Attachment Styles: How Secure Are Your Relationships?

We, at Fulshear, are passionate about helping others learn how to broaden and build their relationships. After years of research, the Fulshear team has implemented an adult attachment model. We assist young women in becoming healthy, strong and influential which can also be referred to as becoming effectively dependent. Attachment principles teach us that we are only as needy as our unmet needs. When our emotional needs are met, and the earlier the better, we usually turn our attention outward. This is sometimes referred to in attachment as the “dependency paradox”: The more effectively dependent people are on one another, the more independent and daring they become (Attached, the New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help you Find and Keep Love. by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.) Levine and Heller categorized this dependency paradox into three different types of Attachment Styles. They are: Secure, Avoidant and Anxious

How effectively dependent are you?

Are you Secure?

1. You are comfortable with closeness and don’t try to push others away.
2. You are very consistent and reliable and won’t send mixed messages that will upset others. If others become distressed, you know how to reassure them.
3. You see other’s well-being as a top priority and do your best to read their verbal and nonverbal cues.
4. You feel comfortable telling others how you feel, very early on, in a consistent manner.
5. You are very stable; you also feel comfortable with commitment.
   

Are you Avoidant?

1. You want to maintain distance, emotional, and or physical.
2. You send mixed signals that often come across as rejecting.
3. You are bad at reading their verbal and nonverbal cues and don’t think it’s your responsibility to do so.
4. You tend to put them down to create distance as a means to deactivate your attachment system.
5. You prefer to keep things fuzzy. Even if your relationship is very serious, some question marks still remain.

Are you Anxious?

1. You want closeness and intimacy.
2. You are very sensitive to any signs of rejection (vigilant attachment system).
3. You find it hard to tell them directly what you need and what’s bothering you (effective communication), and use protest behavior instead.
4. You need to be reassured and feel loved.
5. You need to know exactly where you stand in the relationship.

In light of the above listed attachment styles, Kevin Randall LMFT, Fulshear’s Clinical Director, poses these questions to groups of professionals, parents, staff and clients. So we pose them to you now. As you consider your attachment style we invite you to consider how your attachment styles affect you.

How would having any combination of these attachment styles affect parent/child relationships or adult romantic relationships?

If you or someone you know is struggling to maintain consistent, secure relationships please reach out. We would be honored to be a part of your journey with you.