and connection.
Approaches like AEDP therapy place particular emphasis on the healing potential of relationships, helping us process painful emotional experiences while building new experiences of safety and connection.
Remember, no one is immune to the influence of their early experiences. Our attachment strategies developed for a reason, and changing them doesn't require us to judge or criticize the ways we've learned to protect ourselves.
Explore Attachment-Focused Therapy in Denver
Our earliest relationships can leave lasting imprints, but they don't have to determine how we experience connection for the rest of our lives.
If you're looking for a Denver therapist to help you explore attachment wounds, understand your relationship patterns, and develop a more secure connection with yourself and others, we'd love to support you.
