Secure Attachment: Developing Relational Flexibility

Our attachment style can be more healthy and flexible with awareness and effort.

Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points

• Attachment theory explains how early relationships shape our current interactions.
• Healthy relationships are built on accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement.
• Curiosity, compassion, and bold moves can facilitate growth toward secure attachment.

Are you feeling stuck in a rigid pattern of relating that leaves you unsatisfied in your most important relationships?

Perhaps people give you regular feedback that you are distant or don’t share your feelings and needs. Maybe you find yourself consistently hoping for more reassurance and comfort than your loved ones are delivering. When you experience a threat of shame or abandonment, you might react in ways you regret later. Let's explore the roots of our emotional bonding patterns, originally highlighted by Ainsworth (1982) and Bowlby (1988). Our intimate interactions shape our expectations in relationships, influencing our stories of ourselves and others and what is possible for us in a relationship.

Reflect on Your Early Bonds

• How did your primary caregiver respond to your needs?
• How did your caregiver’s responses shape your expectations today?

Survival Reactions Versus Flexible Relating

Our attachment styles, initially formed in childhood, can change over time, as long as we are taking in new learning and challenging ourselves to try new behaviors in our relationships. Attachment styles are emotional blueprints guiding our reactions in relationships, often before we even have time to think. Whether we find ourselves pulling away in fear or clinging for connection, understanding these patterns can illuminate the path to healthier relationships.

What Makes a Relationship Healthy?

According to Sue Johnson, healthy relationships are built on

• Accessibility: Being present, even in confusion or pain.
• Responsiveness: Showing kindness in response to suffering.
• Engagement: Treating each other as precious treasures.

Identify Your Attachment Style

• Secure: Flexible relating! You are comfortable with intimacy and independence, depending on what works in the present situation. You have the capacity for healthy intimacy and boundaries.
• Avoidant/dismissive: You might be independent, prefer solitude, and struggle with vulnerability. You might have the story “Intimacy is more trouble than it's worth.”
• Anxious/preoccupied: You might fear abandonment and may cling to others for support: “I can’t make it on my own.”
• Disorganized/fearful-avoidant: You reactively oscillate between styles in ways that are not sensitive to the current context. You are not reacting to this relationship in front of you but to relationships in the past that were neglectful or abusive.

Importantly, you might have differing attachment styles depending on the relationship. You could have a secure style in your friendships, an avoidant style with authority figures, and an anxious style toward your mate. If your style works, great! It only becomes a problem when you or the person you are in a relationship with is not getting their needs met.

Consider Your Most Challenging Relationship

• What attachment style surfaces?
• What fears are triggered?

Healthy Attachment in Action

When we have developed a healthy attachment style, we flexibly manage our feelings and needs both with internal and interpersonal resources. For instance, when we are afraid, we might reassure ourselves or seek support from a loved one—whatever works. When we are sad, we can both comfort ourselves and grieve with others. When we are angry, we give ourselves needed space and communicate a request for change. When we feel shame, we can offer self-compassion and receive acceptance from others.

Mindfulness Exercise

• Identify a part of you that leans toward clinging or avoidance in your most important relationships.
• Notice its presence in your body and your feelings toward it.
• Ask yourself: What does this part feel? What does it need?
• What is the hardest move for you—to offer to meet the need yourself or receive support from someone else? How might you challenge yourself to do something new—either build your internal resources or strengthen your connection with others—whatever is currently difficult?

The Attraction of Opposites

People with anxious and avoidant attachment styles often find themselves in a dance of distance and closeness. Recognizing this pattern can be the first step toward healthier dynamics. If you are with someone who wants to grow and learn with you, you get to be curious and compassionate and work together to grow. Check out this short video about navigating this dynamic: How to Choose a Partner Wisely.

Toward Secure Attachment

While our attachment tendencies may linger, moving toward secure attachment is an iterative journey supported by ever-increasing supportive relationships and self-compassion. Some tips:

• Notice relationships in your life where someone is present, kind to you when you are suffering, and treats you like a treasure. Let that in! When that same person makes a mistake in these areas, and you point it out, notice how they respond. If they show that they want to keep learning to love you better, and you want to keep learning to love them better, you get to learn together! Woohoo!
• Begin to shift your attachment style with bold “opposite action” moves: if you know you act a certain unproductive way in a relationship, practice doing the opposite, little by little, in ways that are 5-out-of-10 hard or less, in trusting relationships, and see what happens. For instance, if you have an avoidant style, practice expressing tender emotions (like sadness, fear, and shame) and reassure your loved one. If you have an anxious style, manage difficult emotions by practicing self-reassurance. Then calmly express needs and requests to the other person while allowing the other person to say “no.”