Attachment Styles Explained: From Childhood to Adult Relationships

Do your relationships sometimes feel like a puzzle? One moment easy, the next tangled in anxiety or distance? Understanding types of attachment styles can feel like finding the missing piece. It helps us spot those hidden patterns, often starting way back in childhood, that keep shaping our adult bonds.

It’s not about sticking a label on yourself, but more about gaining the awareness you need to build healthier, happier relationships.

Here in the UK, lots of people find relationships tricky to navigate, so you’re definitely not alone if that sounds like you. Getting to grips with attachment is a positive step for your well-being – and it’s something we focus on here at Therapy Central.

Let’s unpack these types of attachment together.

Understanding the Basics: What Is Attachment Theory Anyway?

So, we’ve mentioned these patterns – but where do they come from? It all starts with the basics: attachment theory. First introduced by psychologist John Bowlby 1, it’s the idea that our early bonds with caregivers (usually our parents) basically create a template for how we handle relationships later in life 2.

Think of it like learning your first relationship ‘language’. How you learned to connect back then often becomes your default setting, influencing how you interact with partners down the line.

This early ‘language’ tends to influence:

• How comfortable you are with getting close to someone.
• How you manage your emotions when you’re in a relationship.
• How you see and react to your partner’s needs (and your own!).
• What you generally expect from relationships.

It’s a powerful idea, isn’t it? Spotting these patterns is the first step to understanding your own attachment styles in relationships.

What Causes Different Attachment Styles?

So, what actually shapes these different styles? Well, it’s rarely down to just one thing. Instead, it’s usually shaped by the overall way your main caregivers interacted with you and responded to your needs when you were tiny.

Some key things that play a part include:

• How sensitive & responsive were they? Were your caregivers generally tuned in to your cues as a baby (your cries, your gurgles, your reaching hands)? Did they respond quickly and appropriately when you needed comfort, food, or safety? Consistent sensitivity helps build security.
• Were they available? Was your caregiver reliably there for you, both physically and emotionally? If their availability was hit-and-miss (sometimes warm, sometimes distant or distracted), it can create anxiety about whether your needs will actually be met.
• What were their own experiences? It helps to remember that caregivers have their own attachment histories or unresolved issues that might affect how consistently they could offer sensitive care.
• Neglect or Abuse: Sadly, experiences like emotional or physical neglect, abuse, or having a caregiver who was frightening – the very person meant to protect you – are strongly linked to developing insecure attachment, especially the disorganised style 3, 4. The caregiver becomes a source of both comfort and fear, which is incredibly confusing.
• Stress in the environment: Big stressors on the caregiver (like poverty, illness, or serious conflict in the home) can really impact their ability to parent sensitively.

Remember, this isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about understanding where your patterns might come from. Attachment styles develop as ways to cope with early environments; they’re not character flaws.

Recognising the potential causes is part of the journey towards healing and finding healthier ways to connect.

What Are the 4 Different Attachment Styles?

Researchers usually talk about four main patterns of attachment 5. While secure attachment is the most common style found in adults (somewhere between 48-68% in various studies), insecure styles like avoidant (11-22%), fearful-avoidant/disorganised (13-28%), and anxious-preoccupied (8-15%) are definitely out there, too 6. It’s good to keep in mind that these are categories, and sometimes people show traits of more than one.

Your style might even shift a bit depending on who you’re with. But understanding the core different attachment styles gives you a really useful map.

Understanding Insecure Attachment Styles

While secure attachment gives you that foundation of trust, many people develop insecure attachment styles (anxious, avoidant, or disorganised) based on those early experiences. Research involving people here in the UK suggests these insecure styles are often linked to poorer mental health, frequently connected to feelings of loneliness 7.

These styles are basically different ways of coping when consistent safety and responsiveness weren’t really on the table. Getting to know these patterns is key to spotting them in ourselves and our relationships.

Secure Attachment: The Foundation of Trust

Let’s start with the ideal scenario. Picture a child who feels safe exploring the world, knowing their caregiver is a secure base they can always come back to. They trust their caregiver will be there and respond when they need them.

This foundation often leads to a secure attachment style in adulthood. Sounds like a pretty good place to be, right?

