Is an Anxious Attachment Style Affecting Your Relationships? Here’s How to Know
Key takeaways:
Attachment styles develop from a child’s experience with their caregiver. An anxious attachment style develops when a child can’t trust their caregiver to meet their needs.
People with an anxious attachment style may have trouble trusting their partners or respecting boundaries. This usually stems from a fear of rejection or abandonment.
There are ways to treat behaviors associated with an anxious attachment style.
Attachment theory is a way to understand how people behave in close relationships. It’s based on the idea that someone’s early relationships with their caretakers can affect the way they connect to others for the rest of their life.
Anxious attachment is a particular type of attachment style that can make it hard for people to have stable, adult relationships. We’ll explain exactly what an anxious attachment style looks like, why it develops, and how it can affect your relationships.
What is an anxious attachment style?
Anxious attachment is considered one of the “insecure” attachment styles. There are two main categories of attachment styles:
Secure attachment: This is when someone can interact with others confidently. They have learned that relationships can be safe, so they respect others and their own boundaries. They expect that they will have meaningful relationships with others. People with secure attachment are open, collaborative, and proactive.
Insecure attachment: This is when someone has a hard time trusting other people. They have learned from their early years that other people will let them down and their needs will not be met. This leads to problematic behavior. People with insecure attachment can have a poor sense of boundaries and low self-esteem.
Within the broad category of insecure attachment, there are two subcategories:
Avoidant attachment: People with avoidant attachment find it hard to have close relationships or depend on others.
Anxious attachment: People with anxious attachment are overly concerned with rejection or abandonment. This can lead them to cling to negative relationships or behave in risky ways.
What causes anxious attachment to develop?
Attachment styles develop in childhood. Children develop secure attachment when they can trust their parents or caregivers to respond to their needs. The child learns they can always return to their caregivers as a stable, secure base for comfort when they get upset. This helps the child develop a sense of independence while also feeling safe.
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On the other hand, anxious attachment develops when a child feels they can’t count on their caregiver to keep them safe. This can happen under different circumstances. Anxious attachment can happen when a child’s parent or primary caregiver:
Does not respond to a child’s needs
Is overprotective or over controlling
Changes from person to person (they have different or multiple caregivers)
Michelle M. May, LPC, NCC, a licensed psychotherapist and a chair at Washington School of Psychiatry, explains that attachment styles are not an intentional choice or a flaw: “Attachment styles are simply a mirror that tells an honest tale of our history. They do not reveal a weakness in a person, but a weakness in the environment in which we grew up.”
Genetics may play a role in attachment style as well. Some experts believe that a child’s personality traits — or temperament — can contribute to attachment styles. For example, some children are more prone to being easily distressed or having anxious thoughts about their safety.
What are signs of anxious attachment?
Signs of an anxious attachment style change as someone gets older.
Signs of anxious attachment in children
Children with anxious attachment can have:
Low self-confidence
Attention problems
Impulsivity
Unexplained anger
Trouble making friends
Problems learning
Anxious attachment can also increase a child’s risk of developing:
Generalized anxiety: They seem to worry about everything.
Separation anxiety: This makes it hard for them to be apart from a primary caregiver.
Social phobia: They’re afraid to interact with people outside of their family unit.
Depression: This can look like a low mood or lack of interest in activities.
Signs of anxious attachment in adults
Adults with anxious attachment can have similar problems to children, but they can also develop more complex issues. For example, they may have:
Low self-confidence: This can happen if they did not have a positive and consistent caregiver to instill a sense of self-worth.
Emotional instability: This makes it difficult to manage emotions and can cause distress.
Addictive behavior: To deal with emotional pain, some people turn to drugs, alcohol, food, or social media.
In relationships, people with anxious attachment can have:
Problems trusting others: This is because of an ongoing fear that they will be rejected or abandoned by a friend or intimate partner.
A tendency to stay in negative relationships: They may cling to a partner who is not good for them. This can be in a domestic relationship or even at work.
Boundary issues: They may cross the line when other people set boundaries. Or they may let others disrespect their own boundaries.
Risky sexual behavior: They may engage in unsafe sexual behaviors or have multiple sexual partners in an effort to relate to others.
Prejudiced behavior: They may tend to perceive differences in other people as dangerous or threatening.
Just like children, adults with anxious attachment are more at risk of mental health diagnoses. Here are some examples:
Anxiety: This includes generalized anxiety, social phobia, OCD, and PTSD.
Depression: This includes major depressive disorder, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder.
Substance use: These can include alcohol, opioid, cannabis, and other substance use disorders.
Health problems related to anxious attachment
An anxious attachment style can increase someone’s risk of mental health conditions as well as physical health conditions. This is likely related to how stress affects the body. Stress can affect things like cortisol levels, heart health, and immune system function.
This means that anxious attachment can increase the risk of developing health problems, like:
Chronic pain
Stroke
Heart attack
High blood pressure
People with anxious attachment can also have worse outcomes from their chronic conditions, like diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.
Can someone change their attachment style?
If you or your partner has an anxious attachment style, therapy can help you improve symptoms of anxious attachment. And improvement in anxious attachment can help the way you cope with stress and boost your overall well-being.
May frequently works with clients who have an anxious attachment style. She explains, “Attachment styles are not permanent. They are not our instinct. Our instinct is to reach out. What can be learned can be unlearned.”
Some studies show that therapy that focuses on a person’s relationships is most helpful. In this type of therapy, a therapist can help someone look at the key issues in their relationships. And this focus makes sense for anxious attachment because relationships are the root of the problem.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can also be helpful. CBT puts less focus on interpersonal relationships. But it helps people to understand their thoughts and feelings better — and where those feelings come from. This improved self-understanding can then help them change behaviors associated with anxious attachment.
Can parents reduce the risk of anxious attachment in their children?
If you are a caregiver, you may wonder how you can help your child develop secure rather than anxious attachment. Here are some ways to promote secure attachment:
Spend time connecting with your children.
Use positive, supportive language in conversations.
Communicate warmth and love with physical touch.
Make sure they know you’re there for them when they’re stressed.
Listen to children when they tell you how they feel.
Talk about your own feelings, to model that it is safe to be open.
Parenting children can certainly be difficult. It’s easy for caregivers to feel overwhelmed with responsibility. So it's important to remember that tending to your own needs will help you feel more engaged with your child.
You can help yourself promote secure attachment by:
Tending to your own mental health
Getting the support of another caregiver
Leaning on professional help from therapists, school staff, and medical professionals
As a caregiver, being in touch with your own mental health is an important part of creating healthy attachment styles for children.
The bottom line
A person with an anxious attachment may have difficulty feeling safe in relationships. The care they received as a child plays a part in that. The good news is that attachment can become more secure if a person works in therapy. And there are ways to promote secure attachment with children. Spend time with them and let them know you will be there for them when they get upset. This will foster better relationships for both you and them, now and into the future.
Why trust our experts?
References
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Carnelley, K. B., et al. (2019). Attachment and prejudice. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Conrad, K. (2000). Impact of insecure attachment on children's social skill development. University of Northern Iowa.
Esbjørn, B. H., et al. (2011). The development of anxiety disorders: Considering the contributions of attachment and emotion regulation. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review.
Izard, C. E., et al. (1991). Emotional determinants of infant-mother attachment. Child Development.
Kural, A. I., et al. (2022). The role of anxious attachment in the continuation of abusive relationships: The potential for strengthening a secure attachment schema as a tool of empowerment. Acta Psychologica.
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Liu, C., et al. (2019). Adult attachment style, emotional regulation, and social networking sites addiction. Frontiers in Psychology.
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