Individual therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy, can help people address a wide range of challenges, from managing stress to exploring options for improving their communication skills. However, many people do not realize how their struggles may be connected to the ways in which the world has shaped them so far. Your stress response might have developed gradually over time based on the people you spent time around and the events that changed your perspective on the world. Your ability to connect with others might be informed by positive or negative interactions with others in the past, as well as your perception of your own value.
This is why attachment styles remain a common focus area in individual therapy. A person’s attachment style can play a large role in how they approach other people, situations, personal goals, and even worldviews. By understanding attachment styles through the help of individual therapy, you can better learn what makes you tick and how to achieve your goals by working with yourself, not against.
What Are Attachment Styles?
Attachment styles are the behavioral practices and patterns that people gradually learn over time, especially early in life. How a person’s parents, siblings, and other caregivers behaved around them (and to them) can form their understanding of how the world works. Even as adults, this information may lie latent underneath the individual’s choices and perceptions, unconsciously influencing decisions and even one’s sense of self-worth.
How Does Individual Therapy Work with Attachment Styles?
Many people are unaware of the profound impact their attachment style can have on their daily activities. Attachment styles are not just relevant to relationships such as married partners or dating couples; they influence how you engage with work peers, strangers, the rest of your family, and more.
Individual therapy often seeks to establish a person’s attachment style early, as it can provide significant insight into how that person manages stress, regulates their emotions, and makes decisions. With this understanding, the therapist can make more targeted recommendations about how to address a specific challenge or achieve growth over time.
But what are therapists looking for during individual therapy? They are finding evidence of the type of upbringing the patient experienced, relationships that have formed an important part of the person’s life, and how those have left lingering impacts through actions, belief systems, and coping mechanisms. Therapists will typically work within four primary frameworks (although it is possible for a person to be a blend of more than one). The four attachment styles are:
Secure Attachment
Secure attachment is the type of connection that many people strive for. It is characterized by feelings of safety and confidence. Those who have achieved secure attachment have a positive view of both themselves and others, and this view is unlikely to change dramatically. They are willing to trust others, accept help, and provide or receive intimacy in its many forms.
Securely attached individuals typically seek connection with others, whether as friends, partners, family, or otherwise. Within the scope of these relationships, they view themselves as worthwhile and rest assured that the people in their lives want them there. They manage their own emotions and are willing to seek help if they are struggling.
A securely attached person may not demonstrate all of these qualities, but these characteristics tend to be common among those with a secure attachment style. Most commonly, a person develops secure attachment when raised in a home with consistent caregiving that was predictable, kind, and trustworthy. Authority figures met their needs, and the person was able to spend a large portion of their formative years exploring, trusting, and learning rather than fighting to survive.
Anxious Attachment
As its name implies, anxious attachment is high on the side of anxiety but low in avoidant behavior. A person who is anxiously attached frequently lives in fear of losing relationships, and they tend to experience fluctuating emotional highs and lows that are both unpredictable and intense. They may not just fear but truly expect that they will be abandoned, and they adjust their behavior to make themselves as appealing as possible in an attempt to keep people in their lives.
However, this can often backfire. Anxiously attached people tend to have a positive view of others but a negative view of themselves, believing that they are not worthy of love or friendship. As a result, they can put their partner on a pedestal, which may lead to clinginess and dependence (in order to derive their own value from others). The people in their lives can begin to feel overwhelmed at the pursuit and doting of an anxiously attached individual.
This is, in part, why anxious attachment is sometimes also called “anxious preoccupied.” The individual tends to be much more focused on others than themselves, as they believe they are not worth the time and that everyone will leave unless they work hard.
People who display anxious attachment often grew up in households that were inconsistent, unpredictable, or unreliable. There was never any indication of what to expect, and so the child remained insecure, constantly on edge. Someone experiencing anxious attachment has likely learned that their needs may not always be met, leading them to struggle with creating something stable and reliable. They rely on constant reassurance because they have learned not to trust what may seem obvious. In many cases, these skills need to be practiced in order to establish a foothold in relationships with others.
Avoidant Attachment
Sometimes called “ambivalent” or “dismissive” attachment, the avoidant attachment type is characterized by a focus on the self. The person may have an unreliable view of themselves and a general distrust of others. As a result, they have come to be independent and prefer not to accept help from outside parties. This can lead them to struggle with or even be fearful of intimacy, and they may stay distant, even in committed relationships.
One of the largest struggles avoidant people often experience is with dependence. Because dependency may be perceived as a weakness, these individuals may experience difficulty forming equitable bonds with peers. When others bring this up, the avoidant individual may further withdraw, avoiding conflict and challenging outside perspectives.
Many people develop avoidant attachment styles due to caregivers who are not sufficiently present. When a child deals with parents who are not emotionally or physically available, neglectful, or punishing of self-expression, they learn that the only person they can rely on is themselves. They suppress their own emotional (and sometimes even physical) needs to avoid rejection. This can make living openly in an honest, intimate relationship a challenge later.
Fearful Attachment
A person with a fearful attachment style tends to be highly stressed. They may vacillate between seeking love while rejecting intimacy, being supportive yet unavailable, or pursuing someone and then withdrawing their interest. These behaviors stem from a desire to avoid hurt, and fearful attachment can lead to a negative self-view and a distorted perception of others.
Fearful attachment often develops as a result of trauma, neglectful behavior, or severe inconsistency. A child may learn that their parent is both a source of comfort and also the source of pain or scary experiences. Thus, they expect both and often have two separate yet parallel responses to the same situation: one of engaging with someone they love and are comforted by, and one protecting themselves from someone who might harm them. This manifests in their relationships with others as they fluctuate, often heavily, between loving care and distant withdrawal.
Can Your Attachment Style Change?
If you believe you understand what your attachment style is, are you stuck with it for life? The good news is that you are not! Attachment styles can change, but doing so requires active effort that targets the reasons why you behave the way you do. This is why individual therapy is valuable.
Bear in mind, a person may be a mixture of multiple attachment styles. Pinpointing the origins of the opinions and feelings you have is the first step toward shifting toward secure attachment.
For example, a therapist can help you identify and address cognitive distortions. These misrepresentations in your thought processes can keep you trapped behind justifications or understandings that are not serving you. For example, if you are anxiously attached, you may fear that your friends are only tolerating you because it would be awkward to part ways with you. Addressing this cognitive distortion might mean writing down every instance you can think of in which your friends did something to show they valued you. Gradually, you can retrain your brain to fight these cognitive tricks and reveal the authentic situation without the veil of past trauma.
However, moving toward secure attachment takes time. Your mind has learned over a lifetime of experience that its processes are justified; that is how you have been keeping yourself safe. Practice is necessary to demonstrate otherwise, and a therapist can help you find situations in which to exercise these new attachment muscles.
Learn More About What Makes You Tick with Individual Therapy
Are you struggling with the way you engage with your peers, family, friends, and partner? If so, your attachment style might be playing a significant role. An individual therapist can help you identify your attachment style and how it could be feeding both positive and negative approaches to your relationships. Contact Aquila Recovery Clinic to sign up for an individual therapy session and learn how you can embrace yourself and grow.