If you have a secure attachment style, you probably:

• Feel okay with intimacy and emotional closeness.
• Trust your partner and believe they’re reliable.
• Can talk about your needs and feelings openly and effectively.
• Work through disagreements without things blowing up.
• Manage to stay independent while still cherishing closeness.
• Generally have a positive view of yourself and others in relationships.

Secure attachment isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being resilient. It’s having the ability to handle the relationship ups and downs with an underlying sense of safety and trust.

Now, let’s look at one of the insecure patterns.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: Craving Closeness, Fearing Rejection

This style often crops up when a caregiver’s responsiveness was inconsistent – sometimes there, sometimes not 8. Does that ring any bells from your early experiences?

As adults, people with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style often deeply crave connection but, at the same time, worry their partner will leave or reject them. This is a common insecure attachment style.

Sound familiar? You might recognise these patterns in yourself or someone you know:

• A really strong desire for closeness, which others might sometimes see as “clingy.”
• Worrying a lot about whether the relationship is okay.
• Needing frequent reassurance from your partner.
• Being super sensitive to any hint of distance or disapproval.
• Finding it hard to trust that your partner is truly committed.
• Sometimes putting the relationship ahead of your own needs.

This can feel like being on an emotional rollercoaster – constantly looking for validation while battling that underlying fear of being abandoned. It’s a tough spot to be in, constantly wanting closeness but fearing it’ll disappear. It can be exhausting, can’t it?

Another common pattern involves keeping people at a distance.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment: Valuing Independence Above All

This style might develop if caregivers were emotionally distant, unavailable, or dismissive when a child needed something 9. Maybe showing emotion wasn’t really encouraged or met with much warmth?

As adults, those with a dismissive-avoidant attachment style often put a high value on independence and self-sufficiency, sometimes coming across as emotionally distant themselves. This is another common insecure attachment style.

Here’s what that might look like day-to-day:

• Feeling uncomfortable with too much closeness or emotional intimacy.
• Playing down how important relationships are.
• Finding it hard to express feelings or lean on others.
• Preferring to be autonomous and maybe pulling away during conflict.
• Appearing very independent, sometimes even self-isolating.
• Tending to suppress emotions to avoid feeling vulnerable.

It’s not necessarily that they don’t want connection, but getting close can feel genuinely threatening or overwhelming. This often leads them to instinctively keep partners at arm’s length, even if, deep down, they do want that connection.

Finally, let’s look at the most complex pattern.

Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganised) Attachment: The Push-Pull Dilemma

This is often seen as the most complex of the 4 attachment styles. It frequently comes from early experiences that were frightening, chaotic, or traumatic 9, 10.

Maybe caregivers were a source of both comfort and fear? This creates a really confusing internal conflict for a child.

Adults with a fearful-avoidant (or disorganised) attachment style feel this conflict intensely: they want closeness but are also deeply afraid of it.

This can show up as:

• Swinging between desperately wanting intimacy and pushing partners away.
• Finding it very hard to trust others, often expecting to get hurt.
• Experiencing intense and sometimes confusing emotional ups and downs.
• Struggling with emotional regulation.
• Behaving in contradictory ways in relationships (like seeking closeness then suddenly withdrawing).
• Often having a negative view of both themselves and others.

Trying to navigate relationships with this style can feel incredibly tough, marked by understandable inner turmoil and unpredictable patterns.

What Are the Attachment Styles in Practice? A Quick Comparison

Understanding the different types of attachment styles is one thing, but seeing how they actually play out can make things clearer. Let’s look at a simple comparison:

Just remember, this table is a simplified guide. Real-life experiences can be more nuanced.

Anxious vs Avoidant Attachment: A Common Dynamic

One pairing that gets talked about a lot is the anxious vs avoidant attachment dynamic. Studies consistently find that higher levels of both attachment anxiety and avoidance are linked to lower satisfaction in romantic relationships 11.

It often creates a push-pull cycle that can be incredibly frustrating for both people. Ever been caught in something like that?

Here’s how it often plays out:

1. The anxious partner looks for closeness and reassurance, maybe feeling insecure.
2. This ‘pursuit’ feels overwhelming or demanding to the avoidant partner, who pulls back to protect their independence or avoid feeling suffocated.
3. That withdrawal hits the anxious partner’s deep fear of abandonment, often making them pursue connection even more intensely, perhaps feeling desperate to bridge the gap.
4. This often reinforces the avoidant partner’s need for space, and the cycle continues, leaving both partners feeling stuck, frustrated, and like they’re just not getting each other.

