Insecure Attachment: How To Heal Your Attachment Style

You crave closeness with your partner, but the moment they move toward you, something inside pulls back. Or perhaps you finally reach a new level of intimacy, and suddenly your partner feels suffocating. These patterns aren’t random. They’re signals from your nervous system—shaped decades ago—about what feels safe and what feels threatening.

If either scenario sounds familiar, you may have an insecure attachment style. Understanding this pattern is the first step toward changing it.

Insecure attachment affects how we connect with romantic partners, friends, and even colleagues. It shapes our deepest fears about relationships and influences whether we pursue or avoid intimacy. The good news? These patterns, while deeply ingrained, are not permanent. With awareness and intentional effort, you can develop what researchers call “earned secure attachment”—building the capacity for healthy, meaningful relationships regardless of your starting point.

Understanding Insecure Attachment Theory

Insecure attachment refers to a category of attachment styles characterized by difficulty trusting others and fear of intimacy. These patterns typically develop from unmet childhood needs with caregivers. There are three primary insecure attachment styles: avoidant-dismissive, anxious-preoccupied, and fearful-avoidant (also called disorganized attachment style).

Research suggests that roughly 40% of adults^{1https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24440045_The_first_10000_Adult_Attachment_Interviews_Distributions_of_adult_attachment_representations_in_clinical_and_non-clinical_groups}have an insecure attachment style—meaning you’re far from alone if this describes you.

The concept comes from attachment theory, pioneered by psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1950s. His core insight: the bond children form with their primary caregiver profoundly shapes their emotional health, social relationships, and worldview as they grow. This framework revolutionized our understanding of child development and continues to inform therapeutic approaches today.

Many people want deep, meaningful relationships but watch things explode whenever connections reach a certain depth. What looks like self-sabotaging behavior is often insecure attachment patterns getting activated.

Here’s a quick overview of each style:

Avoidant-Dismissive Attachment: Someone who prizes personal space and freedom above almost everything. They rarely open up, keep feelings private, and pull away when intimacy feels overwhelming. Closeness can feel like a trap that threatens their independence. Vulnerability feels dangerous, so they maintain emotional distance.

Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: Someone who worries constantly about relationships. They may struggle with low self-worth, fear abandonment, and seek constant reassurance from romantic partners. They might appear clingy and have difficulty finding identity outside the relationship. Anxiety about the relationship’s stability is a constant companion.

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: The most complex pattern. One moment they crave closeness; the next, they push people away. Past experiences of being hurt or abused make trust feel dangerous. They desperately want connection but carry deep trauma around emotional intimacy.

A Note on Terminology

Attachment terminology shifts between childhood and adulthood research, which can cause confusion:

• Anxious-avoidant children tend to become avoidant-dismissive adults
• Anxious-ambivalent children tend to become anxious-preoccupied adults
• Disorganized children tend to become fearful-avoidant adults
• Secure children tend to become secure adults

These trajectories aren’t guaranteed—life experiences can shift attachment patterns in either direction.

How Insecure Attachment Styles Form in Childhood

Like most aspects of personality, insecure attachment stems from both genetics and environment.

Research estimates^{2https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8474999/}that approximately 40-45% of the variability in attachment anxiety and 39% in attachment avoidance can be explained by genetic factors. This means your DNA plays a significant role—but it’s far from the whole story.

On the environmental side, attachment styles emerge from early childhood relationships with caregivers. When a caregiver is inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or dangerous, children typically develop insecure attachment patterns as adaptive responses.

Many psychologists believe that parents with insecure attachment styles tend to pass these patterns to their children through their caregiving behaviors.

For example, a parent with avoidant attachment may be emotionally distant, creating space rather than connection. The child internalizes these avoidant tendencies and carries them into future relationships.

If you’d like to better understand and influence relational dynamics, check out this goodie.

What Parenting Factors Promote Insecure Attachment?

Specific parenting behaviors strongly influence which attachment style a child develops:

For Avoidant Attachment:

• Consistently dismissing or minimizing the child’s emotional needs
• Discouraging crying or expressions of vulnerability
• Prioritizing independence over emotional connection
• Being physically present but emotionally unavailable

For Anxious Attachment:

• Inconsistent responsiveness—sometimes attentive, sometimes neglectful
• Using love and attention as rewards for “good” behavior
• Being emotionally intrusive or overprotective
• Projecting anxiety onto the child about separation

For Disorganized Attachment:

• Being a source of both comfort and fear
• Displaying frightening or unpredictable behavior
• Unresolved trauma that affects caregiving
• Physical, emotional, or verbal abuse

Child development research consistently shows that children need predictable, emotionally attuned caregiving to develop secure attachments. When caregivers struggle with their own unresolved attachment issues, they often unconsciously recreate similar dynamics with their children.

