Growing the Roots of Attachment
A child hides behind his mother’s leg, crying and tugging on her jeans, begging her to stay with him. She gently pulls him off of her, and guides him into the classroom with all of the other students who are now in the caring hands of the teacher. The child is clearly in distress, now wailing and screaming loudly as his mother walks away. The teacher tries to calm him down by rubbing his back and offering him toys, but it seems as if nothing will soothe this anxious child. This is a common experience for many young children when they are first separated from their parents and sent off to school - and most children grow out of this issue. However, if this display of extreme anxiety persists as the child grows older, it can be a telltale sign of having anxious attachment.[1]
Anxious attachment is one of the four attachment styles: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized. Developing at a young age, anxious attachment style can carry on into adulthood, at various degrees. A few important signs/symptoms in a child include:[2]
Severe distress when separated from caregivers
Fear of strangers
Extreme clinginess to caregivers
Little desire for exploration for the environment around them
Behaviors of aggression
Although the anxious attachment style is more easily visible in infants and children (due to their higher likelihood of displaying adverse reactions) it exists in adults, as well. Adult attachment is important to investigate in romantic relationships, as one’s attachment style impacts how they think, act and feel.[3]
Forming Attachment: Nature vs. Nurture?
Attachment forms regardless of one’s gender.[4] To understand the basis of anxious attachment, the evolutionary perspective can be applied; the instinctive reason why children feel an intense desire to stay close to their parents is because children are vulnerable and seek protection, especially when distressed. Protection by their caregiver increases chances of survival (which is the fundamental basis of natural selection) causing the genes coding for this anxious attachment style to be passed onto future generations.[5]
However, anxious attachment is not solely a product of genetics and evolutionary patterns - it is also affected by environment and interpersonal relationships in an individual’s life. For example, a caregiver who is consistently neglectful towards a child will likely induce feelings of stress in the child. This neglect may be displayed by the caregiver as turning away and ignoring the child when he/she cries for comfort or attention. If the child’s emotional needs are persistently failing to be met, it may cause them to develop an anxious attachment style; this can continue later into life and project on their romantic relationships, as well.[6]
How an individual is treated by others, especially in a time of stress, has a serious impact on the attitudes and expectations they carry into the rest of their lives. If a child has been conditioned to learn that when they are upset, they cannot count on their caregiver for support, they may develop an anxious attachment style. This type of insecure attachment style could have been avoided if the caregiver had more quickly and reliably attended to the crying child. Being able to count on their caregiver for assurance and comfort allows for the formation of a secure attachment style.
In these examples, the caregiver serves as a working model for the child. A “working model” is a significant person (e.g., a parent, friend or romantic partner) who shows various levels of responsiveness to an individual’s extreme desire for comfort and support in interactions. The working model also includes one’s self, and how they themselves respond themselves to others when they desire closeness. Working models guide an individual's future attitudes and expectations towards relationships (especially during stressful times) based on how they have been responded to in the past. Thus, working models shape an individual’s type of attachment style.[7]
Attachment in Romantic Relationships
As we grow into adults, insecure attachment styles can divide into one of two main categories in a romantic relationship: avoidant and anxious. Avoidant adults tend to hold more negative views of their romantic partners, and value the maintenance of independence and autonomy in their relationships. They generally act this way because they have internally decided that seeking further proximity/closeness to their romantic partner is not possible or not desirable.[8] They are overall less interested in their relationships, and maintain psychological and emotional independence from their partners. They do not feel as comfortable with having closeness and emotional intimacy.[9]
Conversely, anxious adults tend to be very invested in their romantic relationships, and want to be emotionally and physically close to their partner to avoid worry and feel more secure. Anxious individuals tend to worry that their partner will reject or abandon them. Due to the deep-rooted distress from childhood, causing them to question the availability of their caregivers, highly anxious individuals strongly question whether they can count on their partner’s presence. For this reason, they often heavily crave a lot of support, emotional intimacy, and reassurance.[10]
Anxious adults will hold more negative views of themselves, and more positive views of their partner. They tend to feel underappreciated or highly distressed and worry that they cannot depend on their partner or that their partner will leave them. Their partner leaving would lead them to question their own worth. Anxious individuals will also use unfavorable coping strategies to react to chronic distress they feel regarding the security in their romantic relationships; this ironically can lead to a less stable and less satisfying relationship. Gender differences do not necessarily impact whether an individual will display more avoidant or anxious attachment styles, and their potential relationship outcomes.[11]
Signs of anxious attachment style in adults that reflect in their romantic relationships include:[12]
Constant worry that their partner will leave them
Extreme distress when separated from their partner
Needing constant reassurance
Hypersensitive to rejection
High sensitivity and emotional reactivity to partner’s actions
Negative self-view compared to a much more positive view of partner
Very afraid of being alone
Overanalyzing minor events/words/actions
Intensifying degree of relationship-threatening cues
Ending the Cycle of Self-Sabotage
If you are experiencing anxious attachment, and it is negatively affecting your relationships by causing high levels of distress and worry, there are many ways you can learn to self-soothe and heal, to develop a more secure attachment style. It is important to recognize that distance/separation from your partner, or the uncertainty of the future, is not actually a reason to be emotionally distressed. It is important to start perceiving yourself, your partner and your relationship more positively, rather than negatively, and actmore constructively. To help learn these steps, a licensed mental health provider (e.g., psychotherapist) can guide someone through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which teaches these evidence-based methods.
