Attachment theory describes a handful of characteristic ways that people relate to those closest to them. In this short video, Dr. Sue Johnson (the leading developer of Emotionally Focused Therapy [EFT] and one of the most important contemporary voices on adult attachment) describes secure attachment, the attachment style researchers and clinicians have come to see as the healthiest way of relating to others and the self. By understanding the characteristics and benefits associated with secure attachment, therapists are better placed to support their clients on the path to greater overall well-being and connectedness with others.
Dr. Johnson invites clinicians to think about attachment styles as personality types or strategies for relating to others. Attachment style is largely developed in early life, in response to the nature of an individual’s childhood relationships. In adult life, it informs how that person manages closeness, vulnerability and need.
Insecure strategies take hold wherever attachment figures were perceived too often as inaccessible, unresponsive, or threatening when they were needed. This occurs in instances of abuse, neglect, trauma and mistreatment, and it can also develop within a great many ordinary childhoods in which nothing nameable went wrong and care was simply unpredictable. Conversely, where early relational experiences featured reliable connection, trust, and emotional and physical presence, a person comes to expect these things in their relationships later in life.
What Secure Attachment Looks Like
A person with a secure attachment style has a positive and coherent working model of themselves and others. They anticipate being taken care of and treated well in relationships, and consider themselves lovable and worthy of good treatment and care. They also know themselves to be someone who can manage their own emotions, meaning they can tolerate and manage vulnerability without having to defend against it.
With this foundation, the securely attached person engages in relationships in an open-hearted, yet discerning way, anticipating that they will get their needs met. In doing so, they are more likely to have relationships where this is the case. They can depend on others without losing themselves, be alone without feeling abandoned, and set boundaries without resorting to aggression or descending into guilt.
In real life relationships, a securely attached person is comfortable with closeness and with needing others, is able to acknowledge their attachment needs, and can reach out with congruent verbal and nonverbal signals to appropriate attachment figures in moments where they want reassurance, comfort or connection. When a response comes, they are able to trust it, take it in, and allow it to reassure them.
In contrast, insecure strategies develop when this kind of reaching out has not worked. These can look different depending on the particular ways the individual may have been let down or hurt historically, but often include incongruent bids for care, an inability to ask for help at all, or difficulties receiving support when it is offered.
The Mental Health Implications of Secure Attachment
In addition to the impacts of secure attachment on an individual’s intimate and relational life, this way of relating has been associated with numerous mental health benefits. Secure attachment is correlated with lower levels of depression and anxiety and with better overall well-being (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). The advantages extend into how securely attached people meet the world. They tend to be more assertive, better able to handle difficult situations, and more resilient in the face of trauma (e.g. Fraley et al., 2006). In Dr. Johnson’s account, a secure style functions as a kind of buffer: when a person knows they have someone to turn to, and has faith in their own inherent worth, they cope better with almost everything else.
Secure Attachment as a Therapeutic Goal
While attachment styles have their origins in early life, they are not fixed. Secure attachment can be fostered in a number of different situations, including the right therapy. Attachment style can change when new experience allows working models to be revised. This is the therapeutic goal of attachment-focused treatments: to help people become able to better connect with others and reach for help in moments of need, while holding on to a positive sense of self and coming to understand their own vulnerability, rather than fear it.
EFT is a non-pathologizing psychotherapeutic framework grounded in attachment theory that supports clients to achieve these aims. Rather than addressing diagnosis or mental health disorders directly, EFT aims to address the suffering in the client’s life through acknowledgment of the deeper attachment wounds that so often sponsor mental health symptoms. EFT is most renowned for its use with couples and families, but Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT) also adapts EFT for work with individual patients. Through an experiential, relational therapy with an attentive, emotionally present therapist, clients can learn to tell new stories about themselves and how they experience the world of relationships.
Clinicians who want to work more deliberately with attachment can explore Psychwire’s Emotionally Focused Therapy courses with Dr. Sue Johnson and Dr. Leanne Campbell. These courses, along with Dr. Johnson’s books Hold Me Tight and Attachment Theory in Practice, detail these ideas in depth for both personal and clinical application.
