Can attachment styles change over time? This is a question that many individuals ponder as they navigate their relationships and personal growth. Understanding attachment styles can provide valuable insights into how we form and maintain connections with others. While attachment styles typically develop early in life, research suggests that they can indeed change over time.
Attachment theory, developed by psychologist John Bowlby, describes how our early relationships shape our attachment style. These styles include secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. It was once believed that attachment styles were fixed and remained static throughout adulthood. However, newer research suggests that attachment styles are more fluid and can be influenced by various experiences and relationships.
Life experiences, such as supportive relationships, and self-reflection, can contribute to changing attachment styles. By gaining awareness of attachment patterns and working through insecurities and fears, individuals can learn how to become more secure in relationships. This can lead to healthier and more fulfilling relationships.
And so, today, we are going to tackle this topic by examining 5 key factors, that impact changing attachment styles, based on research. Once you crack the code on this, you will be able to stop repeating negative patterns and start building healthier, more secure relationships, so you can go from feeling trapped in insecure attachment behaviors to believing that you can cultivate and maintain secure connections, all without feeling like you’re doomed to repeat your past.
What Are The Four Attachment Styles?
Attachment styles are the patterns of behavior and emotional responses that individuals develop in their close relationships, particularly with their primary caregivers during childhood. These attachment styles can have a significant impact on how we interact with and relate to others throughout our lives. There are four main attachment styles that have been identified by researchers:
Secure attachment
Individuals with a secure attachment style tend to have a positive view of themselves and others. They are comfortable with intimacy and are able to trust and depend on their close relationships. Securely attached individuals are often able to regulate their emotions and can effectively communicate their needs and feelings.
Anxious attachment
Individuals with an anxious attachment style often have a negative view of themselves and a strong desire for closeness and intimacy in their relationships. They may experience high levels of anxiety and insecurity, and may worry about being abandoned or rejected by their partners. Anxiously attached individuals may have difficulty regulating their emotions and may engage in clingy or demanding behaviors.
Avoidant attachment
Individuals with an avoidant attachment style tend to have a negative view of others and a strong desire for independence and self-reliance. They may have difficulty trusting and relying on others, and may avoid or minimize the importance of close relationships. Avoidantly attached individuals may appear emotionally distant and may have difficulty expressing their feelings.
Disorganized attachment
Individuals with a disorganized attachment style often have a combination of anxious and avoidant attachment behaviors. They may have a chaotic and unpredictable approach to relationships, and may have difficulty regulating their emotions and maintaining consistent patterns of behavior. Disorganized attachment is often associated with experiences of abuse, neglect, or trauma during childhood.
Understanding these different attachment styles is important because they can have a significant impact on our ability to form and maintain healthy, fulfilling relationships throughout our lives.
For a more detailed introduction to attachment styles, check out my youtube video: 4 Attachment Styles: A Basic Overview
The Challenges In Changing Your Attachment Style
Before we can explore whether attachment styles can change, we need a deeper understanding of why changing attachment styles can seem so challenging.
First, attachment styles are deeply rooted in our early experiences and are reinforced by our nervous system’s instinctual responses. Second, these styles tend to evolve in stable environments, whether healthy or dysfunctional, making them resistant to change without conscious effort. Third, many people mistakenly believe that their attachment style is unchangeable because research shows a high rate of stability over time. In fact, 70-80% of individuals are estimated to be stable in their attachment style longitudinally. (Main & Weston,1981; Kirkpatrick & Hazan,1994; Fraley, 2002).
“Does that mean I should just accept my attachment style as it is and give up trying to change it?”
NO.
Because that means 20-30% of people are learning how to become more secure everyday! If you decide to accept your attachment style as unchangeable and stop working on it, that will lead to repeating the same unhealthy relationship patterns, and you’ll start believing that you’re doomed to relive your past, unable to break free from these behaviors, which makes you feel hopeless, stuck, and powerless to improve your relationships.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Instead of giving up on the possibility of change, realize that while attachment styles are stable for many people, they are not set in stone, and you do have the power to shape and evolve them. By actively engaging in self-reflection, creating new, healthier relationships, and seeking personal growth.Once you do, you’ll see that your relationships can transform into secure, loving partnerships that reflect the changes you’ve worked towards.
This allows you to:
- Stop believing that you’re stuck with an unchangeable attachment style and start believing in your ability to create healthier relationships.
- Stop feeling hopeless and powerless, and start feeling empowered and in control of your emotional well-being.
- Stop experiencing the pain of repeating negative patterns, and start experiencing the joy of building secure, fulfilling connections.
This brings us to the meat of our discussion today: the five life-changing factors that can influence whether your attachment style changes, and provide a road map for how to be more secure in a relationship.
