It鈥檚 not uncommon that new clients come into Kelsie Coles鈥� therapy office and declare their attachment style.
鈥淚 ask them a question, and people will say, 鈥榃ell, I need you to know that I identify as anxiously attached,鈥欌�� said Coles, a marriage and family therapist in Seattle. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of helpful data to understand them, but attachment styles are not concrete.鈥�
Attachment theory 鈥� or at least the simplified, TikTok version of it 鈥� has become part of mainstream thinking on .
But there are things people are getting wrong about attachment styles, said Dr. Amir Levine, whose 2010 book, 鈥淎ttached,鈥� popularized a theory that had been developing for half a century.
鈥淚t鈥檚 constantly being propagated in the culture that the attachment style that you have as a child is the attachment style you鈥檙e going to have as an adult,鈥� Levine said. 鈥淣o, not at all.鈥�
A brief explanation of attachment styles
Attachment theory emerged from work in the 1950s by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who identified a survival-behavior system after studying children separated from their caregivers during World War II. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth later expanded the research by observing how infants reacted to brief separations and reunions with their mothers.
Ainsworth identified attachment patterns in children as secure, anxious and avoidant (a fourth category known as fearful-avoidant was later recognized.) Relationship researchers then found a link between childhood attachment and the way adults .
Simply put, a securely attached adult is comfortable with intimacy and readily works to repair relationship issues. Anxiously attached people often worry about their partner鈥檚 capacity to love them back, and need a lot of validation. Avoidants typically fear loss of independence and minimize closeness (fearful-avoidant is a mixture of the two).
Levine thinks of attachment style as a person鈥檚 鈥渟afety radar鈥� in a relationship, or the behaviors they exhibit that make them feel safe. Problems arise when anxious or avoidant people treat the designation like a diagnosis that needs to be treated, said Levine, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University whose new book on the topic, 鈥淪ecure,鈥� is to be published in April.
鈥淭hese are not pathologies,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e just variations on the norm.鈥�
A label isn鈥檛 always helpful
Omri Gillath, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas who has been studying attachment in relationships for more than 20 years, said that since the categories are based on large samples of statistics, they won鈥檛 be a perfect fit for anyone. Everyone can be a little anxious or a little avoidant, depending on circumstances.
For some people, the label could do more harm than good.
Some might take an online quiz that says they are avoidant and use it as an excuse to not change, even if their partner is suffering, Gillath said. Others see a result of anxious and feel they are doomed or doing something wrong.
Feeling pigeonholed, he said, is 鈥渘ot so good for individuals and their own understanding of who they are and how they can change.鈥�
It鈥檚 not all about your mother
Levine said that despite having a strong association with , attachment style comes from a combination of factors that can break stereotypes. For instance, in his practice he has seen many avoidants who had a warm, loving childhood.
He also believes there is a biological propensity for how much closeness and distance people prefer. To explain it, he gave the example of Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic roundworm with large neurons that neuroscientists use to study the human brain.
Most of the worms feed together, but some are solitary feeders that crawl away when others approach. If you switch a single protein in their brain, they switch from solitary to social, he said.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what it is with psychology and psychiatry,鈥� Levine said. 鈥淔irst, we blamed mothers for schizophrenia. Then we blamed the parents for having autistic kids.鈥�
Attachment styles are not set in stone
Knowing your attachment style can still be a helpful first step by identifying problematic patterns in your relationships, Gillath said.
鈥淎ttachment can help you a lot with understanding yourself, with understanding your relationships, and with understanding the roadblocks on the way to happiness,鈥� Gillath said.
based on an attachment questionnaire developed by R. Chris Fraley, another relationship researcher at the University of Illinois.
Levine noted that different relationships can provoke different responses in people that change their attachment style. And because human brains are malleable, people can learn to be more secure over time.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the small interactions that can create more secure interactions that really can change the brain, structurally, in a very profound way,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd we can actually use that ability to help people become more secure.鈥�
EDITOR鈥橲 NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at
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