Attached

Understanding the Four Attachment Styles and How They Shape Your Relationships

Your attachment style describes the way you connect, trust, and respond to others in close relationships. It forms in childhood based on how caregivers met your emotional and physical needs, but it continues to shape your adult relationships, especially during moments of stress or closeness.

Understanding your attachment style helps you recognize recurring patterns, identify emotional triggers, and create more secure and fulfilling relationships. For many people, exploring attachment in therapy provides language and insight for patterns that once felt confusing or shameful.

Secure Attachment

People with a secure attachment style feel comfortable with both intimacy and independence. They trust that relationships can handle conflict, express needs directly, and believe that love is stable. Secure attachment does not mean being perfect; it means feeling safe enough to be authentic.

Therapy often helps clients move toward secure attachment by identifying old patterns and learning new ways to communicate, soothe, and connect. Even if secure attachment was not modeled early in life, it can be developed through consistent relational experiences that feel safe and attuned.

Anxious Attachment

Those with an anxious attachment style often crave closeness but fear abandonment. They may overthink interactions, become preoccupied with their partner’s attention, or worry about being “too much.” The nervous system tends to stay alert for signs of disconnection, creating a cycle of seeking reassurance but never fully feeling at ease.

In therapy, we explore where this fear of loss began and work toward creating a sense of internal stability. The goal is not to suppress needs for closeness but to build confidence that love does not disappear when there is space, conflict, or uncertainty.

Avoidant Attachment

People with an avoidant attachment style often value independence and emotional control. They might feel uncomfortable with vulnerability and prefer to rely on themselves rather than others. While they often appear confident and self-sufficient, they can struggle with deeper emotional intimacy and may pull away when someone gets too close.

Avoidant attachment is often a protective response to early experiences where emotional needs were minimized or discouraged. In therapy, we work to understand and soften these protective patterns so connection feels less threatening and more rewarding. Over time, avoidantly attached individuals can learn to trust that closeness and autonomy can coexist.

Disorganized (Fearful-Avoidant) Attachment

The disorganized attachment style combines traits of both anxious and avoidant attachment. People with this pattern deeply desire closeness but also fear it. They might move quickly toward intimacy and then pull back when it feels unsafe, creating a push-pull dynamic that can feel confusing for both partners.

Disorganized attachment often develops in response to trauma or inconsistent caregiving, where the person who was supposed to provide safety also caused distress. Through trauma-informed therapy, it is possible to build a stronger sense of safety within yourself and within relationships. Healing involves learning to stay present in moments of closeness rather than retreating or shutting down.

Healing Attachment Wounds Through Therapy

No matter your attachment style, change is possible. Attachment is not fixed; it can evolve through secure, consistent relationships and therapeutic work. Therapy provides a space to slow down, observe your patterns, and practice new ways of relating that feel grounded and authentic.

Healing attachment wounds involves recognizing the ways you protect yourself, learning to regulate emotions, and expanding your capacity to both give and receive love. Whether you identify as anxious, avoidant, or somewhere in between, the process of developing secure attachment brings deeper emotional stability and connection.

If This Resonates…

If you find yourself repeating the same painful relationship patterns or feeling unsure how to break them, therapy can help you understand the underlying dynamics and begin to shift them. At my Los Angeles therapy practice, I specialize in evidence-based therapy for adults who want to feel more secure in themselves and their relationships.

If you’re interested in high-quality therapy with a seasoned therapist, schedule a free 15-minute consultation here.