(To learn more about the biological impact of your attachment style, check out my video: 3 Reasons Secure Partners Become Insecure.)
Research On Attachment Style Changes Over Time
The potential for attachment style change over time has been an area of growing research interest in recent years. While the traditional view of attachment theory held that attachment styles were largely fixed and stable throughout an individual’s lifespan, newer studies have challenged this notion and provided evidence that attachment styles can indeed shift and evolve.
In this post, we are going to explore five major factors that have been cited by evidenced-based research, to have a significant impact on how to become more secure in relationships.
- The capacity to turn experience into wisdom through self-reflection and creating new relationships.
- The decline of attachment anxiety as we age, particularly in middle and older adulthood.
- How susceptibility to change affects our ability to shift attachment styles.
- The role of wanting and willingness to change in altering attachment patterns.
- The impact of significant life events on our attachment styles.
So, let’s dive in!
5 Key Factors To Changing Your Attachment Style
Factor #1: The Capacity For Wisdom
The first life-changing factor is the capacity to turn experience into wisdom through self-reflection and creating new relationships. You might think that having a lot of experience automatically makes you wiser, but the truth is experience alone can sometimes make you more cynical. It’s the ability to extract larger lessons from your experiences and see them within a broader, more benevolent perspective that truly makes you wise. This allows us to break free from negative patterns and open ourselves up to new possibilities.
Let’s compare two people who encounter conflict in their relationships.
The first person tries to address an issue with their partner, in a rather unconscious and habitual way, but it doesn’t go well. They conclude, “I tried once, and they didn’t respond well, so it must mean all relationships fail and there’s nothing I can do.” This mindset leads them to repeat the same patterns in every relationship, feeling more hopeless and stuck with each failed attempt.
The second person, however, faces the same conflict but reflects on the experience differently. They think, “I tried once, and it didn’t work, but maybe there’s a different way of approaching it that will inspire a better response and help us connect more deeply. Maybe I can change my words, body language, or intonation when I speak to them.” They try again, and their partner responds differently, giving them new information about the health of the relationship and the quality of their connection.
This shift in approach allows them to break the pattern, leading to healthier communication and a stronger, more secure relationship with less anxiety over time.
The research on the decline of attachment anxiety as we age, provides evidence for this.
For example, a 59-year longitudinal study found that attachment anxiety tends to decline, particularly during middle age and older adulthood. This decline is likely due to the accumulation of positive relationship experiences and the accumulation of wisdom over time, which help to reinforce a more secure attachment style. The study also found that being in a stable, supportive relationship was associated with lower levels of both attachment anxiety and avoidance across adulthood.
It’s easy to assume that our attachment anxieties will stay the same or even worsen over time, especially if we’ve experienced a lot of relationship struggles in our younger years. But the reality is that as we grow older, we often gain more emotional stability and a deeper understanding of ourselves, which can naturally reduce our attachment anxiety.
Imagine someone who struggled with intense attachment anxiety in their twenties. They constantly feared that their partner would leave them, leading to clingy or overly dependent behavior that pushed their partner away. However, as they entered their forties, they started to shift their attention and work on personal development and foster a more stable inner authority and resiliency.Then they start to attract more stable and secure relationships, both romantic and otherwise. Over time, this stability helped them to feel more connected to a larger community, feel more secure within themselves, and their attachment anxiety begins to decrease.
But before they can open up to the idea that secure, loving relationships are possible at any age, they really need to learn how to recognize and challenge their old patterns of thought, allowing themselves to embrace the emotional growth that comes with age and experience.By learning this skill, they can start to experience the deeper connections and emotional security they’ve always desired, free from the anxiety that once held them back.
If you need help changing old patterns of thought, check out my video: A Focus Wheel To Stop Negative Thinking and Improve Your Mindset in Love
Factor #2: Susceptibility To Change
A longitudinal study by psychologist Joanne Davila and her colleagues found that whether your attachment style changes over time largely depends on your susceptibility to change. This susceptibility is closely tied to how stable or unstable your internal relationship model is. If your mental model of relationships is inconsistent or incoherent, you’re more likely to experience shifts in your attachment style.
For example, if you’ve repeatedly experienced situations where an attachment figure consistently disappears or abandons you, especially in environments that are predictably negative or punishing, your insecure attachment style is less likely to change. This is because you’ve never seen evidence that a different, healthier relationship pattern is possible.
However, if your experiences with attachment figures have been more mixed—sometimes they’re very attentive, other times they’re completely absent—your emotional model for connection becomes more unstable. This instability actually makes your attachment style more adaptable and changeable over time.
In other words, if your beliefs about relationships are a bit “fuzzy” and your experiences have been varied, you’re more likely to see changes in your attachment style at some point in your life. So, if you’re feeling lost or unsure about who you are in relationships, this research suggests that it might actually be a positive thing.
