Attachment Styles Overview

The 4 primary attachment styles dictate how we navigate intimacy, trust, and emotional closeness. Understanding yourself and which attachment style you operate out of serves as a powerful roadmap for deconstructing unhealthy dynamics and improving your communication and connections. In this episode you will gain a brief understanding of what each style looks like, when we develop our attachment style, and what kinds of things can influence it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There are four primary attachment styles: secure, anxious, preoccupied, dismissive avoidant, and fearful avoidant. These dictate how we navigate intimacy, trust, and emotional closeness. I'm your host, Shalee. And I'm your co-host, Sam. And you're listening to Pathway to Empowerment, where we believe in thriving, not surviving. Understanding whether you operate from a secure or insecure base is not about labeling yourself, but about gaining crucial self-awareness into why you react to vulnerability, conflict, or perceived abandonment the way that you do. Recognizing your default attachment style serves as a powerful, actionable roadmap for deconstructing unhealthy relationship dynamics, improving communication, and actively cultivating a more secure attachment that fosters deeper, more fulfilling connections with others. So, Shelley, what are the four main attachment styles? Can you break them down a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah. So we have secure attachment, right? So in our secure attachment, some of the characteristics are being very comfortable with intimacy and independence. You're you have a higher self-esteem. You trust easily, and you handle relationship stress really well. Okay. So that's your the characteristics. Some of the behaviors that we see within the secure attachment are really communicating openly, providing support for other people, and generally consistent and reliable. If you look at the anxious, preoccupied attachment, some of the characteristics there, they have high anxiety, desire extreme closeness, and they have a complete fear of abandonment. Their behaviors often seek constant reassurance from not just their significant other, but anybody they're attached to. That could be a work friend, it could be a friend, it could be a partner, it could be your family member, it could be uh your neighbor, even it it you become really attached to that person or cling they seem really clingy. There's signs of hypervigilance are kind of the biggest ones for the anxious preoccupied attachment. Then when we look at the dismissive avoidant attachment, some of the characteristics there are highly independent. They are so much so that like you can't they can't ask for help and you don't even want to offer help because you know it's gonna be turned down. Okay. A lot of times they'll avoid intimacy or only have intimacy if it's on their terms and minimizes the importance of relationships altogether. Their behaviors, some some of their behaviors, they struggle to share feelings and emotions. Their values are really focused on a high sense of independence for themselves, and they value that over any kind of intimacy and they shut down emotionally during like emotional situations or experiences. Okay. If you're looking at the disorganized or fear fearful avoidant attachment characteristics, there's a combination of anxious and avoidant traits within this one, which often stem from trauma or childhood abuse. And some of the behaviors we see with this type of attachment style is their desire, they have a desire to be really close, but they fear being hurt. So they they have this push-pull dynamic that can be really frustrating if you're the person in the relationship with them. Because one minute they can't get enough of you, and the next they want you gone away, they don't want to ever see you again. And that can be really difficult for the relationship, but it's devastating because when you do leave because you're frustrated, that just shows them that they cannot trust and that their right to be fearful of trusting others. Furthers the cycle. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

So how do you differentiate between the anxious, preoccupied, and the dismissive avoidant tendencies with like day-to-day interactions?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

So as far as like when you're looking at the anxious or preoccupied, you're seeing there's that high sense of anxiety over almost everything or anything, right? And the so it could be, oh my gosh, I I don't have enough time in the day to do all the things that I have to do. I've got to get it all done. And if not, then something bad's gonna happen to me. That's kind of what we look at when we're looking at the anxious one, right? The the avoidant dismissive is that's all internal. They might be having some of the same stuff, but internally they're doing that. Externally, they're like, I don't care. Do whatever you're gonna do. I don't care. So their inside does not match their outside. Okay. Where that anxious preoccupied, it's very obvious they cannot shield that or or you know, mask it.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Okay. Is it is it like pretty obvious to see like when you're meeting people, for example, and you're just seeing how people operate, like, is it easy for you to tell who lies where?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I would say for the most part, you get really good as a therapist at seeing warning signs and symptoms that people show in their everyday interactions that will help you know what attachment style they are in currently or what they've really struggled with. But we also don't share that with them because we don't want to influence what really because maybe we're seeing it wrong. Maybe we're seeing something that that may be only situational versus attachment, long, long time attachment. So we have to, as therapists, we have to be really careful of not judging what what we see before we get way more information from that individual and really be able to identify where where they fit with their attachment.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Okay. How do early childhood experiences with caregivers translate into specific adult attachment behaviors?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