Harlow’s Monkey Experiments: Comfort Over Food

Psychologist Harry Harlow conducted groundbreaking research in the 1960s that planted seeds for attachment theory. While the ethics were questionable by modern standards, his findings transformed our understanding of what children actually need.

Harlow separated baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers shortly after birth. He raised them with two surrogate “mothers”: one made of wire with a feeding bottle attached, and one covered in soft terry cloth but offering no food.

The results were striking. Infant monkeys spent far more time with the cloth mother than the wire one—even though the wire mother provided nourishment. This challenged the prevailing belief that attachment was primarily about food provision.

When Harlow introduced a frightening robot, the babies sprinted to the cloth mother for comfort. After calming down against her soft surface, they turned and growled at the robot. The cloth mother served as what researchers now call a “secure base”—a safe haven from which to face threats.

When placed in an unfamiliar room without any mother figure, the monkeys froze and couldn’t explore. A wire mother didn’t help. Only when a cloth mother was present could the babies calm down and begin exploring their environment with curiosity rather than fear.

The conclusion: attachment is about far more than food. Emotional comfort and a sense of safety are fundamental to healthy development. A secure attachment figure serves as a base—a place to return to when the world feels threatening. This research laid crucial groundwork for understanding human attachment and child development.

The Strange Situation: How Patterns Emerge in Infancy

Psychologist Mary Ainsworth advanced this research with human infants through her “Strange Situation” experiment^{3http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins%20DP1992.pdf}in 1969.

Researchers placed a one-year-old toddler and their primary caregiver in an unfamiliar room filled with toys. Sometimes a stranger was present. After a few minutes, the caregiver would leave, then return.

How children responded to separation and reunion revealed four distinct attachment patterns.

Types of Insecure Attachment Styles

Secure Attachment Style

Secure children have caregivers who offer empathetic support. When the child is upset, the caregiver mirrors and validates the emotion rather than dismissing it. These children feel safe with their caregivers.

In the Strange Situation, securely attached toddlers explored comfortably while their caregiver was present. They became upset when the caregiver left but were easily soothed upon return, often seeking physical contact. After being comforted, they returned to play—similar to Harlow’s monkeys with their cloth mothers.

Secure attachments in adulthood are characterized by comfort with intimacy, trust in partners, and the ability to both give and receive support. People with a secure attachment style serve as models for what healthy relating looks like.

The following three styles represent insecure attachment patterns.

Check out actual footage from the experiment here:

Anxious-Avoidant Attachment (Child Pattern)

Avoidant children typically have caregivers who are cold, aloof, or emotionally unavailable. The caregiver isn’t present or attentive to the child’s needs. In response, the child develops self-sufficiency and pulls away from parental support.

In the experiment, avoidant toddlers engaged with toys but appeared uninterested in their caregiver. When the caregiver left, they showed little distress. Upon return, they ignored the caregiver entirely.

Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment (Child Pattern)

Anxious-ambivalent children have caregivers who are inconsistent. Sometimes present, sometimes absent. Or the caregiver tries to be attentive but is completely unattuned to the child’s emotional needs—telling an upset child to “cheer up” rather than sitting with their feelings.

This creates confusion. The child wants love and support but receives something unpredictable. So they cling to whatever attention they do receive.

In the Strange Situation, these children played with toys but frequently checked if their caregiver was still there. When the caregiver left, they experienced extreme distress. Even after the caregiver returned, they stayed close and often wouldn’t play again.

Disorganized Attachment Style (Child Pattern)

Often called Fearful-Avoidant in adulthood.

Disorganized attachment develops when a caregiver is both comforting and frightening. This creates an impossible bind: should the child seek them out or avoid them?

These children often grow up in chaotic or abusive households where the caregiver sometimes shows love and other times creates danger. The very person who should provide safety becomes a source of fear.

