Founded by psychoanalyst John Bowlby in the 1950s and expanded by Mary Ainsworth, attachment theory outlines how your bond with your primary caregivers sets the foundation for how you navigate relationships throughout life. Human infant cannot survive without its caregiver. That is why infants need closeness with their caregivers. Depending on the relationship that caregivers, usually parents, have towards them and towards each other, children will adopt different attachment styles. Three are secure and three insecure attachment styles.
If a child can consistently rely on their parents to fulfill their needs growing up, they’re likely to develop a secure attachment style as a result of feeling secure with their caregivers/parents from childhood and being able to ask for reassurance or validation; felt understood, comforted, and valued during their early interactions. Caregivers/parents have stable relationship and are emotionally available.
Insecure attachment styles develop when a child learns they may not be able to rely on caregivers/parents to fulfill basic needs and comfort.
The four types of attachment styles:
– Secure
Secure attachment is defined by an ability to build healthy, long-lasting relationships.
– Avoidant (aka dismissive, or anxious-avoidant in children)
Caregivers (usually parents) who are strict and emotionally distant, do not tolerate expressions of feelings, and expect their child to be independent and tough might raise children with an avoidant attachment style. Avoidant attachment in adults may, from the outside, look like self-confidence and self-sufficiency. This is because the avoidant attachment style causes a low tolerance for emotional or physical intimacy and, sometimes, struggles with building long-lasting relationships. Furthermore, in the workplace, adults with avoidant attachment are often seen as the independent, “lone wolf” type.
– Anxious (aka preoccupied, or anxious-ambivalent in children)
Most often, anxious attachment is due to misattuned and inconsistent parenting. Low self-esteem, strong fear of rejection or abandonment, and clinginess in relationships are common signs of this attachment style.
– Disorganized (aka fearful-avoidant in children)
Disorganized attachment style can develop when a child’s caregivers, their only source of safety, become a source of fear. As adults, people with disorganized attachment style can be extremely inconsistent in their behaviors and experience difficulties with their self-beliefs and with trusting others. Such issues can potentially lead to mental health issues such as mood disorders.
Two extremes are stable attachment style and disorganized attachment style.