The Four Attachment Styles | Dr. Diane Poole Heller (2024)

We are all born with an innate attachment system, designed to help us get our needs met by connecting with caregivers. The behavior of our primary caregivers (often our parents) contributes to and forms the way we perceive close relationships.

When caregivers respond to our connection cues consistently and responsively… meeting our physical and emotional needs… we tend to develop secure attachment.

If, however, our caregivers ignore our needs, respond inconsistently or behave in a scary manner, our attachment systems adapt the misattuned experience by developing an insecure attachment style: avoidant, ambivalent or disorganized.

Our attachment style is like a “blueprint” or relational template that is wired into our brain, body and nervous system in early childhood. It affects––often unconsciously––how we perceive, respond to and interact with others in all future relationships.

Many of our habits, unhealthy behavior patterns and misattunements are rooted in the unresolved early attachment adaptations that continue to influence our relationships as we try to communicate our more complex adult needs.

Yet attachment styles aren’t always set in stone.

Over time, most of us have developed multiple, or layered attachment styles. Depending upon the situation, relationship, environment and our own attachment style, we may respond differently in different situations and circ*mstances.

Remember, attachment styles are neither “good” nor “bad”––even if we learned insecure attachment patterns in childhood, secure attachment is possible because we are biologically hardwired to connect and heal.

Despite significant emotional trauma or challenging attachment adaptations, our brain’s neuroplasticity gives us the capacity to create new neural pathways, change unhealthy patterns and restore secure attachment in adulthood.

While we can all learn skills and practice behaviors that help us return to this healthy, more effective state of relating––sometimes we need help from others. It can be challenging to heal in isolation.

Attachment-based therapists, who have been trained in the process-oriented form of counseling can help their clients better understand their relational trauma and guide healing from relational trauma.

Secure attachment is rooted in attunement––or the ability to be aware of and effectively respond to needs. It is how we “tune into” and work to understand someone’s thoughts and feelings.

Securely attached people generally grew up with plenty of love and consistent support from responsive caregivers.

People with secure attachment have a basic sense of trust in others, are comfortable expressing their needs, and handle conflict and setbacks adeptly and with resilience.

• Emphasize trust, protection safety and connection
• Seek, initiate and accept repair
• Have a strong sense of self-esteem and respect for others
• Honor their own needs and the needs of their partner
• Can clearly show empathy and compassion for themselves and others
• Comfortable with commitment, intimacy and sharing their feelings

When caregivers are emotionally unavailable, insensitive, rejecting or neglectful to a child’s need for connection, the attachment system copes by disconnecting––both physically and emotionally.

Without intimate nurturing, the brain’s neurobiology never receives the signals and stimulation it needs to build social responses and develop proper bonding. As a result, this disconnection extends first to the parents and then to all other relationships––where the avoidant feels they are “on their own” and respond by withdrawing or isolating.

Like all of us, avoidants desire love and intimacy… but they experience extreme discomfort asking others for help or trying to express what they need in a relationship.

Trust in another person poses the greatest obstacle for those with attachment injuries. Healing happens with consistent messages that their needs are important––being steady, reliable and present with the avoidant can support safety and strengthen secure attachment skills

• Over-attuned to their own needs (over-focused on self)
• May have difficulty expressing needs, or feel it is better to “just do it yourself”
• May find fault in relationships or partners (history of brief, non-committal relationships)
• Tendency to dismiss emotions and send “mixed signals”
• Fear being hurt so may sabotage a relationship to avoid intimacy

Ambivalently attached people experienced inconsistent, “on again, off again” caregiving in early childhood. Because of this lack of consistency, connection is a gamble––the child is vigilant, searching for cues as to how their behavior may or may not elicit a response.

People with ambivalent attachment tend to ignore their own needs and often smother others with unrealistic demands or expectations. And while they have a strong desire for connection, they simultaneously fear the loss of that connection.

As a result, they are often on an emotional “see-saw,” where they alternate between their needs being met and not being met––and so, they can feel quite anxious, insecure, unloveable or even undeserving of love.

To heal, the ambivalent attachment style must focus on recognizing and meeting their own needs, practice self-regulation and learn how to shift complaints into expressions of wants and needs.

• Over-focus on other; external regulation
• Desperately wants connection; at the same time, has a disabling fear of losing it
• Anxiety, insecurity when the partner is absent
• Fear abandonment; at the same time pushes partner away with unrealistic demands or expectations
• Complains or criticizes as a signal cry

The most complex of the attachment styles, disorganized attachment forms when the attachment system gets entangled with the threat response—our fight/flight/freeze survival instinct. This occurs when the source of safety—the primary caregiver—is also a source of fear or threat, often in chaotic or abusive situations.

The disorganized attachment style can present in unpredictable behavior patterns, marked by sudden shifts—like a mix of avoidant and ambivalent but with survival defenses always on and ready to respond to threat.

Navigating relationships and intimacy can feel dangerous to people with disorganized attachment, but progress is possible. Understanding disorganized attachment adaptations and the unique challenges it poses is a great first step. In many cases, progress may require the help of a professional therapist who has specific experience working with trauma and relational wounding.

• Closeness can induce panic or activate distancing for safety
• Crave intimacy while appearing to avoid it; confusion and ambivalence about relationships
• Waiting to be rejected or hurt
• Difficulty self-soothing and also co-regulating
• Constant vigilance for danger or shifts in mood
• Inability to express needs