In the Strange Situation, disorganized children played with toys like others. But when the caregiver left and returned, something strange happened: the child would crawl toward them, then freeze. They wanted the caregiver’s affection but also feared them. Some children displayed bizarre behaviors like approaching backwards or falling prone on the floor.

Research suggests disorganized attachment occurs in approximately 15-18% of the general population^{4https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24440045_The_first_10000_Adult_Attachment_Interviews_Distributions_of_adult_attachment_representations_in_clinical_and_non_clinical_groups}, with higher rates in at-risk populations. Children with this pattern often struggle with emotional regulation and may develop dissociative tendencies as a coping mechanism.

The disorganized attachment style is associated with the highest risk for psychological difficulties later in life. However, with appropriate intervention and support, individuals can develop more organized attachment strategies over time.

Childhood Patterns Become Adult Patterns

Attachment theory proposes that these early patterns remain imprinted as children become adults and form new bonds.

Researchers followed the same children from Ainsworth’s original study twenty years later^{5https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8624.00176}. They found that 72% received the same secure versus insecure classification—provided they did not experience major negative life events such as parental loss, divorce, or abuse.

This finding cuts both ways. Attachment patterns show remarkable stability, yet they remain open to change based on life experience. As attachment researcher Dr. Everett Waters notes, “Individual differences in attachment security can be stable across significant portions of the lifespan and yet remain open to revision in light of experience.”

Secure children who felt reassured by caregivers became secure adults capable of trusting, intimate bonds.

Avoidant children who ignored caregivers became avoidant adults who avoid intimacy and prefer not to rely on others.

Anxious children devastated by caregiver absence became anxious adults who feel unsafe and uncertain that partners love them.

Disorganized children who felt both desire and fear toward caregivers became fearful-avoidant adults who crave intimacy but feel overwhelmed once they get it.

When adults form deep bonds—romantic, friendship, or otherwise—childhood attachment patterns roar back to life.

Multiple Attachment Figures

A longitudinal study^{6https://assessmentpsychologyboard.org/edp/pdf/Attachment_Theory%E2%80%93Schaffer_and_Emerson.pdf}by psychologists Schaffer and Emerson in the 1960s found that while mothers were often the first primary attachment figure, by 18 months, 87% of infants had formed multiple attachments—including deep bonds with fathers, grandparents, and siblings.

This research reveals something important: while your primary attachment pattern may stem from your relationship with your main caregiver, you may carry seeds of multiple attachment patterns from different caregivers.

As an adult, you might display different attachment behaviors with different people, depending on which childhood caregiver relationship they evoke.

Signs of Insecure Attachment in Children and Adults

As you read through these patterns, remember: you are not permanently trapped in your default attachment style. These are learned responses to intimacy developed in childhood. With self-awareness, healing, and positive relationships, anyone can develop what researchers call an “earned” secure attachment style.

Avoidant Attachment Style Characteristics

Avoidant children learn not to lean on caregivers for support. This pattern persists into adulthood. See if you or your partner recognizes any of these traits:

1. Highly valuing independence: Prioritizing self-sufficiency to the point of avoiding close relationships to maintain autonomy.
2. Difficulty with emotional intimacy: Struggling with emotional closeness and vulnerability. When things become too intimate, it feels intense and triggers the need for space.
3. Keeping their inner world private: Revealing little about thoughts, feelings, or personal experiences.
4. Suppressing feelings: Dismissing emotions, particularly vulnerable ones like fear, sadness, or the need for comfort. Often intellectualizing or rationalizing feelings instead of experiencing them.
5. Discomfort with physical affection: Physical intimacy can feel like an intrusion on personal boundaries.
6. Dismissive attitude toward relationships: Looking down on the importance of close relationships and claiming not to need emotional support from others.
7. Difficulty seeking support: Asking for help feels foreign because it requires emotional dependency.
8. Reluctance to commit: Avoiding long-term commitments in both romantic and platonic relationships, fearing loss of independence.

These characteristics have both benefits and costs. Independence and self-sufficiency are genuine strengths. The cost is lost human connection when people can’t get close.

