Navigating attachment styles in a practical conversation can be super tricky. It is a popular and easy to access model full of language that has become common, bit sized and digestible.
Heck, I think I use it constantly in sessions and in my own personal world. It is important to recognize that not only is this just a theory (so not an absolute truth) it is a theoretical model – so it is only a means of constructing an understanding of something not a definition of a concrete actuality of something. IT is comforting and useful to recognize yourself in it – but it is not you.
It is as useful as a horoscope – in such as it is a way to classify and to organize your concept of self. It is not a definition of who you are – no matter how accurate or detailed it may be.
It would be a much less tricky conversation if everything in your behavioral world fell neatly right to the extremes in one of attachment style quadrants, depicted in the image off to the side.
That, however, isn’t reality – thankfully. A world in those extremes would be very harsh, prohibiting and growth/change adverse. So, recognize that your style may fall anywhere along any point within the grid.
A person can have motivations, developmental contributions, habits, strengths, weaknesses, and benefit from using tools or strategies from more than one style. Each of us are unique and distinct from each other but we are also individually unique and distinct from our selves across time. Meaning I could have once been anxious but over a space of interactions become more disorganized with secure episodes. Since there really is an inexhaustible number of combos the question isn’t what am I – but more rather what am I in the process of becoming?
Also, attachment theory was initiated to account for and describe phenomena within parent/child relationships and while that certainly has similarity and correlates to romantic relationships – it isn’t probably the best model for understanding romantic relationships. I could get lost in explaining why that is but if you want to really get into the gritty academic part of it I recommend taking a look at Alan Page Fiske’s Relational Models Theory (RMT).
Ultimately, if I could deliver this in one phrase . . . .models do help predict behavior but only you direct it.
