Anxious Attachment: Definition, Causes, and Signs
Several psychological theories explain how childhood experiences impact adult behaviors. One prominent theory in relationship dynamics is the attachment theory. It posits that an individual's early relationship with their primary caregiver, typically from 6 months to 2 years of age, significantly influences their future adult relationships.
Attachment styles are categorized as either healthy or unhealthy. The secure attachment pattern is considered the only healthy type, whereas the remaining three are deemed insecure.
This article focuses on raising awareness about the anxious attachment style, a prevalent insecure type, often called anxious-ambivalent attachment in children. Typically, a child develops this pattern due to poor and inconsistent caregiving.
The encouraging news is that individuals with anxious attachment issues can transition to a secure style, although this requires understanding the problem, a strong desire for change, time, and concerted effort.
This guide addresses fundamental questions about anxious attachment, such as:
- How does attachment style form in early childhood?
- What causes a child to develop an unhealthy attachment?
- Why do individuals become anxiously attached?
- What are the main risk factors for insecure attachment in children?
- How does anxious attachment manifest in relationships?
- Can someone change their attachment pattern and heal emotionally?
All You Wanted to Know about Anxious Attachment
Seeking affection, help, and validation from loved ones is natural. It's also common to fear losing a partner's love.
However, when a person's needs and worries become overwhelming, their relentless search for validation and fear of abandonment start to control their relationships. Identifying attachment-related unhealthy patterns in adults is challenging, but recognizing the signs of each insecure style is possible.
Attachment Theory Briefly Explained
Developed by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby, this theory's core principle is that a young child's emotional and social development hinges on forming a strong bond with a primary caregiver, usually a parent.
A baby instinctively seeks attachment with their primary caregiver, and successful attachment patterns emerge in nurturing, safe environments where a child's emotional needs are met.
Conversely, infants whose needs are neglected often view the world as confusing and untrustworthy, leading to difficulties in forming stable, emotionally connected adult relationships.
The types of insecure attachment styles in adults include:
- Anxious (preoccupied) attachment
- Avoidant (dismissive) attachment
- Disorganized (fearful-avoidant) attachment
Causes of Anxious Attachment in Children
Inconsistent parenting is a primary cause of anxious attachment. When a parent is nurturing at times but insensitive and unresponsive at others, it sends mixed signals to the child, leading to confusion and insecurity.
Factors like parental emotional hunger, due to stressors like job loss or depression, also contribute to this attachment style. Emotional hunger refers to a caregiver seeking emotional fulfillment from their child, often leading to an overly protective or inappropriately reliant relationship.
Children of parents with anxious attachment patterns frequently develop similar styles, not due to genetics but due to the replication of parental behaviors.
Recognizing Anxious Attachment
In the previous paragraph, we talked about parental behaviors that might cause a child to develop this type of attachment style. Some other experiences that may cause an anxious style of attachment include the following: early, sudden, and especially long-term separation from a parent; neglect and/or mistreatment; physical and/or sexual abuse.
Note that having this attachment style does not mean someone has a mental disorder. Yet, insecure attachments mean a person with such patterns will constantly attract “wrong” partners with whom they will have “rocky” relationships, which will cause a lot of distress to both the anxiously attached individual and people close to them.
Individuals with anxious attachment often display:
- Negative self-image and low self-esteem while thinking highly of other people;
- Prioritizing others' needs over their own;
- Difficulty setting boundaries;
- Lack of autonomy;
- A constant need for reassurance and approval;
- Feeling unworthy of love;
- Inability to manage conflicts in a healthy way;
- Fear of loneliness, rejection, and abandonment;
- Excessive jealousy and clinginess.
Studies suggest women are more likely to develop an anxious attachment style, which can adversely affect both friendships and romantic relationships. Anxious individuals often engage in obsessive behaviors in relationships, like constant checking of social media or frequent contact.
Very often, anxiously attached individuals find themselves in toxic co-dependent relationships with people whose attachment style is also insecure (it can be anxious or avoidant/disorganized style). And even if a person whose type of attachment is anxious ends one unhealthy relationship, after a short break, they will end up in another one - not least because they have difficulty being alone/single.
Why Being Anxiously Attached Can Never Lead to a Successful Relationship
For a person with an anxious attachment style, being in a romantic relationship is like constantly riding an emotional rollercoaster. It is very exhausting and causes even more anxiety and unhappiness. But, even though relationships are very stressful for anxiously attached romantic partners, it is exactly what they seek.
Overcoming Anxious Attachment
Breaking the cycle of anxious attachment involves healing one's inner child and developing a secure attachment style. Recognizing unhealthy patterns is the first crucial step. Seeking therapy is highly beneficial, along with practicing mindfulness or meditation, engaging in fulfilling activities, and fostering a healthy self-image. For those in relationships, discussing these issues with partners and considering counseling can be transformative.