The 4 attachment styles, explained

Attachment theory describes how our first bonds shape the way we love as adults: how much we worry about being left, and how comfortable we are being close. Researchers map adults on those two dimensions, anxiety and avoidance. Together they give four broad styles.

The two questions behind every style

Anxiety: how much do you fear rejection or abandonment?
Avoidance: how uncomfortable are you with closeness and with depending on someone?

Low on both is secure. High anxiety with low avoidance is anxious (also called preoccupied). Low anxiety with high avoidance is avoidant (dismissive). High on both is fearful-avoidant.

Read the guide for each style

Secure attachmentComfortable with closeness and with time apart. What it looks like, and how people earn it later in life.Anxious attachmentA fast alarm for distance and a strong need for reassurance. The signs, the roots, and what calms it.Avoidant attachmentIndependence first, closeness at a safe distance. Why it develops, and small steps that raise the ceiling.Fearful-avoidant attachmentWanting closeness and fearing it at the same time. The push and pull, and how to find the middle.

Answers to common questions

How to calm anxious attachment when you spiralA late reply and your mind races. Six steps to calm it in the moment, and what to say instead.The anxious-avoidant relationshipWhy anxious and avoidant partners attract, the pursue and withdraw cycle, and what it takes to make it work.What to do when an avoidant pulls awayPossible reasons for distance, what silence cannot tell you, boundaries to consider, and what to text.How to heal fearful-avoidant attachmentWhat healing means, five steps out of the push and pull, which therapy to look for, and how to work on it as a couple.How to heal avoidant attachmentWhether it can change, six steps to let people closer, how to work on it with a partner, and when to get help.

Can your attachment style change?

Yes. Attachment styles are fairly stable, but they are not a life sentence. Psychologists use the term earned security for people who start out insecure and become secure, usually through a steady relationship, therapy or deliberate practice.

Most people are also a mix. You might be secure with friends and anxious with a partner, or grow more avoidant after a painful breakup. A quiz result describes where you lean today, not who you are forever.

Where the idea comes from

The psychiatrist John Bowlby developed attachment theory in the 1950s and 1960s. Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation studies in the 1970s identified secure, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant patterns in infants, and Mary Main and Judith Solomon later added a fourth, disorganized pattern.

In 1987 Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver showed that adult romantic love follows similar patterns, and in 1991 Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz proposed the four adult styles used on this site.

Is this your pattern?

Take the free 11-question attachment quiz. You get your profile, what drives it, and where to start.

Take the free quiz

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