Understanding different attachment styles
Attachment styles play a key role in how we form and maintain relationships throughout life. First developed in childhood based on interactions with caregivers, these patterns influence how we connect with others as adults. Understanding your attachment style can deepen self-awareness and improve your relationships.

The 4 main attachment styles
1. Secure attachment
Individuals with a secure attachment style tend to have positive views of themselves and others. They feel comfortable with intimacy and independence, making it easier to form healthy, balanced relationships. Securely attached people trust their partners and manage conflict constructively. This style usually develops when caregivers are consistently responsive to a child’s needs, creating a sense of safety and trust.
2. Anxious attachment
Those with an anxious attachment style often crave closeness but fear rejection or abandonment. They may be overly sensitive to their partner’s actions and seek constant reassurance. This can lead to clingy or overly dependent behaviours in relationships. Anxious attachment often stems from inconsistent caregiving in childhood, where attention and affection were unpredictable.
3. Avoidant attachment
People with an avoidant attachment style typically value independence and may feel uncomfortable with emotional intimacy. They often suppress their feelings and may seem distant or aloof in relationships. This style can develop when caregivers were emotionally unavailable or dismissive, leading the child to prioritise self-reliance over connection.
4. Disorganised attachment
Disorganised attachment combines aspects of both anxious and avoidant styles. Individuals may desire closeness but also fear it, leading to confusing or unpredictable behaviours in relationships. This often stems from early experiences of trauma, neglect, or abuse.
How attachment styles affect adult relationships
Attachment styles influence how we perceive love, respond to conflict, and interact with partners. For example, anxious individuals may struggle with trust, while avoidant people may resist vulnerability. Understanding your style can help you identify patterns and work towards healthier interactions.
Can attachment styles change?
Yes! While attachment styles often reflect early experiences, they are not fixed. Through self-reflection, therapy, and healthy relationships, it’s possible to develop a more secure attachment style over time.
By recognising your attachment style and that of your partner, you can foster better communication and deeper connections. Relationships thrive when both people are willing to grow and understand each other.
Counselling plays a crucial role in helping clients move toward a more secure attachment style. Through therapy, counselling can provide a safe and consistent environment that fosters trust, self-awareness, and emotional growth.
Here’s how counselling can help:
1. Creating a safe therapeutic relationship
Counsellors establish rapport by being non-judgmental, and through consistency. This mirrors the qualities of a secure attachment figure, allowing clients to experience trust and connection in a safe environment. Over time, this therapeutic bond helps clients internalise the feeling of safety, which can extend to their other relationships.
2. Increasing self-awareness
Counsellors can help clients identify their attachment patterns/styles and how these attachment styles may have impacted their relationships. By exploring past experiences, especially early caregiver relationships, clients gain insight into the root causes of their attachment style and triggers.
3. Challenging negative beliefs
Clients with insecure attachment styles, for example, tend to carry negative beliefs about themselves or others (e.g. “I’m unworthy of love” or “People will hurt me”). Therapists will guide their clients and help them to reframe self-limiting thoughts, promoting healthier self-esteem and trust in others.
4. Teaching emotional regulation
Insecure attachment tends to be linked to difficulty managing emotions. therapists can teach their clients techniques like mindfulness, grounding exercises, or cognitive restructuring to help them regulate intense feelings and respond more constructively in relationships.
5. Modelling healthy communication
Through role-playing and real-time feedback, therapists model effective communication and boundaries. This gives clients practical tools to express needs, resolve conflicts, and create healthier connections in their relationships.
6. Encouraging vulnerability
Clients with avoidant or disorganised attachment may struggle to open up. Therapists will gently encourage vulnerability over time, helping clients feel safe in sharing emotions and developing intimacy in their relationships.
7. Exploring and repairing relationship patterns
Therapists help clients recognise and break unhealthy patterns in their relationships. This might include addressing behaviours like clinginess, emotional withdrawal, or avoidance of intimacy. Clients are guided toward forming connections that feel secure and fulfilling.
With time, consistency, trust and effort, therapy allows clients to build a stronger sense of self, improve relationship skills, and create healthier, more secure connections in their lives.