So it's crucial as a caregiver to not have some of your fears or insecurities become your child's fears and insecurities. And so if it that's one reason why it's so vital for caregivers or for babies to have more than one caregiver, right? So they're getting a lot of different interaction and information. Because if you have if you have an anxious attachment parent, and the child's really happy to go play, but but mom or dad or caregivers, like, don't go too far. Come back, you're you're too far out there, then the child is going to go, oh, there's day there's danger out here, there's no safety, so I need to come back. And they're more often than not going to exhibit some of those same behaviors. So it's vital that we understand how to help a child feel more secure and attached with the way we interact with them. You see this a lot with little kids that go to preschool. If if they've grown up with several people that are sharing different information, they they wave back and say, Goodbye, mom and dad, and they just march in and go play in preschool. But if if there's if there's some fears that have been associated, they're gonna be like, no, mom, don't leave me, don't leave me here. I'm not gonna be safe. And so you see that often mom stays the whole preschool and and the child doesn't leave mom to go explore. So it is it is important, it's vital that we actually help nurture that ability to not share some of our fears with and we have to be careful saying that because there are some healthy fears, right? So it there's we've got to have a balance.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

So what specific behaviors from primary caregivers during early childhood zero to eighteen months most heavily influences our attachment styles that we develop?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

So again, like if you have if you're if you have if you have an attachment style that's dismissive, the child's gonna really gravitate towards not even looking for cues and clues from you as to what to do because they've learned that you're not going to actually like give them. If you're the anxious, right, then they're always looking for the cues and everything is danger, danger, high alert. So they're they're building that into their psyche too. So when you think about how vital it is for us to be able to elect them have a secure attachment so that they go and investigate and come back and share. And they they they learn that you're going to be there to to say, oh, that's wonderful, or oh, that's great, or let me see what you learned. That's that building of all of the secure attachment that we need as we grow and develop in in our relationships, in our everyday relationships.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

How do inconsistent responsive like sometimes the parent is attentive and loving and and wonderful, and sometimes they're distant and avoid you, you know, you can't tell what one you're gonna get. How does that contribute to an insecure attachment style?

SPEAKER_01 11:24

These are the people, Sam, that really think really think that being an empath is a great thing. And what what's somebody that more often than not, if they tell me they're an empath, what they're telling me is I had to learn early how to navigate emotions. So I got really good at reading what emotions every adult around me had, so I knew how to interact with them in a safe way. So that's that's a sad thing, not a great thing in most cases, because in most cases the being an empath just means that I had to learn how to be safe, right? And so that's that's something that we look at when we're talking about how to navigate emotions. We navigate them by reading what we see in the person and then interacting with them slowly to see if what we're reading is accurate and then receding to safety or reading what is accurate and jumping in and having that firm attachment, that secure attachment. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Is our attachment style solely determined by our childhood, or can it be influenced by later relationships? Like if you get into a traumatic relationship, will that permanently change the attachment style that you maybe grew up with?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I don't want to ever say it can permanently change anything. Having said that, our attachment styles can shift and change as we grow and develop and as we learn skills and as we become better at understanding our emotions and our needs, we can actually move through some of these things a lot easier. If we have, I shouldn't say if when we have a traumatic life event or experience, because at some point in life, 99.9% of us are going to have a traumatic event. It can't, depending on the length, the strength, and the duration of it, right? And the person involved, it can absolutely change how we interact with people for a long period of time. Can that be forever? Possibly. But I also know that if if we work on some of those things, we can get back to a safer, secure place for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Okay. So it's more like a fluid thing that ebbs and flows as we go.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

It can be. Now, having said that, a lot of differing ones, like if you are if you're a secure, attached individual and you have one of these things happen, you probably will have a little blip, probably won't do relief for a long, long period of time. But if you're already in an anxious attached person, then that's going to exacerbate it and increase it to where you're gonna have to do a lot more work to get back to where you started from, or even be more secure. Does that make sense? So as we as we look at what dynamics the person has, it will tell us, you know, most likely how how little or how much it might derail them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

That makes a lot of sense. How can I differentiate between a gut feeling and a triggered reaction that's stemming from my attachment style?

