Yes, insecure attachment can be healed, allowing individuals to develop more secure connections through self-awareness, therapy (like CBT, DBT, EFT), building self-esteem, practicing mindfulness, learning new communication skills, and creating a coherent narrative of past experiences, often with a therapist acting as a temporary secure base. While childhood patterns are influential, they are not permanent, and adults can intentionally reshape their attachment styles towards greater security.
Here are four things you can do to improve your attachments. 1. Recognize your attachment style by examining your significant relationships. 2. Practice self-compassion. 3. Journal or reflect on your secure relationships 4. See a therapist for professional help with making this transition from insecure to secure.
As a result, they feel validated, supported, loved, and safe to explore their environment with their safe base (their caregiver) nearby. In contrast, an insecure attachment style can form when a child perceives their needs to be rejected or inconsistently met – or in chaotic situations in which they feel fear.
If you have ever struggled with emotional closeness, feared abandonment, or found yourself avoiding intimacy, your attachment style may be a key factor. The good news is that attachment patterns are not permanent. They can be reshaped through self-awareness, therapy, and intentional relationship work.
How to fix attachment issues
Disorganized attachment is one of the four main adult attachment styles. It's often stated as the most chaotic to navigate because of its push-pull factor. Basically, people with a disorganized attachment style both crave intimacy and panic when it gets too close.
People can develop a secure attachment style or one of three types of insecure styles of attachment (avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, and disorganized). In order to cope with an insecure attachment style, you can work with a therapist to change your interaction patterns and develop more secure connections.
What Is the Unhealthiest Attachment Style? Anxious attachment styles, disorganized attachment styles, and avoidant attachment styles are considered insecure/unhealthy forms of attachment.
Attachment insecurities are associated with a wide variety of mental disorders, ranging from mild negative affectivity to severe, disorganizing, and paralyzing personality disorders. The evidence suggests that insecure attachment orientations (whether anxious or avoidant) are fairly general pathogenic states.
No one is perfectly secure. And there are some attachment wounds we can't heal outside of the container of a healthy relationship – don't let perfectionism rob you of the opportunity to grow through intimacy.
Here's what an insecure-disorganized attachment can look like in a relationship:
Compliments and expressions of gratitude can help an anxious attacher feel more loved and safe within your relationship. It may help build their self-worth and give them something positive to focus on when they have doubts about their lovability and your interest in them.
Most professionals agree that attachment disorders are the result of early childhood trauma, so it's important to understand how trauma affects a developing brain.
Individuals with an anxious attachment style often experience heightened sensitivity to certain emotional triggers that can intensify their insecurity. These triggers typically revolve around perceived or real emotional distance, inconsistent communication, and even subtle changes in behavior.
The five pillars of attachment are:
As an adult with an insecure attachment style, you may find it difficult to connect to others, shy away from intimacy, or be too clingy, fearful, or anxious in a relationship. In other words, you have an insecure attachment style.
The disorganized (or fearful-avoidant) attachment style is generally considered the hardest to love because it combines anxious and avoidant traits, creating chaotic "push-pull" dynamics where individuals crave intimacy but fear it, leading to intense instability, self-sabotage, and mistrust, often rooted in trauma. Partners struggle with the unpredictable shifts from seeking closeness to suddenly withdrawing or pushing away, making consistent, secure connection incredibly challenging, notes The Hart Centre.
Effects of Trauma on Attachment
Disruption of Trust and Safety: Trauma can erode trust and safety in relationships, leading to insecure attachment characterized by fear and mistrust. Hyperarousal and Hypervigilance: Trauma often leads to heightened arousal, making it hard to feel safe in relationships.
There are three different types of insecure attachment: anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. Each type has its own unique behaviors. All three types are characterized by difficulties with cultivating and maintaining healthy relationships.
Existing research regarding attachment and suicide risk in adolescents suggests those with a predominantly fearful or preoccupied attachment to their caregivers were more likely to endorse suicidal ideation than secure or dismissive adolescents (Lessard and Moretti, 1998).
In relationships, anxiously attached individuals may crave closeness but struggle with insecurity, seeking constant reassurance. While this desire for connection is natural, it can sometimes manifest as behaviors that feel controlling or manipulative to their partner.
A 2019 study of over 400 adults found that insecure attachment styles, including both avoidant and anxious, significantly predicted past divorce and current relationship status. People with higher avoidance were more likely to have experienced a divorce, even when other factors like age were controlled.
Signs of insecure attachment:
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): With CBT, individuals identify and challenge distorted beliefs such as “I am unlovable” or “I must handle everything alone.” By reframing these cognitions and practicing new behaviors, clients can reduce anxiety or avoidance rooted in insecure attachment.
Secure attachment results from the first 3 S's (safe, seen and soothed). We provide our children with a secure base by showing them that they are safe, that there is someone that sees and cares for them and that they will be soothed when they are in distress.