If you’d like to learn more about the malleability of attachment styles, including how they can be polarized by your partner in relationships, check out my video: Can Attachment Styles Change Depending On Your Partner?
Factor #3: Willingness To Change
People naturally value secure and comfortable relationships with both friends and romantic partners. But can individuals actually work towards achieving this level of security on their own? A 2020 study explored this question, examining over 4,000 participants across three different studies. The researchers developed a new measure to assess people’s desire to reduce their attachment anxiety and avoidance. The results were clear: those who genuinely wanted to become less anxious in their relationships tended to experience a decline in attachment anxiety over time, suggesting that personal desire and effort can indeed lead to greater attachment security.
But what does it actually look like to become more secure on your own? It involves gaining a deeper clarity about various aspects of your emotional life. For instance, you’ll start distinguishing between your intuition and reactive attachment impulses, recognizing how automatic negative thoughts might be subconsciously influencing your decisions. You’ll also become more aware of how your survival and safety concerns impact your relationships, and how well your values align with your actions. This clarity extends to understanding your emotional boundaries, defensive coping mechanisms, and the intensity of your responses to certain situations.
As you continue to grow, this increased clarity and self-awareness lead to greater confidence in your decision-making abilities. You’ll find yourself better equipped to identify and name complex emotions, use metaphors to articulate your experiences, and discern whether a potential partner is truly compatible with you. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll notice that situations that once triggered intense emotional reactions become more manageable, allowing you to respond with greater calm and intention, without falling back on old, unhelpful patterns.
To learn more about managing triggers, check out my video: Mastering Your Emotions: What to Do When Triggered
Factor #4: Significant Life Events
Significant life events have the power to reshape our attachment styles, causing us to reevaluate how we connect with others (Fraley, 2019). Factors like becoming a parent, going through a breakup, or experiencing trauma can prompt deep reflection and force us to question the way we view ourselves and our relationships. These events can either reinforce existing patterns or, conversely, shake us enough to inspire change, making us more open to new ways of relating.
For instance, the transition to parenthood can challenge our sense of security as we navigate the responsibilities of caring for a new life. Similarly, relationship breakups often compel us to confront our fears and insecurities, while the experience of trauma, such as war, can dramatically alter our sense of safety and trust in others. The presence or absence of support during these times plays a crucial role in how we adapt; those who can make meaning of their experiences and seek help, like therapy, are more likely to find a path to healing and growth.
Ultimately, these upheavals can lead us to rethink our perspectives and, in some cases, shift from one attachment style to another. The ability to derive wisdom from our experiences, whether through self-reflection or therapy, can be the key to fostering more secure and healthy relationships as we navigate the complexities of adulthood.
If you would like to learn more about the impact of significant like events, like loss and grief, on your attachment style, check out my video: What is the Relationship Between Attachment and Complicated Grief?
Factor #5: The Capacity To Compartmentalize
A second idea emerging from this literature is that attachment styles are not singular; they are differentiated and hierarchical. Meaning, we have the capacity to compartmentalize, and shift our attachment styles based on context. and different types of relationships.
When faced with experiences that diverge from their expectations, people do not necessarily revise or update their mental representations of themselves and the people who are close to them, instead they might create new representations to accommodate those distinctive experiences. So, you might think, “My familial and romantic relationships are doomed, but work relationships and platonic friendships can be enjoyable and successful.”
As a consequence, some adults concurrently hold insecure working models concerning their parental relationships and secure working models concerning their romantic partners.
In fact, Baldwin’s study in 1996 demonstrated that an adult can have an insecure relationship with their mother but nonetheless be relatively secure in their marriage. Within the hierarchical framework, these discrepancies are expected consequences of diverging interpersonal experiences. So you don’t have to figure out how to have secure attachment to an obstinately insecure parent that makes it impossible, in order to have secure attachment in other important relationships in your life, that impact your quality of life.
Overall, when you are aware of what’s going on, you have more choice and agency around how to respond to what is happening both inside and outside of you. For better or for worse.
Basically, most people don’t change, because they don’t believe they can, or they don’t want to. But If you want to change, have learned how to derive wisdom from your experiences, and are willing to take action on that desire, you are more likely to be the exception to the rule. And evidenced-based Research has proven that.
How Can You Change Your Attachment Style?
Now that we know the major five influencing factors for changing your attachment style and becoming more secure in relationships, there are some new questions that are raised, to be answered.
So, then, how do we:
- How do we become aware of what we don’t know?
- How do we learn to derive wisdom from our experiences?
- How do we challenge our own negative assumptions?
- How do we choose new and healthier actions?
