Understanding Attachment Styles: How They Develop and Impact Your Relationships

Have you ever wondered why you need reassurance when someone you love seems distant, while another person seems to pull away whenever a relationship starts to feel too close?

Maybe you find yourself worrying about whether someone really cares about you. Maybe you have a hard time asking for what you need. Or perhaps you feel most comfortable when you are independent and become uneasy when someone wants more emotional closeness.

These patterns can sometimes be understood through the lens of attachment.

Attachment refers to the ways people experience and navigate closeness, trust, support, dependence, and emotional connection in relationships. Our early relationships can influence these patterns, but attachment is not a simple blueprint that is permanently established in childhood. Experiences throughout life, including friendships, romantic relationships, stressful events, and supportive relationships, can all influence how attachment is experienced and expressed (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019; Fraley et al., 2021).

Understanding attachment can therefore be less about putting yourself into a category and more about becoming curious about what happens inside you when relationships feel especially important.

What Are Attachment Styles?

Attachment research commonly describes differences in how people experience closeness and security in relationships. Two dimensions that are particularly useful are attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance.

Attachment anxiety involves greater concern about rejection, abandonment, or whether an important person is emotionally available. Someone who experiences high attachment anxiety may become especially sensitive to changes in a partner's behaviour or may seek reassurance when a relationship feels uncertain.

Attachment avoidance involves greater discomfort with dependence, vulnerability, or emotional closeness. Someone who experiences higher attachment avoidance may place a strong value on independence and may find it difficult to rely on others or express vulnerable emotions.

People can experience both anxiety and avoidance to varying degrees. This means attachment is better understood as a continuum than as four neat boxes that everyone fits into.

You may also encounter the terms secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful-avoidant or disorganized attachment in popular psychology. These descriptions can be useful shorthand, but they should not be treated as diagnoses or as permanent personality types. Research increasingly supports looking at attachment dimensions and the specific relationship context rather than assuming that everyone has one fixed style that explains all of their relationships (Fraley et al., 2021).

Where Do Attachment Patterns Come From?

Early relationships matter because children depend on caregivers for safety, comfort, and help regulating distress. Experiences of reliable support can contribute to expectations that other people can be trusted and that relationships can provide comfort during difficult moments.

At the same time, childhood is only part of the story.

People's attachment patterns can change as they move through different relationships and life experiences. A supportive romantic relationship, close friendship, effective therapy, or other meaningful relationship can provide experiences that challenge old expectations and create opportunities to relate differently (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019).

This is important because it means your past may help explain some of your relationship patterns without having to determine your future.

What Does Secure Attachment Look Like?

Secure attachment is generally associated with greater comfort with intimacy and independence. Someone with relatively secure attachment may be able to depend on other people while also maintaining a sense of autonomy.

They may find it easier to communicate their needs, tolerate periods of distance, repair disagreements, and accept support when they need it.

Secure attachment does not mean that someone never becomes jealous, angry, anxious, or afraid of losing someone. Securely attached people experience difficult emotions too. The difference may be in how they respond to those emotions and how easily they can return to a sense of connection and safety.

What Does Anxious Attachment Look Like?

When attachment anxiety is high, uncertainty in a relationship can feel particularly uncomfortable.

A delayed text message, a change in someone's tone of voice, or a partner wanting some time alone may trigger thoughts such as, Are they upset with me? Do they still love me? Are they going to leave?

The resulting distress can sometimes lead to reassurance seeking, difficulty giving someone space, jealousy, overthinking, or becoming highly focused on the relationship.

These responses are not evidence that someone is “too needy.” They may reflect a nervous system and relationship expectations that have become especially sensitive to signs of rejection or disconnection.

Learning to recognize these patterns can create an opportunity to pause before reacting and consider what is actually happening in the present moment.

What Does Avoidant Attachment Look Like?

People who experience higher attachment avoidance may feel most comfortable when they are self-reliant. Depending on others can feel uncomfortable, and emotional conversations may sometimes feel overwhelming or unnecessary.

When a relationship becomes more intimate, an avoidantly attached person may instinctively create distance. They might become quieter, focus heavily on work or other activities, avoid difficult conversations, or tell themselves that they do not really need anyone.

Again, this does not mean that someone does not care.

Sometimes independence has become an important way of feeling safe. Learning to recognize when independence is healthy and when it has become a way of avoiding vulnerability can be an important part of personal growth.

What About Disorganized or Fearful-Avoidant Attachment?

You may also have heard the term disorganized attachment or fearful-avoidant attachment.

These terms are used in somewhat different ways across attachment research and popular psychology, so they should be used carefully. In general, they describe patterns in which a person may experience both a strong desire for connection and significant fear or discomfort around closeness.

This can create a confusing push-and-pull experience. Someone may desperately want reassurance and connection at one moment and then feel the urge to withdraw when closeness actually occurs.

These patterns can be particularly difficult when past relationships involved frightening, unpredictable, or unsafe experiences. However, it is important not to assume that everyone who has experienced trauma will develop a particular attachment pattern, or that every person with this pattern has experienced childhood trauma.

Attachment and Romantic Relationships

Attachment becomes especially noticeable when relationships matter to us.

When we feel secure, we may find it easier to communicate, trust, tolerate disagreements, and ask for support. When we feel threatened or disconnected, however, old patterns can become much more noticeable.

One partner may pursue reassurance while the other withdraws. The more one person seeks closeness, the more overwhelmed the other becomes. The more the other person withdraws, the more urgently the first person seeks reassurance.

This kind of cycle can leave both people feeling misunderstood.

