Understanding how your attachment style affects your relationships

If you’ve wondered why your relationships haven’t worked out the way you planned, it may relate to your experience growing up in your family which is explained by attachment theory. Attachment Theory developed from the research from psychoanalyst John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth about the nature of emotional attachment between humans. Bowlby believed there was a motivational system, which he called the attachment behavioral system, which existed to regulate emotions through proximity to a central attachment figure.  His thinking was that if a child experienced an attentive, accessible, physically close attachment figure then he/ she would feel loved, secure and confident and would feel more at ease exploring his/ her environment, seeking out interaction with others and being more sociable. 

If a child did not experience those key traits of security, then the child would experience anxiety, and would exhibit behaviors including looking for the attachment figure or yelling which would continue until the child was able to be close to the attachment figure or had physically/ emotionally exhausted themselves.  Attachment behaviors are easily visible observing children, for example some children have extreme difficulty when their primary caretaker is out of sight or when they eventually start school.  What Bowlby was saying is that they are not simply due to personality but are directly related to the way the children were cared for by their primary attachment figure.       

His ideas were further confirmed when he started working with Mary Ainsworth, who systematically studied infant – parent separations by conducting experiment using a technique known as the “strange situation” that measured the responses of infants when their caregiver left the room and then returned shortly afterward.  She found in her research that when caregivers left the room the response of the infants fell into three categories: securely attached, anxious/ resistant and anxious/ avoidant.

Infants that fell into the securely attached group became upset when the caregiver left, but were easily soothed when they returned.  The anxious/ resistant group were very distressed when their caregiver left, and when they returned had a difficult time being soothed and exhibited conflicting behaviors that might indicate they wanted to punish them for leaving.  Avoidant infants did not become very distressed when they were left, and when their parents returned did not seek contact or emotional connection with them, sometimes paying more attention to an object they were playing with. Both Bowlby and Ainsworth focused on infant- caregiver relationships in their research, and it wasn’t until the 1980’s that their ideas began to gain traction in explaining how early attachment affects adult romantic attachments.

In 1987 two researchers Hazan and Shaver set out to prove that the emotional bond that forms between two adult romantic partners  operates using aspects of the same motivational system- the attachment behavioral system- which developed between infants and caregivers.  Specifically Hazan and Shaver noticed similarities in the relationships between infants and caregivers and adult romantic partners which noted that they shared the following characteristics:

·        both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive

·        both engage in close, intimate, bodily contact

·        both feel insecure when the other is inaccessible

·        both share discoveries with one another

·        both play with one another's facial features and exhibit preoccupation

·        both engage in "baby talk"

They argued that adult romantic relationships are attachments, and that romantic love develops as part of the attachment behavioral system first honed in infancy and early childhood.  The thinking went then that securely attached adults would feel confident that their partner would be able to meet their needs (and them their needs), would be open to depending on others when necessary and also having others rely on them.  Anxious/ resistant attached adults might worry that others don’t love or accept them completely, and become easily upset or angered when their attachment needs go unmet.  Others may be avoidant, not appearing to care much about close relationships, instead preferring to be more independent and less dependent on others to get their needs met.

In their study Hazan asked the participants to read the following three paragraphs and to choose one that characterized the way they think, feel and behave in relationships:

A. I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.

B. I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.

C. I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away.

What they found based on this brief questionnaire was that the distribution of categories was similar in terms of percentages to what was observed by Bowlby and Ainsworth in infancy- that 60 % of adults classified themselves as secure, roughly 20 % as avoidant and 20 % as anxious/ resistant.  Following this study, other dimensions of attachment patterns have been researched including attachment related anxiety and attachment related avoidance, both of which can contribute to having insecure attachments, as well as defense mechanisms in avoidant attachment and partner selection.

It turns out securely attached people do not seek out only securely attached mates, there are many pairings of securely attached people with avoidant or anxiously attached people.  Some of these relationships can lead to friction and become dysfunctional.  Following Bowlby’s thinking, people operate from a system of subconscious needs which were either met or unmet in their relationships with their early caregivers.  How we respond then to not getting our needs met does relate in some ways to how we learned to regulate emotions when we were children through those early interactions with caregivers.

We can all recognize people in our lives with secure, anxious or avoidant attachment styles and how that has played out for them in their adult relationships.  The avoidant man in his 50’s that hasn’t married or had a significant relationship due to having a difficult/ painful relationship with his Mom growing up, and is attracted to anxious or avoidant women who don’t value him or meet his deep seated needs for love and security (so he chooses to stay single).  Or the anxiously attached woman who sabotages her need for a secure relationship by choosing avoidant partners who will never commit, truly care about her or be interested in meeting any of her needs.  Or the anxiously attached man who seeks avoidant women and the more he chases, the more his partners seek space and push him away.  A lot of relationship dysfunction stems from incompatible matches due to having opposing or uncomplimentary attachment styles.

An example of a securely attached couple would be the one that you see maintaining a committed relationship for a long period, admiring each other’s traits, supporting each other’s personal growth, but also meeting each other’s needs for closeness and distance. This kind of couple may have disagreements but might be better equipped to handle their emotions and not allow them to spiral out of control to the point that the relationship would be irreparably damaged.  These are the couples in your life that you think, “Wow they really complement each other well and the handle challenges of their tough times never wavering their love or commitment for each other.” You can see the love radiating in these couples.  They also experience something called constancy, an enduring and dependable connection.  In this example, it is likely both partners grew up with secure attachment. But not always, as attachment is fluid and you can influence and change your attachment style by doing the inner work.

The idea that romantic relationships might be attachment relationships has strongly influenced modern research on close relationships.  There has been a proliferation of attachment studies, articles, and an inclusion in present day psychotherapy practices based on the ideas that this research generated.  Helping people understand how attachment theory may apply to their lives is an inherent part of my work, because it can highlight root causes of attraction to unhealthy and unfulfilling partners and how to work on changing an attachment style toward more secure (you can change your attachment style with insight and hard work). 

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