Do you have a friend who gets unusually emotional when you don’t text back quickly enough? Perhaps you’re the friend who’s ready to end a friendship when someone is ‘moving funny’ without stopping to ask questions. Both scenarios could describe someone with an insecure attachment style.
If you’ve heard of attachment styles before, you may have seen them discussed within the context of romantic relationships. The reality is that attachment styles can affect how we show up in friendships, too.
The Four Attachment Styles
The concept of attachment styles stems from attachment theory, which explores human relationships and bonds. British psychologist John Bowlby, curious about exploring the anxiety and distress children experience when separated from their primary caretakers, created the theory.
One of his most prolific findings was that the bond children form with caregivers during their early years can affect the relationships a child grows up with others. On that note, the four primary types of adult attachment styles are here.
Secure Attachment
A secure attachment style is what most people strive for and the most popular type. Research shows that around 66% of the population has a secure attachment style.
“You form healthy friendships, healthy relationships, you create healthy boundaries,” says Altheresa Clark, LCSW licensed trauma therapist in Miami.
Individuals who fall into this bucket usually feel safe and secure with their primary caregivers during their early years. As a result, they have high-self worth, find it easy to be authentic in relationships, and can express their feelings and needs. As a result, they have meaningful and healthy relationships.
Dismissive Avoidant
Also known as anxious-avoidant, this group of individuals are often loners and don’t feel they need people and intimate relationships to survive.
“You normally see this in highly independent people,” Clark says. “They have difficulty relying on or trusting others, so they normally avoid vulnerability. It makes them feel uncomfortable. They normally struggle with trust.”
They may shut down emotionally when confrontation or emotionally challenging situations arise and can be emotionally unavailable.
Anxious Preoccupied
Needy and clingy are adverbs that may describe anxious people. They tend to rely on friends and partners to complete or meet their needs and seek safety and security. This can result in jealousy and tantrums when you don’t text back fast. They usually seek safety and security, as they may not have gotten it from their primary caretakers.
“They normally overanalyze their interactions with friends. They find fault in themselves if something happens in the friendship, and a lot of the underlying tone is anxiety,” says Clark.
Fearful Avoidant
This mix of the last two attachment styles above can be confusing. These individuals are characterized by ‘push and pull behaviors’ because while they desire connection, they may also pull away because they fear vulnerability and closeness.
Clark says these people often pull away because they fear rejection and want to reject others before they’re dismissed. “They’re very unpredictable in their behavior, so it’s difficult for them to maintain friendships,” she says.
How Insecure Attachment Styles Affect Friendships
If you have any of the three insecure attachment styles, it could negatively impact a friendship. How it affects your friendship depends on your attachment style, but the underlying theme is an inability to build healthy relationships, says Clark.
For instance, you may not give friendships the energy they need because you don’t feel you need them if you’re a dismissive-avoidant.
“They don’t care about friendships, and we know that as human beings, we crave or need human connection; we’re built that way,” says Clark.
In another instance, an anxious-avoidant person may have high-conflict relationships because of their insecure attachment style.
Ultimately, insecure attachment styles can lead to not getting the love and support every human needs and typically gets from relationships with others.
Working Towards a Healthier Attachment Style
If you have an insecure attachment style that affects your friendships in undesirable ways, you can work towards a secure attachment style. A therapist, books, and self-awareness may all effectively guide that journey. The first step is to know your attachment style and explore any themes you see in your friendships, says Clark.
Evaluate Your Friendships
Clark says evaluating your relationship with your friends is a starting point to consider when working towards a secure attachment style.
“If you look at the closest three people to you in your friendships, how are they? Are they in high conflict? Are they healthy relationships? Are you healthily expressing your feelings towards each other?” she says.
If your interactions with friends aren’t healthy, it may indicate an insecure attachment. These insecure attachment styles are often rooted in trauma caused by the things you didn’t get from your parents as a child, says Clark.
Doing the Internal Work
If you identify with an insecure attachment style, it may be time to do internal work or embark on a healing journey. Journaling, self-care, seeing a therapist, and having difficult conversations with friends and family are all things you can do to facilitate this healing. Having hard conversations with family members can help you address the root cause of your insecure attachment style. However, people of color often avoid those uncomfortable conversations, says Clark.
“We don’t talk about those things that happen in our childhood,” she says. “But I would say having healthy conversations around it brings a lot of clarity and healing. If you don’t talk about what you need to heal, how can you heal from them?”
Taking Practical Steps
It is possible to develop a secure attachment style within your friendships, but it does take conscious effort. For instance, if you are fearful-avoidant or dismissive-avoidant, you can practice being vulnerable by sharing your feelings more. If you have an anxious preoccupied attachment style, you can practice self-soothing techniques to ease your anxiety when you go into over-analyzing mode. You may also want to identify the nexus between your anxiousness and any childhood traumas you’ve experienced.
Everyone deserves to experience the love and safety of intimate and healthy friendships. Healing an insecure attachment style is one way to achieve this end.