Understanding Attachment Styles: Improve Your Relationships & Emotional Health

Understanding attachment styles. So that is something that you often hear people talk about. About their own attachment styles, somebody else's attachment style. Often we talk about it in romantic relationships. And it's really helpful to understand both your own and other people's as a way to just have insight and to be able to work on if there's ways in which your attachment could be a little healthier.

Attachment styles, they start in our early childhood experiences. And what they refer to is the emotional bond or connection with your primary caregiver. It later manifests into romantic relationships, and then of course your familial relationships and your friend relationships too.

And when it's a healthy attachment style, it's feelings of security, trust, affection. And that plays a huge role in one's emotional development and relationship dynamics. And this of course influences relationships throughout life.

The Four Main Attachment Styles

So there's four main attachment styles. Secure attachment, which is something that we all strive for and can eventually achieve, that can be on your own or through the help of therapy. And so what that looks like is having trusting and balanced relationships and having healthy boundaries. And it usually means a lack of anxiety within relationships.

So that leads us to our next one, which is anxious attachment. So it's a fear of abandonment, often a need for reassurance and a difficulty in trusting somebody. And we all need reassurance at some point. So this is more of an excessive need for reassurance.

Then we move on to avoidant attachment. So this is someone that has discomfort with being close, and they rely on more independence over having connection.

And lastly, number four is disorganized attachment. So this usually looks like a mix of both fear and a desire for intimacy. And often this comes from someone experiencing trauma or inconsistent caregiving.

The Impact of Attachment Styles on Relationships

So what's the impact of attachment styles on relationships? We're going to talk about different types of relationships. So in romantic relationships attachment styles will influence how we communicate, how we have conflict resolution, and our emotional intimacy with somebody.

In friendship and family dynamics, the role of attachment is, in maintaining our or avoiding close connections.

Lastly is our workplace interactions. So attachment style can affect teamwork and leadership and conflict at work. Because if we're thinking again, what's attachment? It's around trust and safety and connection. Of course, it's going to show up in the workplace too.

Identifying Your Attachment Style

So how does one identify their attachment style? So like any therapist, I'm all about wanting to have insight and self reflection. That's only going to help us in the long run. So ways to do that are to notice your different behaviors and thought patterns. Start with a romantic relationship or start with your family relationship. Sometimes in a romantic relationship, it can be a little bit more obvious. Not necessarily, but sometimes. And so again, you're wanting to notice, have insight into that, be curious about it. And you can also find like attachment style assessments online. There's a bazillion books around attachment style and exploring your patterns in past relationships as well can give us a lot of information.

I want to put a little caveat here, which is sometimes, depending on the other person, we can sway one way or the other. So for example, someone may in general have secure attachment, but they start dating somebody and that person is inconsistent and confusing in their communication. And so before you know it, you're exhibiting anxious attachment. Just keeping all that in mind and noticing it, someone with secure attachment, that has really strong secure attachment, might be able to say, you know what, this isn't the right relationship for me, or be able to notice that behavior to somebody else, someone that maybe is in the middle of secure and anxious, it might just flare up the anxious attachment. Just you're noticing all of that. You're asking questions about it to yourself. You're just being curious and we're not having judgments around any of this. It's just, you're trying to figure it out for yourself because then you can work on having more secure attachments so that you feel safer and more connected.

Strategies for Building Healthier Attachments

So let's talk about some strategies for building healthier attachments. Like we talked about, so the self awareness piece, noticing your attachment style and the impact on your relationships. Notice your communication skills. So you're going to want to practice open and honest dialogue with partners, friends, and of course colleagues.

And you want to have this mindfulness and then self compassion around why different attachment styles might be happening. A lot of people have experienced some trauma or inconsistent caregiving. And so just being patient with yourself and kind about why that might be happening and hope that it can look different.

And so the hope piece can also happen by, you can work on it yourself, of course, or looking into professional help. And a professional can help with building healthier emotional connections.

So to conclude with all of this, we're looking for secure attachment in general. Because that is going to leave you feeling calmer, more stable, more grounded.

So it's figuring out ways to foster that healthier attachment and having more fulfilling connections, more fulfilling relationships. If this is something that you've struggled with, and you've read a lot and maybe tried doing your own sort of interventions and things aren't really working.

That's when it might be a good time to reach out to a therapist. And Therapy Now SF our clinicians are very experienced around relationships attachment and can really help people both figure out what's going on for them, build insight, and then also ultimately change to try to get more secure attachment.