Anxious Attachment Style Characteristics

Anxious children cling to caregivers and resist exploring the world independently. In adulthood, these patterns show up in relationships:

1. Fear of abandonment: Constantly fearing partners will leave, creating persistent insecurity in relationships.
2. Clinginess: Being overly dependent on partners and seeking constant reassurance and validation, sometimes perceived as “needy.”
3. High emotional sensitivity: Being acutely tuned to a partner’s moods, actions, and any perceived changes in affection.
4. Relationship anxiety: Worrying about a partner’s commitment and perceiving small issues as major threats.
5. Need for validation: Frequently seeking approval, with self-esteem closely tied to partner reassurance.
6. Rollercoaster relationships: Experiencing intense highs of love and affection swinging to intense anxiety and fear of loss.
7. Overanalyzing: Spending excessive time thinking about interactions and worrying about the relationship’s state.
8. Struggle with boundaries: Having difficulty setting and maintaining boundaries, often merging identity with a partner’s.
9. Difficulty focusing on self: Neglecting personal needs, interests, and self-care due to relationship focus.
10. Pedestaling partners: Putting partners on a pedestal as someone to impress and whose approval must be earned.

One primary strength of anxiously attached individuals is their capacity for empathy. They tend to be highly attuned to others’ emotional states, showing deep understanding and sensitivity to partner feelings. This emotional awareness can make them caring partners capable of deep connection—when their anxiety is managed.

Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment Characteristics

Fearful-avoidant attachment develops when a caregiver is both comforting and frightening. This creates confusion about whether to seek closeness or avoid it:

1. Push-pull with intimacy: Craving close intimacy, but once achieved, it feels overwhelming and terrifying—causing freezing, lashing out, or pushing the other person away.
2. Inconsistent behavior: Acting unpredictably in relationships, swinging between being overly involved and withdrawn.
3. Difficulty trusting others: Struggling to trust partners due to past experiences with unreliable or harmful caregivers.
4. Difficulty regulating emotions: Having trouble managing emotions during times of distress, leading to overwhelming feelings difficult for both themselves and partners.
5. Unresolved trauma: Experiencing trauma that resurfaces in adult relationships as fear, anxiety, or dissociation.
6. Disconnection from self: Struggling to understand personal needs and emotions, often because feelings had to be suppressed in response to an unpredictable caregiver.
7. Hypervigilance: Constantly scanning for signs of danger or rejection in relationships.
8. Difficulty with conflict: Either avoiding conflict entirely or escalating quickly due to fear responses.

Despite these challenges, individuals with fearful-avoidant attachment often develop considerable resilience and adaptability. Their complex attachment experiences frequently lead to deeper understanding of human emotions and behavior. When channeled positively, this introspective ability results in profound self-awareness—a foundation for personal growth and healthier relationships.

The Connection Between Narcissism and Insecure Attachment

Research has identified significant links between certain types of narcissism and insecure attachment patterns. Understanding this connection can provide insight into complex relationship dynamics.

Vulnerable narcissism (characterized by hypersensitivity, defensiveness, and fragile self-esteem) strongly correlates with anxious and fearful-avoidant attachment. These individuals desperately seek validation while fearing rejection—a pattern rooted in inconsistent early caregiving.

Grandiose narcissism (characterized by inflated self-importance and lack of empathy) often correlates with avoidant attachment. The dismissive stance toward others’ needs may develop as a defense against early emotional neglect.

Importantly, not everyone with insecure attachment develops narcissistic traits, and not all narcissistic behaviors stem from attachment issues. However, recognizing this connection can help individuals understand why certain relationship patterns feel familiar—and why healing attachment wounds may also address narcissistic defenses.

Strategies for Healing Insecure Attachment

There is nothing wrong with having an insecure attachment style. You can still create meaningful relationships. And if you choose, there is a path toward developing secure attachments.

This journey involves self-awareness, self-compassion, healthy relationships, and often professional help. When someone starts with insecure attachment and develops security, researchers call it an “earned” secure attachment style—achieved through coherently processing and integrating past experiences rather than simply “getting over” them.

Old impulses may still arise, but you can increase your agency over how you respond and build confidence in creating healthy intimate bonds.

Can People Truly Unlearn Insecure Attachment Patterns?

Yes—and research strongly supports this. Longitudinal studies show that attachment patterns, while stable, are not fixed. People can and do move from insecure to secure attachment through several pathways:

• Therapy: Particularly attachment-focused therapies that help process early experiences
• Corrective relationships: Experiencing consistent, secure bonds with partners, friends, or mentors
• Self-awareness practices: Understanding triggers and developing new response patterns
• Intentional skill-building: Learning emotion regulation, communication, and boundary-setting

The brain’s neuroplasticity means new relational experiences can literally rewire attachment circuitry. This doesn’t erase early patterns but creates new, healthier pathways that can become dominant over time.