SPEAKER_01 15:18

So this is exactly what I was just talking about with the MPAP, right? So if I have a gut feeling, I'm gonna look at like, where am I picking up that gut feeling from? Am I watching these individuals and watching how things are playing out? And so I'm watching their emotional reactivity as well as gauging where I need to step so that I don't get into danger myself. Or is this something where I'm like, okay, I'm oblivious and I'm I'm not paying attention to anything, and I jump into a situation only to have it explode around me. We can I've seen people that do just that and not know how they got into a situation like that, but I've also seen the person that that's a a watcher and they're watching for cues, they're watching for emotions, they're watching for these things so that they know how to to bridge the gaps to keep to keep themselves safe or as safe as they can.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

What is the what is the difference between having an insecure attachment style versus maybe having a personality flaw?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So the personality flaw is gonna come from somewhere, right? And and a lot of times we have to look at where that stems from, where what core belief system that they had got distorted so that they created a distortion within it. If we can't find that, we most likely will be able to see mom, dad, sisters, brothers, grandparents' attachment style and see where it if it's if it's a flaw that they twisted from their core values into a distortion, or whether this is an attachments piece.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Okay. Quick question What about let's say the parent that's inconsistent, right? And they have multiple kids. Do you think it's more likely that each of the kids end up with the same insecure attachment, or is is it not necessarily, and they can all develop a different type of insecure attachment because of you know, it's the same behavior and dynamic that's causing it. So does it create the same attachment wound wound, or no?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

No, not necessarily. You can have I can have a family that comes in, they can have 10 kids. And every single one of those kids that were biologically their kids can have a different attachment style depending on what they they nurtured, what they brought in, what they created. Now, do can they have similar quirks or like you were just saying, personality flaws? They can have some of those things, but every single one of them can have a different attachment style. Okay. Which is interesting, right? Yeah. Because you would think that if you have 10 kids with an anxious avoidant person, you're gonna have 12 people now with anxious avoidant person.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Because it's like they're they're experiencing the same parent, this the behaviors that that parent is exhibiting. All of those kids are experiencing that. So it's just the way that you perceive that experience or that you create from that experience.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Well, you can also have a parent that is is very securely attached with one child or it appears that way and very dismissant with another. So you can you can have so many differing things happening within the dynamic of one person that you're like, wait a minute, what do I do with this information? And so the the child is left to try to figure that out and it gets distorted very easily.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah. I think I can't remember his name for sure. I want to say Gabor Mate or something like that. Have you heard of him? But he has this saying that like no two no two kids grow up in the same exact house with the same exact parents. Yes. You can you can have the same parents and live in the same place, but you don't have the same experience because exactly parent reacts to differently.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Everyone reacts differently to each child. And I know I know for me personally, because I do have a lot of children, I I've had my kids say, I know so-and-so is your favorite, and I'll say, absolutely they're my favorite because of. And every single one of my 10 kids is my favorite for different reasons. And so I have a different relationship with each one of those children based upon their personality and their needs. Because if I parent them with all just the same belief system and believe they have the exact same needs, I'm gonna miss so many, I'm gonna miss the vote on most of it. Yeah. And so every single child needs and needs to have their own experience within that family structure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

How does knowing my attachment style directly translate to having a healthier, less chaotic relationship?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Well, there's that saying that when I know better, I do better. If we don't know, we can't challenge and change things. If we don't know, we can't pick and choose which is still serving us and which is not. So it's vital that we know where our attachment is and and where where we want it to be, and then work towards that with a therapist. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

How can understanding my internal working model change the way that I view my self-worth?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So again, like when we know better, we do better, right? So if I if I'm telling myself I'm a terrible person because I'm I'm anxiously attached, then I'm gonna need to challenge that by doing X, Y, and Z. So I can challenge my worth being great, right? One of the things I like to tell people a lot of the times is as a therapist and as a coach, I'm also their cheerleader, their biggest cheerleader. You can do this. Like, Let's get to work. Let's let's make this happen. And so if you have somebody in your corner that will help you not only just show you what needs to be done, help you look at it, and then gives you a path in order to achieve it, you're you're going to be able to have more self-worth and and less fear around your attachment. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

How do you recommend I begin identifying my own attachment wounds and patterns?

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Well, there's a lot of free tests online that you can do. But if you really want to really in-depth work with a therapist that will help you identify them and then challenge and change them by implementing skills and worksheets and assignments that will be really tailored to you so that you can become the very best you that you can be. And you might see that the things that you used to fear are no longer fearful, or the things that you wanted to push away and avoid are no longer scary and and you need to avoid them. So there's absolutely a lot of things that you can do with that in order to get yourself back to a place. But it does start with understanding it. So what I recommend personally is getting with a therapist that can actually dive deep with you and figure that out. If you want to take the easy route first, there are tests and things online that you can do. Some semi-accurate. But if you really want to, you know, work on your attachment style, work with a therapist. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

As with most things, awareness is the first step to solving the problem or finding a better way of doing something. Our attachment style is not a fixed, unchangeable thing. It may take effort and some time, but we can rewire ourselves to become more secure. Over the next few episodes, we will be diving into each attachment style more in depth to really gain an understanding of each one. And by the end of the month, we will be giving actionable steps towards challenging your current attachment to become secure. So you'll want to be sure to tune into each episode. Together we can learn to thrive. We'll see you next time.