Attachment Theory
According to attachment theory, each person develops connection patterns in their relationships. Our innate temperaments combined with the type of bonds established with our parents in our childhoods can affect the styles of our relationships with our intimate partners, our children, our friends, our employers and coworkers, and others with whom we develop significant connections throughout our entire lives. Attachments can be secure (healthy) or insecure, where insecure attachment styles are further subdivided as described in this section.
A person’s attachment style can change over time, whether through experience in healthy or unhealthy relationships or through deliberate mental effort.
Understanding attachment theory, recognizing the attachment style to which you gravitate, working towards developing secure attachments, and being aware of the attachment styles of others can improve your relationships, help you avoid unhealthy relationships (such as when anxious and avoidant types connect, or any relationship with someone who is avoidant or anxious-avoidant) can improve your mental health and happiness.
A person with secure attachments may experience some distress when the primary object of their attachment is absent, and some satisfaction when that person returns, but is relatively comfortable during such periods of separation.
Individuals with anxious attachment styles are uncomfortable with separation from the object of their attachment. Persons with avoidant attachment styles show little concern for the object of their attachment and may appear cold and indifferent. Some individuals may waver between attachment styles, such as by exhibiting anxious attachment characteristics at some times and avoidant attachment style at other times. Others demonstrate attachment styles that do not fit clearly into anxious, avoidant, or a combination, but are more unpredictable.