Strategies for Avoidant-Dismissive Attachment

Note your patterns: Awareness precedes change. As you interact with people, notice when avoidant patterns emerge.

Action step: Carry a notebook for one day. Jot down every time you notice:

• The impulse to escape a social situation
• The desire to hide your experience from someone
• The impulse to push someone away
• The sense that you must handle everything alone

Note what preceded each impulse and any accompanying thoughts or feelings.

Recognize and express emotions: Learn to identify and share emotions in healthy ways. You may always feel the impulse to suppress feelings or keep them private. But sharing with trusted people builds deeper bonds.

Action step: Journal for five minutes about what emotions you notice right now, using an emotion wheel to expand your vocabulary beyond “fine” or “stressed.”

Action step: Find someone who feels safe and trustworthy. Share one recent frustration, anxiety, or sadness with them. You don’t need to go fully vulnerable immediately—start small.

Share appreciation: Opening up to others can feel terrifying for avoidant individuals. If you’re ready for a challenge, try expressing genuine appreciation.

Action step: Choose someone you genuinely appreciate and who feels safe. Next time you see them, share one quality you admire about them or simply that you value the friendship.

Ask for support: Avoidant individuals tend toward fierce independence—sometimes to their detriment. Practice asking for help even when you could manage alone.

Action step: Ask someone for support this week. It could be help with a project, talking through an issue, or simply company.

Strategies for Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment

Note your patterns: Start with awareness. Notice anxious patterns as they emerge in relationships.

Action step: Carry a notebook for one day. Jot down every time you notice:

• Feeling that someone’s approval will make you feel good about yourself (and their disapproval will devastate you)
• The impulse to sacrifice your boundaries to be liked
• Fear that someone is about to “break up” with you
• Putting someone on a pedestal and feeling you must impress them

Practice self-soothing: Learn to comfort yourself during times of distress rather than immediately seeking reassurance from others.

Action step: Next time you feel anxious, try the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique: identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This grounds you in the present moment and interrupts anxious spirals.

Set boundaries: Understanding your needs and setting boundaries builds certainty in yourself and prevents overdependence on others.

Action step: Speak up about one boundary this week. Perhaps your partner asks for a favor you don’t have capacity for, or your boss requests an unrealistic deadline.

Take yourself on a solo date: Quality time alone reinforces your sense of self, personal worth, and independence.

Action step: Block one evening this week for at least three hours of following your own desires. A bubble bath, a hike, browsing a bookstore—whatever sounds enjoyable for you alone.

Strategies for Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment

Note your patterns: Begin with awareness. Look for consistent patterns in your relationships.

Action step: Carry a notebook for one day. Jot down every time you notice:

• Sending mixed signals to someone
• Feeling afraid of getting closer
• The need to control a person or situation
• Doubting others’ intentions in harmless situations
• Experiencing disproportionately intense emotions in social settings

Practice mindfulness and grounding: Individuals with disorganized attachment often experience intense emotional swings. Developing techniques to manage overwhelming feelings and stay present during distress is essential.

Action step: Once daily for one week, spend two minutes on this grounding meditation:

• Close your eyes
• Notice your feet on the ground
• Imagine the Earth supporting you
• Shift awareness between your feet and the feeling of being supported

Action step: When emotionally overwhelmed, try sensory grounding: identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This anchors you in the present moment and interrupts the emotional spiral.

Finding External Support

Finding security in relationships is often transformative for individuals with insecure attachment styles.

Connecting with Secure Partners

While self-practices matter, the journey toward security often involves healthy, stable relationships with securely attached individuals.

A secure partner provides consistent safety and reliability, demonstrating what balanced, mutually respectful relationships look like through actions and words. They model healthy communication, appropriate boundaries, and consistent emotional availability. They offer understanding and patience required to navigate insecure attachment complexities—without getting triggered into their own insecure spiral.

Over time, these experiences challenge and reshape insecure patterns, guiding the journey toward greater security and relational satisfaction.

With enough exposure to your own “adult cloth monkey” (so to speak), your nervous system can start trusting that this person is reliable, safe, and can help you restore yourself during times of distress.

Seeking Professional Help

For many people, working with a therapist or professional dramatically accelerates the healing path toward security.