This control of emotions and thoughts is known as self-regulation. Calming oneself during moments of internal distress can be achieved by activities such as exercise, walks, taking deep breaths, journaling and meditation. In the long run, however, anxious individuals must work on creating a better self-image and creating healthy boundaries for themselves. Finding hobbies and things you enjoy doing, pursuing them, and building a positive self-image though that can be extremely beneficial to healing your anxious attachment and overbearing need for external support from a partner. It is vital to learn to be content with yourself, and only pursue healthy relationships to avoid the internal stressors associated with an anxious attachment style.[13]
To reduce the distress one may experience when they desire greater intense proximity to a romantic partner, one must actively use coping strategies to avoid needing constant reassurance and support. This is because if this constant intense desire for proximity and support is met by a romantic partner, the anxious attachment system stays activated, continuing the cycle of distress and fear of rejection in a relationship. Actively breaking away from the cycle and deactivating the anxious attachment system requires one to tire of needing constant physical and emotional proximity. It is also crucial for one to actively begin viewing their partner’s actions and words in a more positive light during stressful times. This will help avoid the anxious anticipation of the worst-case outcome in every situation.[14]
Negative views and attributions towards a romantic partner due to the anxious attachment style decreases relationship satisfaction. These negative perceptions also feed into the cycle of anxious attachment. The only way to overcome this is to self regulate and manage internal stressors to cope with stressful events within one’s relationship. These pessimistic attributions may also be linked to higher cortisol levels in the anxious partner, especially after discussing a conflict. This physiological stress is not only detrimental to one’s health, but can also reflect in the overall relationship satisfaction of both individuals. This is because the attachment behaviors of one partner will affect the other as well, in terms of their behavior and level of relationship satisfaction.[15]
The actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) was implemented by Kimmes et al. (2015) to understand the relationship between one partner’s attributions and the other partner’s relationship satisfaction over time. The results of this study showed a significant negative association between pessimistic attributions of one partner and the relationship satisfaction level of the other. This data indicates that the attributions which stem from anxious attachment from one partner negatively affects relationship satisfaction in the other, emphasizing the importance of overcoming anxious attachment to achieve a more stable and satisfactory romantic relationship.[16]
If you feel you are suffering from an anxious attachment style and it is negatively impacting your relationships, a licensed mental health professional (e.g., a psychotherapist, psychologist or psychiatrist) can offer guidance and support.
Contributed by: Ananya Udyaver
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.
References
1 Evans, O. G. (2023, June 8). Anxious attachment style: Signs in adults, how it develops & How to Cope. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/anxious-attachment-style.html#Signs-in-Children
2 Ibid.
3 Simpson, J. A., & Steven Rholes, W. (2017, February). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current opinion in psychology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4845754/
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Evans, O. G. (2023, June 8)
9 Campbell, L., & Marshall, T. (2011, February 7). Anxious attachment and relationship processes: An Interactionist Perspective. Journal of Personality. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00723.x
10 Ibid
11 Ibid.
12 Simpson, J. A., & Steven Rholes, W. (2017, February).
13 Campbell, L., & Marshall, T. (2011, February 7)
14 Kimmes, J. G., Durtschi, J. A., Clifford, C. E., Knapp, D. J., & Fincham, F. D. (2015). The role of pessimistic attributions in the association between anxious attachment and relationship satisfaction. Family Relations, 64(4), 547–562. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12130
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.