In recent years, many authors, bloggers, and public figures have written and talked about attachment styles (myself included). This concept indicates that the individual develops a particular pattern of attachment to other people related to the caregiver’s early experiences.
While this may have been a useful concept when first proposed, recent research has revealed that attachment styles are not always an accurate or useful way to explain how people relate to each other.
This article will discuss the reasons why attachment styles are an incomplete and overly generalized concept, and why it is important not to put too much inventory into the idea.
Analysis of attachment styles theory
The idea of attachment styles has become very popular in mainstream psychology and self-help literature. It is often suggested that individuals can identify an attachment style associated with their upbringing and that understanding this can help them make sense of their current relationships.
While this may help shed light on an individual’s approach to relationships, this is an overly simplistic view of attachment theory. Recent research has shown that attachment styles are not static and can change over time.
Attachment styles, identified by John Bowlby in the 1950s, suggest that the way we interact with caregivers in childhood can develop into the enduring “style” of attachment we hold in our adult relationships. Although many psychologists have built upon Bowlby’s work, the idea of attachment styles is outdated, and recent research suggests that they may not be relevant when it comes to predicting adult behavior.
Limitations of attachment theory
According to Jerome Kagan, Ph. D., author of Attachment Theory, a serious limitation is its failure to recognize the profound effects of social class, gender, race, and culture on personality development. These factors, apart from maternal sensitivity, can be just as important as the quality of early attachment.
As early as 1962, psychologists criticized Bowlby’s theory for being “one factor” because it focused too much on the behavior of the child’s mother. Some studies directly contradict attachment theory and find that a person’s attachment style in romantic relationships does not always reflect their relationship with their parents. There is also a lot of research indicating that a person’s attachment style and behavior differ in their professional relationships, friendships, and love matches, thus exposing the all-encompassing nature of attachment theory.
Additionally, research suggests that how we interact with our caregivers in adulthood may be more important than how we interact with them in childhood when it comes to predicting adult behavior. For example, one study found that adults who had negative relationships with their caregivers in adulthood were more likely to engage in risky behavior than those whose relationships were positive.
Furthermore, research has suggested that other factors may be at play when it comes to predicting adult behavior. For example, one study found that a supportive network such as family and friends was more predictive of adult behavior than attachment style. This suggests that there may be other factors at play when it comes to predicting adult behavior, and that attachment style may not be the most reliable predictor of future behavior.
The accompanying book, by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, summarizes the characteristics of each type of person as follows: “The secure person is comfortable with intimacy and is usually warm and loving. Anxious people crave intimacy, usually get preoccupied with their relationships, and worry about their partner’s ability to love them.” Again; avoidant people fear intimacy as a loss of autonomy and try to reduce closeness.”
As you can see, this implies a hierarchy of characters. People who are secure in their relationships exhibit the highest level of behavior. Avoidants are cold fish in a sea of anxious people, while anxious people are damaged and injured.
Attachment styles are not permanent
Is it possible to classify people so accurately in all their complexities? Doesn’t boxing people in this way, at best, restrict our interactions with them and, at worst, color our perception of them? The point at which we diagnose the attachment pattern of people we have barely or never met indicates that something is wrong.
At its core, the concept of attachment styles is based on a model of the secure-insecure system. According to this model, people can either be securely attached to their relationships or insecurely attached. It is assumed that safe association results from a safe and consistent parent-child relationship, whereas insecure association results from an inconsistent parent-child relationship. There are other so-called attachment styles, but they usually arise from either being secure or insecure.
While this model is a useful way to understand correlation at first, there needs to be a more comprehensive way of looking at it. Research has shown that attachment is much more than this simple safe-insecure divide. Other elements, such as anxiety, avoidance, and ambivalence are important in understanding attachment.
Furthermore, the idea of attachment styles needs to consider changes that occur over time. It is generally assumed that the attachment style established in childhood will remain the same throughout adulthood; However, this is not always the case. Studies have shown that individuals can change their attachment style throughout their lives, depending on the relationships they form with others.
For example, many people in emotionally abusive relationships often get stuck on the topic of attachment styles and identify themselves as having an insecure attachment style. However, if the suspected “insecure attachment” is caused by the abusive and manipulative behaviors of another person, it is more of a response to trauma than an insecure attachment style. You mustn’t try to define your attachment style when you are in the midst of a toxic relationship because it is very likely that the relationship is clouding your judgment and self-evaluation.
Each individual is unique, and there is no one “right” way to relate to others. People’s attachment styles differ from person to person and relationship to relationship. This means that it is impossible to define attachment styles in terms of just “safe”, “unsafe”, or whatever other attachment “style” is created; Instead, it is very helpful to think of attachment styles as more fluid and variable depending on the context of individual relationships.
Not to mention that mainstream psychology “experts” are now creating as many attachment styles as narcissism categories! There is, continually, a new flavor of the week used to describe the dynamics of toxic relationships, when ways of showing up in relationships are often due to poor treatment and disrespect.
