How to Heal Your Attachment Style – An Introduction
In psychology, attachment refers to the emotional bonds we form with the important people in our lives. It shapes your relationships. In this blog post, we will look at how to heal your attachment style by identifying which attachment type fits your current behavior.
Hint hint: just in case you don’t scroll all the way to the end, there’s some good news! Your attachment style might not be as rigid as you think.
What is Your Attachment Style?
Before you can address how to heal your attachment style, you need to know what attachment means. It’s not just whether you like a person. Instead, it is more about how and how much we trust each other.
Overtime through personalized therapy, you may notice patterns across those relationships such as how safe you feel around others or how you respond to conflict/ closeness. These trends correlate to one of the 4 different attachment styles.
The 4 Attachment Styles
Attachment begins to form in early childhood through our relationships with our primary caretakers- usually our parents. Were they emotionally available, responsive to our needs and consistent? If so, a secure attachment often develops. When our caretakers are inconsistent, unavailable or unpredictable, we may develop insecure attachment patterns.
There are four primary attachment styles, and each shows up differently in adult relationships. Once you know your style well, you are on the best track to learn how to heal your attachment style.
Secure Attachment
People with secure attachment are generally comfortable with both closeness and space. If this is your attachment style you generally trust others, communicate openly, and navigate conflict without becoming overwhelmed. Make no mistake, a secure attachment style is a gift!
With secure attachment, you may not even have to worry about how to heal your attachment style and focus your therapy sessions on other priorities.
What this looks like in a relationship
If you have a secure attachment and your partner seems distant, you are more curious than offended. You might calmly say, “is everything okay?” instead of jumping to the concern that they are mad at you. Giving space when asked doesn’t feel threatening and you can express your own needs directly as they pop up.
Avoidant Attachment
People with avoidant attachment often value self-reliance and may feel uncomfortable with being vulnerable or dependent. You may feel that setting boundaries comes very naturally, but struggle to build lasting emotional connections with others. In fact, you want closeness but often fear it at the same time. .
Sometimes, self-reliance can be admirable. But, if this is your attachment style, you likely already know that building up your walls is lonely.
What this looks like in a relationship
During conflict you may “shut down.” It is common for avoidantly attached people to go off topic or withdraw when things get deep. If your partner expresses their emotional needs, you may feel pressured and pull away rather than engage. You might often label closeness as threatening. To protect yourself from the threat, you create distance no matter how much you love someone.
Anxious Attachment
Pop culture often pits anxiously attached and avoidantly attached people against each other as “opposites.” In reality, they both want the same thing in different ways: safety. They just fear different threats. Knowing your main fears is a great thing to look at when learning how to heal your attachment style, whatever that might be.
If you have an anxious attachment style, you also really want closeness and may be uncomfortable with distance or space in a relationship. Because of this your main fears could be rejection or abandonment. This leads you to seek reassurance. You may even become highly sensitive to a person’s change in tone, attention, or communication style.
What this looks like in a relationship
Anxiously attached people often ask the same question over and over, “Are you mad at me?” If your partner takes longer than normal to respond to a text, your brain starts to spin with all the things you may have done wrong. To get relief from this spiral, you start to feel the urge to check-in with your partner several times in a row (even if there is no proof that the relationship is threatened).
Disorganized Attachment
Many guides on attachment styles will stop with the list above. But there is still one more attachment style: disorganized attachment. If your attachment style is disorganized, you share the fears of both anxious and avoidant people. This creates a push and pull between conflicting desires.
One the one hand, you want closeness (like anxious attachment). On the other hand, you also fear it (like avoidant attachment). Because of this, relationships can feel confusing and intense. People with this style struggle to trust others fully, even when they deeply desire closeness. This often happens when you experience varied levels of nurturing as a child. Eventually you learn that connection can feel both comforting and unsafe.
What this looks like in a relationship
If you have a disorganized attachment style, you may surprise yourself and confuse those you love. One minute you pursue depth and closeness. Then, when that connection starts to feel too threatening, you quickly retreat to safety. It is the “hot and cold” mindset. You may feel you have no control over these mood swings. The emotional seesaw of a disorganized attachment style can be challenging for everyone.
The Good News on How to Heal Your Attachment Style
The good news is that attachment styles are not written in stone. Understanding attachment is not about labeling yourself with a lifelong identity. It’s about recognizing and adjusting patterns. People can develop more secure patterns of connection with increased self-awareness, healthy relationships, and therapy.
At Known Well Counseling, helping people develop a more secure attachment style is what we do best. If you’d like to grow in this area, call us for a free consultation. It’s never too late to change!
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