Understanding Attachment Styles
Do you relate to one of the following?
I find it easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.
I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner and this sometimes scares people away.
I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when any one gets too close and often others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.
Attachment styles are not personality traits we are born with and they definitely don’t mean that there is something wrong with us. They are simply a way to categorize our behaviors in close relationships based on our earliest experiences.
Option A signals what is known as a secure pattern of attachment, whereby love and trust come easily.
Option B is known as anxious attachment, where one longs to be intimate with others, but is continuously scared of letdown and often precipitates crises in relationships through counter-productively aggressive behavior.
Option C refers to the avoidance pattern of attachment, where it feels much easier to avoid dangers of intimacy through solitary activities and emotional withdrawal.
Attachment styles are only one aspect of our multifaceted personalities, but they do influence how we choose partners, how we relate to others, and how we manage conflict in our personal relationships.