Research consistently finds associations between insecure attachment and relationship difficulties, but attachment is only one factor among many. Communication, personality, relationship circumstances, mental health, stress, and the behaviour of both partners also matter (Hadden et al., 2018; Velotti et al., 2022).

Understanding attachment should therefore never become a way of assigning blame.

Instead, it can help couples recognize the cycle they are caught in and begin asking a different question: What happens between us when one of us feels unsafe or disconnected?

Attachment and Friendships

Attachment does not only show up in romantic relationships.

It can influence friendships, family relationships, and other close connections as well. Someone who fears rejection may worry about whether a friend is upset with them. Someone who is uncomfortable with emotional dependence may struggle when a friendship becomes more intimate.

At the same time, people can experience different levels of security in different relationships. You may feel very secure with a close friend while becoming much more anxious in a romantic relationship.

That is another reason why attachment is better understood as a pattern of relating rather than a permanent label.

Can Attachment Patterns Change?

Yes.

Attachment patterns can be relatively stable, but stability does not mean permanence. Research examining attachment over time has found meaningful continuity as well as change, particularly across significant life experiences and relationships (Fraley et al., 2021).

You may also develop greater security without ever feeling completely secure all the time.

Change might look like noticing the urge to send several reassurance-seeking messages and deciding to pause. It might mean telling your partner that you need reassurance rather than expecting them to guess. It might mean staying present during an emotionally difficult conversation instead of automatically shutting down.

Small changes in how you respond can gradually create different relationship experiences.

Moving Toward Greater Security

You do not need to diagnose yourself before you can work on your relationships.

Instead, start by noticing what happens when you feel disconnected from someone important.

What do you tend to assume? What emotions appear first? Do you pursue, withdraw, become angry, shut down, overthink, or try to solve the problem immediately?

Then consider what you actually need underneath the reaction.

Someone experiencing attachment anxiety may need reassurance and a greater sense of security. Someone experiencing attachment avoidance may need permission to move toward vulnerability gradually rather than feeling pressured into it. Someone experiencing both may need help recognizing why connection can feel both deeply desired and frightening.

The goal is not to eliminate your need for other people or become completely self-sufficient. Healthy relationships involve both connection and autonomy.

How Therapy Can Help With Attachment Patterns

Therapy can provide a place to explore relationship patterns without reducing you to an attachment label.

An attachment-informed therapist may help you understand how you respond to closeness, distance, conflict, rejection, and vulnerability. You can explore where some of your expectations about relationships may have developed while also paying attention to what is happening in your relationships today.

Therapy can also provide an opportunity to experience a consistent, respectful relationship in which difficult emotions can be explored rather than avoided.

Research on attachment-informed psychotherapy suggests that attachment security and therapeutic relationships are relevant to treatment processes and outcomes, although attachment should not be treated as a standalone explanation for every psychological difficulty (Taylor et al., 2020; Levy et al., 2021).

Depending on your concerns, therapy may also incorporate approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy, emotion-focused approaches, interpersonal therapy, or other evidence-based treatments. The most appropriate approach depends on the difficulties you are experiencing rather than simply on your attachment style.

What If You Recognize Yourself in an Insecure Attachment Style?

Learning that you may have anxious, avoidant, or fearful patterns can initially feel discouraging. It can be tempting to think, This is just who I am.

But an attachment pattern is not a verdict on your ability to love, trust, communicate, or have a healthy relationship.

You can become more aware of what triggers you. You can learn to communicate your needs more directly. You can practice tolerating uncertainty without immediately reacting to it. You can become more comfortable with vulnerability while maintaining appropriate boundaries.

And perhaps most importantly, you can begin to distinguish between what is happening now and what your past experiences may have taught you to expect.

Attachment Therapy in London, Ontario

At Authentic Living London, we help individuals and couples better understand the patterns that can affect their relationships, emotional wellbeing, and sense of connection.

If you find yourself repeatedly caught in the same relationship patterns, struggle with fear of abandonment, find emotional closeness uncomfortable, or have difficulty trusting others, therapy can provide a supportive place to explore what is happening.

Our therapists offer in-person counselling in London, Ontario, as well as virtual therapy across Ontario. Rather than trying to fit you into a particular attachment category, we focus on understanding your individual experiences and helping you develop healthier, more secure ways of relating.

If you would like to explore your attachment patterns or improve the way you connect with the people who matter to you, contact Authentic Living London at 226-224-0301 or info@authenticlivinglondon.com.

Want to learn more about attachment style?

Book a free 15 minute consultation today: CLICK HERE

Sandra Graham, BSc, MACP is a qualifying registered psychotherapist, certified in neuropsychology. She offers individual therapy as well as couples and family therapy, both in-person and online.

References

Fraley, R. C., Roisman, G. I., Booth-LaForce, C., Flaley, R. C., & others. (2021). Stability and change in adult attachment: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 147(2), 123–146.

Hadden, B. W., Smith, C. V., & Webster, G. D. (2018). Relationship duration moderates associations between attachment and relationship quality: Meta-analytic support for the temporal perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(1), 9–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868317711260

Levy, K. N., Kivity, Y., Johnson, B. N., & Gooch, C. V. (2021). Adult attachment as a predictor and moderator of psychotherapy outcome: A meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 77(3), 681–704. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23079

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2019). Attachment orientations and emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 25, 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.006

Taylor, P., Rietzschel, J., Danquah, A., & Berry, K. (2020). The role of attachment style, attachment to therapist, and working alliance in psychotherapy outcomes: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 27(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2385

Velotti, P., Rogier, G., Beomonte Zobel, S., & Cacioppo, M. (2022). The relation between attachment styles and romantic relationship quality: A meta-analysis. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(8), 2260–2284.