The Attachment Styles
Attachment styles are key pieces in navigating relationships. Knowing and understanding your main attachment style can help you to better understand yourself and help you to build healthier, deeper, and longer-lasting connections.
What is an attachment style?
As humans, we were designed for relationship with one another. Cultivating healthy connections may come easier to some than others and that can be a result of an insecure attachment style.
Attachment styles point directly to how we communicate, behave, and respond in relationships. Though they develop in early childhood through our relationship with our parents, they can last throughout adulthood.
The relationship we had with our parents or primary caregivers contributes to the way we view and operate within relationships.
What are the 4 attachment styles?
There are 4 primary attachment styles.
Secure Attachment
Someone with a secure attachment style is able to openly express their emotions, set healthy boundaries, and have vulnerable communication while maintaining connection and intimacy. Someone with this attachment style is able to thrive on their own and they don’t rely on others for their identity.
This attachment style is a result of feeling safe, known, valued, reassured, and supported as a child. Parents who set healthy boundaries and prioritized open communication and emotional expression are key pieces to this attachment style.
2. Anxious Attachment
An anxious attachment style results in a person who feels nervous and fearful in their relationships. This person will often need and seek acceptance, reassurance, and validation from others. People with this attachment can become more paranoid than most and make decisions based on their fear of rejection or abandonment.
An anxious attachment develops through an inconsistent parent/child relationship. While the parents may be attentive and available sometimes, they’re dismissive and distant the next. This results in a child being confused, not knowing which version of their parent they might get or how to respond.
3. Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant attachment styles can come off as distant or cold. This is a result of a fear of commitment. People with this attachment can feel the need to prove their independence. They tend to keep themselves busy and may even have several friends, but they often don’t reach any depth or vulnerability in their relationships.
If a child’s emotional needs are not met and a parent isn’t emotionally available, this can result in an avoidant attachment. This leads to trust issues as an adult and teaches that emotional and relational connection can be deemed unsafe or unstable, therefore should be avoided.
4. Disorganized Attachment
A disorganized attachment style is a combination of anxious and avoidant styles. This person faces the internal struggle of desire and fear of intimacy. Though they want a deep connection, they may fear it. The result of this can look like obsessing in a relationship while simultaneously pushing the person away.
This attachment style is often the result of childhood trauma with perceived fear at the center of its development. Children innately desire safety and associate it with their parents or caregivers. When a parent’s behavior is inconsistent, it results in a child fearing for their safety. A child not knowing what to expect from a parent can result in a disorganized attachment.
Healing from an Insecure Attachment
The majority of people face an insecure attachment style. There may be certain behavioral patterns that make relationships difficult or even unsuccessful.
The wonderfully good news is that healing is possible and available for everyone! We were designed with connection in mind. It’s in our DNA to have healthy, deep, long-lasting relationships.
When Jesus died on the cross, He died to restore our connection with the Father. Through our connection with the Father, we’re able to better connect with others. If you relate to an insecure attachment style, we’re here to help. Sozo is a tool used to navigate forgiveness, restore connections, and heal past trauma and wounds. Breakthrough is yours. Get started today.