What Is Secure Attachment? 4 Signs of Secure Attachment

Secure attachment describes the ability to build healthy long-term relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners. Secure attachment forms in early childhood. Primary caregivers must meet a child’s needs in infancy and early childhood to help the child feel safe; this sense of security helps to foster a secure attachment.

Conversely, inconsistent parenting and childhood trauma can lead to insecure attachment styles. People with insecure types of attachment styles—including fearful-avoidant, dismissive-avoidant, and disorganized attachment—often fear abandonment and lack emotional availability in romantic relationships.

Attachment theory refers to British psychoanalyst John Bowlby’s evolutionary and social psychology theory of how human beings form patterns of attachment. Bowlby’s attachment theory analyzes the relationship between young children and their primary caregivers.

This fundamental early attachment supports personality development and is predictive of how people view others as attachment figures or someone with whom they can build an emotional bond. People with secure styles of attachment can develop healthy relationships with romantic partners and might find it easier to stay in love with their partner over a long period of time.

In the 1960s and 1970s, US American-Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth built on John Bowlby’s theory of attachment behaviors and the work of other attachment theorists to introduce the concept of the secure base in early childhood development.

• Infant attachment: In the first year of life, during infant attachment, a child identifies a single person as a primary caregiver. The child will have one of three potential attachment relationships with that person: secure attachment (in which the child’s needs are met), avoidant attachment (in which the child avoids the caregiver due to a lack of trust), and anxious attachment (in which the child fears abandonment because of inconsistent parenting).
• The Strange Situation: Ainsworth developed The Strange Situation laboratory to study behavioral systems in the first year of child development. In this procedure, psychologists observe how a child (between the ages of nine months and thirty months) behaves when their caretaker converses with a friend, conspicuously leaves the child with the friend, and then returns to the child. This process repeats a few times to gauge how well young children understand their secure attachment.
• Human development: The time children spend with their parents and the quality of that time are critical to developmental psychology and the ability to build secure relationships. If the primary attachment figure abandoned the child or did not create a safe haven for them, the child might grow to have a fear of the unknown and greater insecurity. Establishing secure attachment at a young age is essential to emotional development and positive mental health.

People with a secure attachment maintain a positive well-being. There are a few key characteristics of people exhibiting this attachment style, including:

1. 1. Self-awareness: People with secure attachments are aware of their own emotions and how they affect others, leading to greater empathy and emotional intelligence.
2. 2. Self-esteem: People with secure attachments tend to have healthy self-confidence due to encouragement beginning in early childhood.
3. 3. Socialization skills: Those with secure attachment styles can easily build and maintain friendly and intimate relationships. They can express themselves openly to others, making partners and friends feel comfortable doing the same.
4. 4. Vital mental health: People with secure attachment patterns can understand and control their emotions, practice mindfulness, and extend grace and care to themselves and others.

A positive childhood experience is a predictor of secure attachment, but changing your attachment style in adulthood is possible. Consider the following ways to develop a secure attachment as an adult:

• Build your self-esteem. Take part in activities and hobbies that raise your self-confidence. Avoid hanging out with people who bring your mood or confidence down.
• Embrace support. Be emotionally available by offering support to those who need help and ask for emotional support from others when you need it.
• Express your feelings. Share your opinions in a healthy way. Develop emotional intelligence by thinking before speaking so you can first consider how your words and actions might impact others.
• Work on healing. A therapist can help you develop the soft skills to better understand your emotions and relationships with others. Therapy can also help you learn how to build future relationships.
• Practice mindfulness. Learn how to meditate, show gratitude, and journal regularly to track your feelings and personal progress. It is essential to schedule personal time on your calendar if you want to follow a self-care plan.

Early development will lead to different attachment styles in adulthood. Theorists have applied attachment research to close relationships in adults. Some adult attachment relationships include:

1. 1. Ambivalent attachment style: People with attachment security anxiety, also known as ambivalent attachment, anxious-avoidant, or anxious-attachment style, are overly needy and clingy. They lack the self-esteem to fully trust themselves or trust others, leading to separation anxiety and constant worrying over secure attachment and loss of attachment.
2. 2. Dismissive-avoidant attachment style: People with these attachment experiences steer away from emotional vulnerability and see closeness as a form of weakness. Those with this attachment-related issue will not rely on others but rather expect others to rely on them, creating an imbalance in a relationship.
3. 3. Disorganized attachment style: Also known as disoriented or fearful-avoidant attachment, disorganized attachment might describe partners with difficulty regulating emotions who feel unworthy of affection. People who experience intense trauma, often sexual or physical abuse during childhood, might have a disorganized attachment. Therapy and a solid social network can help people with disorganized attachments.
4. 4. Secure attachment style: A secure attachment system is the foundation of healthy adult relationships. In secure attachment styles, partners provide for the emotional needs of others without manipulation or abuse. They emotionally depend on each other while still having individual differences and interests. This balance helps support a meaningful relationship.

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