Anxious Attachment in Relationships: Insights from a Psychologist Melbourne
Managing anxious attachment styles in relationships can feel challenging and sometimes overwhelming. This attachment style, deeply shaped by early experiences, manifests in ways that make it harder to feel at ease in relationships in adulthood. Recognising how this attachment style develops and our relationships can provide helpful insights for coping.
In this blog, we’ll explore anxious attachment styles in relationships and the best treatments to help us manage them. For more insights, visit Inner Eastern Psychology for further resources and services you might be after.
What Is An Anxious Attachment Style?
Attachment theory explains that our attachment styles develop during childhood, influenced by both genetic factors and the relationships we have with our primary caregivers.These early patterns can greatly influence how we approach relationships as adults.
There are four main attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganised. Individuals with a secure attachment style generally find stability and safety in their relationships. In comparison, those with anxious attachment styles may find it challenging to attain a similar sense of security, often worrying about the future of their relationships or how to maintain close connections with their partners.
What Causes Anxious Attachment Style?
Children with secure attachment styles typically experience consistent emotional and physical support from and have their emotional needs met by their caregivers. Conversely, those with anxious attachment styles may have experienced inconsistent caregiving. This inconsistency can lead them to believe that they need to engage in certain behaviours, striving for perfection, to gain the attention and care of their caregivers.
While these behaviours may have been effective when they were younger, they can become unhelpful in mature and adult relationships.
Other factors that can also influence development of our attachment styles include genetic factors, our caregiver’s attachment styles, losing a caregiver, or experiencing childhood abuse.
Signs of an Anxichment Style
One of the most common signs of this attachment style in relationships is hyperactivation, where we constantly worry about the potential end of the relationship. This can look like:
Considering small problems as threats to the entire relationship
Assuming the worst of our partner’s actions or behaviours
An excessive search for signs that our partner is losing interest or pulling away
Other signs of this attachment style include the following:
Overthinking worst-case scenarios
Constantly worry about the relationship
A sense of urgency to be with our partner
The need to know what your partner is feeling or thinking at all time.
Effects of Anxious Attachment Styles on Relationships
Ultimately, having an anxious attachment style makes it difficult to trust that our needs will be met. Receiving reassurances or sharing positive moments in the relationship often does not bring the long-term security that is craved. The anxiety can sometimes lead to behaviours that might come across as “needy” or mistrustful.
In relationships, studies have found that this can result in less trust between couples, more conflict, and a lower relationship satisfaction. Outside relationships, those with this attachment style may be more prone to developing depression, anxiety disorders, and low self-esteem.
How to Address an Anxious Attachment Style
The good news is that our attachment styles aren’t set in stone. They can change over time through the people we encounter and the experiences we have.
For instance, those with an anxious attachment style can begin to feel more secure after spending years with a committed and secure partner. A healthy relationship built on clear communication, patience, understanding, and mutual respect can challenge and change the internalised perspectives of attachment, fostering positive growth.
Mental health treatment is also a helpful path to recovery for this attachment style. Several approaches have shown promise in supporting individuals with an anxious attachment style
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT): This therapy explores the relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Then, it challenges our negative thought patterns and feelings to improve our overall mental wellbeing.
Interpersonal psychotherapy: This therapy focuses on understanding and addressing unhelpful responses, behaviours, and thought patterns that happened in past or current relationships.
Couples therapy: This therapy involves both partners working together as one unit, looking at the couples dynamic as “the client”. It helps each person understand their individual triggers, develop coping strategies, and work through interpersonal conflicts.
Psychodynamic therapy: This approach looks at childhood and explores how past experiences and unconscious influences may have shaped our attachment style.
Connect with a Psychologist in Melbourne Today!
While anxious attachment style can affect our relationships, with support, it can change and evolve into a more secure attachment over time. When you feel ready, reach out to one of our Inner Eastern Psychology's psychologists, who can help you understand your attachment style, and how it can be managed effectively.
Contact us today to connect with our Melbourne Psychologists for support.