Types of Attachment Styles

The attachment hypothesis is presumably one of the most studied when it comes to connections. That’s not unexpected. Although attachment in the early years centers on the relationship between you and your partner even if you connected in Singles Meet, it also affects other future relationships.

Let’s take a closer look at how you shape your style and how you might’ve responded in unavoidable conditions and how it falls to attachment style.

What is attachment theory?

A person in love has many aspects to fulfill. Your presence is about making your partner feel loved, safe, secure, and protected. This is what leads to attachment.

The attachment theory was formulated between the 1960s-70s by British psychologist, John Bowlby, and American-Canadian psychologist, Mary Ainsworth.

It discusses how people who are present and responsive to their partner’s needs give them a safe base from which to venture forth with confidence to explore the big, wide world together and then return to the people whom they can call home.

Ainsworth defined three main types of attachment. Later researchers added four types. These are:

• secure attachment

• anxious-insecure attachment

• avoidant-insecure attachment

• disorganized-insecure attachment

Secure attachment?

Secure attachment is what everybody should be aiming for. It happens when your partner is available, sensitive, responsive, and accepting. In relationships with secure attachment, your partner is there for you when they come back for security and comfort.

These partners reassure them when needed. So, the person learns they can express negative emotions and someone will help them.

Anxious-insecure attachment

This type of attachment happens when partners respond to their person’s needs sporadically. Care and protection are sometimes there and sometimes not.

In an anxious-insecure attachment, the partner can’t rely on their partner to be there when needed. Because of this, the person fails to develop any feelings of security from the attachment figure.

And since the person can’t rely on their partner to be there if they feel threatened, they won’t easily move away from the partner to explore. The person becomes more demanding and even clingy, hoping that their exaggerated distress will force the partner to react. In anxious-insecure attachment, the lack of predictability means that the person eventually becomes needy, angry, and distrustful.

Avoidant-insecure attachment

Sometimes, a partner has trouble accepting and responding sensitively to their person’s needs. Instead of comforting the person, the partner minimizes their feelings, rejects their demands, or doesn’t help with difficult tasks

This leads to avoidant-insecure attachment. In addition, the person may be expected to help the partner with their own needs. The person learns that it’s best to avoid bringing the partner into the picture. After all, the partner doesn’t respond helpfully.

Disorganized-insecure attachment

Partners who display these behaviors often have a past that includes unresolved trauma. Tragically, when the person approaches the partner, they feel fear and increased anxiety instead of care and protection.

This style, however, is considered “disorganized” because the person’s strategy is disorganized and so is their resulting behavior. The person starts to develop behaviors that help them feel somewhat safe. For example, the person may become aggressive toward the partner, refuse care from the partner, or simply become super self-reliant.

How to change your attachment style?

Bowlby acknowledged the attachment techniques that you formulated in your early years stay moderately intact for the remainder of your life. He implies that people respond according to an “if, then” like, “If I am upset, then I can count on my partner to support me.”

Luckily, science has demonstrated to us that fortes aren’t as easy as that. We can alter the way our brains work. The first phase is seeing if there's a difficulty and agreeing on whether you want to bring in a difference. The second step is making that transformation.

Conclusion

A relationship is all about sculpting a future together. Aim to be there for your loved one emotionally and physically and you can encourage the secure attachment that leads to the healthiest relationships. Trying to find a new partner, try finding Single Meet Events and you can get whatever