- How do we learn to embrace and allow for new and different emotional experiences?
In my attachment 101 courses, we take out all the nail-biting guesswork, and put you in the driver’s seat with a roadmap that holds your hand through a 7 step healing process. This process takes you from feeling self-doubting to self-sovereign, while activating the healing power of your creative energy, and avoiding total reliance on talk therapy.
These steps include:
- Getting clear on how attachment styles have compelled you in the past.
- How to apply the strengths of your attachment style to your healing journey.
- Decoding the impact of both big and small developmental traumas on our physical and emotional bodies
- Establishing safety in our bodies,
- Deconstruct the 3 primary types of emotional influence, that constrict our energy
- Get real clear on our values and priorities so we can establish healthy boundaries around them
- Connect to the inner child, so we can develop deep self trust, and learn to chance on being truly vulnerable in love.
By the end of this course, you will have a deep sense of self-worth, the ability to nurture secure, loving relationships, and the confidence to pursue the meaningful connections you desire. (To learn more click here.)
But don’t take my word for it, here are some more success stories from folks that have taken my courses and seen results.
How Stacy Learned To Be More Secure and Confident in Relationships
To better understand the process of attachment style change, I’d like to introduce you to Stacey. Stacey, a successful woman in her 40’s, experienced inconsistent and emotionally unavailable relationships, which sparked a deep-seated fear of abandonment and a strong need for constant reassurance.
As an adult, Stacey’s anxious attachment style had a significant impact on her romantic relationships, as she often found herself in tumultuous, anxious-avoidant dynamics. However, after a particularly challenging breakup, Stacey began to recognize the patterns of her attachment style and the ways in which it was sabotaging her ability to form healthy, fulfilling connections.
In taking my course, Stacey learned to cultivate self-awareness, self-compassion, and more effective boundary-setting skills. She also made a conscious effort to seek out supportive, emotionally available friends and romantic partners who could provide her with a secure base from which to explore her attachment-related fears and insecurities.
But I’ll let Stacey speak for herself…
“This is hands down the best course I’ve ever done, and I’ve been in 4 years of therapy.” – Stacey R.
Over time, Stacey gradually developed a more secure sense of self, a greater ability to regulate her emotions, and a deeper trust in her ability to form and maintain healthy, interdependent connections with others.
I am happy to say, Stacy’s results are not unique.
Because when you invest in one of my programs, you receive more than hours of lecturing and journal assignments. Instead, you feel more grounded and centered, using body activating guided meditations and visualizations that afford you greater control of your emotions. You also develop a greater sense of personal empowerment and agency, while exploring unique art therapy and energy healing techniques, that tap into your life force energy and remind you of your creative spark and capacity for joy and curiosity.
And in case you’re still not sure, here are several more success stories to help you feel inspired!
If you’re ready to join us today, click this link to my Attachment Styles Quiz. This will allow you to receive a personalized explanation of your attachment style’s strengths, struggles, and growth challenges, along with a special offer on the course that’s right for you.
Okay! Let’s wrap this up with some final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
Attachment styles are the ways we emotionally connect with others, shaped by our early experiences with caregivers. Most people assume it means our attachment patterns are fixed and unchangeable because of consistent behaviors like anxiety, avoidance, or confusion in relationships, but the truth is attachment styles, while often stable, can change over time with the right experiences and conscious effort.
From this new perspective, we can now understand how our attachment styles are not rigid identities but adaptable patterns that can evolve as we grow and learn. The growth challenges include:
Letting go of old beliefs such as “I’m stuck with my attachment style,” “I’ll never feel secure in relationships,” and “My past defines my future”…
And adopting new, more positive beliefs such as “I can learn from my experiences,” “It’s possible to feel secure in my relationships,” and “I have the power to change my patterns”.
This new understanding opens up the possibilities for building secure, fulfilling relationships without feeling trapped by old patterns or past experiences.
I want to assure you, not everyone is doomed to repeat their past relationship struggles. They really do want secure, loving connections and desire to feel safe and confident in relationships. Feeling more secure in relationships is not only possible but probable when conscious individuals are ready and willing to face their negative assumptions and take action on proven solutions.
Accomplishing this includes skill-building in the areas of self-reflection, boundary-setting, emotional resilience, and understanding core values. My 3-phase healing framework holds your hand every step of the way through these growth challenges, using a multimodal and experiential approach, in my course Attachment 101 courses.
To learn more, be sure to click this link, and sign up for the Attachment Styles Quiz, which will give you personalized insights and guide you toward the next steps on how to become secure in relationships.
I hope you enjoyed today’s post! Please leave your comments below, share your experiences, and follow along,l for more content on building secure and loving relationships. Your support means a lot, and I look forward to continuing this journey with you.
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