Attachment Styles
Attachment theory explains how early relationships shape the way we connect with others. These patterns, or attachment styles, often carry into adulthood, influencing how we bond, trust, and respond to emotional closeness.
There are 4 attachment styles based on two trait spectrums: anxiety (fear of rejection or abandonment) and avoidance (discomfort with closeness or intimacy).
Secure: Low anxiety, low avoidance. Comfortable with intimacy and autonomy. This is a healthy attachment which values both closeness and autonomy. Trust is high.
Anxious: High anxiety, low avoidance. Craves closeness but fears abandonment. These tend to be the clingy, needy types.
Avoidant: Low anxiety, high avoidance. Values independence, avoids vulnerability. These are the people who seem distant or pull away when you get close.
Disorganized: High anxiety, high avoidance. Craves closeness but also fears it, often due to unresolved trauma or inconsistent caregiving. This creates a contradictory and confusing pattern of pulling you close then pushing you away, known as push-pull dynamics. (Think anxious + avoidant combined.)
The combination of these traits helps explain how people behave in relationships—how they connect, pull away, or react under stress.
Object Constancy
Object constancy is our ability to hold a sense of connection even when someone isn't physically present.
As newborns, when a caregiver is out of sight, we don't know they still exist. This creates fear as they are the ones who feed and take care of us.
It takes time to develop a sense of someone being able to exist even when we can't see them.
Over time, a consistent and reliable caregiver proves to us that they will always return and we being to learn they never actually ‘left us',’ they simply left our line of sight.
Trust is built and safety is felt even when the caregiver is not present.