Spotting this pattern is really important if it feels familiar. It highlights how different attachment styles can clash when there isn’t enough understanding and empathy on both sides.

“What’s My Attachment Style?” Finding Your Pattern

Reading through all this, you might naturally be thinking, “what’s my attachment style?” It’s a really common and important question!

While you can find quizzes online, they aren’t official diagnoses. Real understanding usually comes from a mix of things:

• Honest Self-Reflection: Taking a good look at your patterns in relationships, past and present. How do you usually react to intimacy, conflict, and being apart? What are your biggest fears and desires when it comes to connection?
• Noticing Your Reactions: Pay attention to your gut feelings and behaviours. What goes on inside you when you feel close to someone, or when you sense distance or potential rejection?
• Asking for Feedback (Carefully): Sometimes, trusted friends or even past partners might offer useful insights, but tread carefully here and consider their viewpoint.
• Getting Professional Guidance: A therapist offers a safe, non-judgmental space to really dig into your relationship history and attachment patterns. They can give you personalised insights that go way beyond a simple label.

Remember, the aim isn’t to label yourself. It’s about understanding the needs and fears driving your behaviour in attachment styles in relationships. That awareness is where change begins.

Developing Earned Security: Can Attachment Styles Change?

And here’s the really hopeful part: attachment styles aren’t set in stone!

While those early experiences have a big impact, new relationships and putting in conscious effort can lead to what psychologists call “earned security” 12, 13. It basically means you can develop healthier patterns, even if you started out with an insecure style.

This usually involves a few key steps:

1. Awareness: Spotting your current patterns and where they might come from, without judging yourself.
2. Understanding: Learning about the different attachment styles and how they work (like you’re doing right now!).
3. Communication: Practicing expressing your needs and feelings clearly and respectfully. And learning to really listen to your partner’s side of things too.
4. Emotional Regulation: Building skills to handle difficult emotions like anxiety or fear without automatically falling back into old habits (like chasing or pulling away). For example, someone with anxious attachment might practice noticing anxious thoughts without immediately needing reassurance from outside, learning self-soothing techniques instead. Likewise, someone with avoidant attachment could practice identifying and sharing just one small feeling rather than shutting down completely. A technique often used in therapy is mindful awareness – just noticing those anxious relationship thoughts without instantly reacting, which creates space for a calmer response. This fits with approaches like CBT that we use at Therapy Central to build these skills. Think about it: what’s one tiny step you could try to manage those tricky emotions differently?
5. Seeking Secure Relationships: Being around partners who are emotionally available, consistent, and responsive can actually help rewire insecure patterns through positive experiences.
6. Therapy: Working with a therapist who gets attachment provides a structured, supportive way to build healthier patterns. Our therapists at Therapy Central are experienced in helping people understand their styles and work towards earned security, leading to more fulfilling connections.

Change takes time, patience, and being kind to yourself, but building more secure, joyful connections is absolutely possible.

Ready to Build Healthier Relationships?

Getting your head around the types of attachment styles gives you a powerful new way to look at your relationships – past, present, and future.

Whether one style really clicks for you, or you see bits of yourself in several, this knowledge helps you understand your reactions, communicate more effectively, and build the kinds of connections you truly want.

It’s all about spotting the patterns, understanding the needs underneath, and taking kind, practical steps towards feeling more secure and fulfilled in your relationships.

Wondering about your attachment style is common, and reaching out for support is a sign of strength, not weakness.

If you recognise yourself or your relationship dynamics in the descriptions of insecure attachment style patterns, like the anxious attachment vs avoidant attachment dance, please remember you’re not alone, and things can change.

Digging into these themes with the right support can be incredibly helpful and genuinely change how you connect with others.

Ready to explore your attachment style and build healthier relationships? Therapy Central offers expert relationship counselling online and in London. Our qualified therapists can help you understand your patterns and develop skills for more secure connections. Contact us for a free 15 min consultation. We offer flexible session times, including evenings and weekends, to fit your schedule.