Look for therapists who specialize in attachment-based therapy, which focuses specifically on understanding and healing attachment patterns. Many therapists list their specialties on their professional profiles, making it easier to find someone with relevant expertise.

If you are struggling, please note that this content is not professional medical advice. Consult a doctor or licensed therapist for questions about your physical or mental health.

Frequently Asked Questions About Insecure Attachment

What are the three insecure attachment styles?

The three insecure attachment styles are: avoidant-dismissive (called “anxious-avoidant” in children), where you might push partners away; anxious-preoccupied (called “anxious-ambivalent” in children), where you might feel constant anxiety about your partner’s interest; and fearful-avoidant (called “disorganized” in children), where you crave connection but freeze or pull away when you get it.

What causes insecure attachment?

Insecure attachment results from genetic predisposition (accounting for roughly 40% of variability) and a baby’s relationship with their caregiver. Common dynamics that may cause insecure attachment include: caregivers who don’t provide enough empathy and affection; caregivers who give inconsistent attention; and caregivers who are physically or emotionally abusive.

Can insecure attachment be healed?

Yes. Researchers call this “earned secure attachment.” Healing involves developing self-awareness, learning emotion regulation skills, working with a therapist to process childhood experiences, and forming relationships with securely attached individuals who model healthy connection.

What does insecure attachment look like?

Insecure attachment may look like: constantly worrying your partner will leave (anxious); pulling away whenever relationships get close (avoidant); or craving intimacy but panicking when you receive it (fearful-avoidant). Common signs include difficulty trusting partners, fear of vulnerability, and patterns of relationships ending at similar stages.

What is the difference between codependency and insecure attachment?

Codependency is a behavioral pattern of excessive emotional reliance on a partner, often enabling their dysfunctional behavior. Insecure attachment is a broader psychological framework describing how early caregiver relationships shape adult bonding patterns. Anxious attachment can contribute to codependent behaviors, but they’re distinct concepts.

How do I know if my attachment style is insecure?

Your attachment style may be insecure if past close relationships are marked by: constant stress that your partner might leave; immediately losing interest whenever relationships deepen; or avoiding intimate relationships altogether. Taking an attachment style quiz can help clarify your patterns.

Which attachment style is most rare?

Disorganized (fearful-avoidant) attachment is the least common in low-risk populations, accounting for approximately 15-18% of adults. In clinical or high-risk populations, rates are significantly higher. Roughly 23% of adults are avoidant-dismissive, 19% anxious-preoccupied, and about 58% are secure.

Can I have both avoidant and anxious attachment?

Yes. If you rapidly toggle between avoidant and anxious responses within the same relationship, you may have fearful-avoidant (disorganized) attachment. It’s also common to experience avoidant tendencies in some relationships and anxious tendencies in others—because different relationships may evoke different childhood caregiver patterns.

How do I develop a secure attachment style?

The three most effective approaches are: developing tools to counteract insecure impulses (self-soothing, boundary-setting, emotional awareness); working with a therapist to process and integrate childhood experiences; and building deep relationships with securely attached individuals who model healthy connection.

What’s the difference between separation anxiety and insecure attachment?

Separation anxiety is a clinical disorder characterized by excessive fear about separation from attachment figures, often including physical symptoms and significant life impairment. Insecure attachment (particularly anxious attachment) is a relational pattern that may include discomfort with separation but doesn’t necessarily meet clinical disorder criteria. Someone can have anxious attachment without having separation anxiety disorder, though the two can co-occur.

Insecure Attachment Takeaway

Nearly 40% of adults have an insecure attachment style, largely shaped by how caregivers related to them in early childhood—combined with genetic factors that account for roughly 40% of the variability.

Insecure attachment is not a life sentence but a pattern that can be understood, addressed, and healed. As relationship psychologist Dr. Sue Johnson writes, “In insecure relationships, we disguise our vulnerabilities so our partner never really sees us.” Facing these patterns allows your true self to be seen—and securely loved.

Your next steps:

1. Identify which insecure attachment style resonates most with your relationship patterns
2. Choose one action step from the strategies section and practice it this week
3. Notice your patterns without judgment—awareness precedes change
4. Consider whether professional support might accelerate your healing journey
5. Seek out relationships with securely attached individuals who can model healthy connection

Take the free attachment styles quiz to clarify your patternsf.