Maybe you've started dating someone and noticed you're checking your phone constantly. If you get a short reply, your mind races. You replay what they said on the last date, and you find yourself reading their face for signs that something has changed. Some clients tell me they feel like they've become "crazy" in relationships, as if a different version of them takes over once someone starts to matter. If you've been wondering how to heal anxious attachment, some version of this may be familiar.
In this post I'll cover what anxious attachment (sometimes called "anxious preoccupied attachment") looks like in adult relationships, what's underneath it, why reassurance only helps for a while, what therapy for anxious attachment looks like, and, at the end, what I'd want a partner to understand.
What is anxious attachment?
Anxious attachment is a pattern in which closeness and connection feel essential to your sense of safety, and the possibility of losing them feels very threatening. People with this pattern tend to watch their relationships closely, to need frequent contact and reassurance, and to feel anxious or angry when a partner needs space.
Signs of anxious attachment (anxious preoccupied attachment) in adult relationships
In my practice, the people I see with this pattern often describe feeling nervous on dates, especially early ones, and needing near-constant contact to feel okay. They ruminate over what someone said. They scan facial expressions and body language in a hypervigilant way (including mine, in the room). Securing and keeping a partner can start to feel like the most important thing in life.
It can also look like changing yourself significantly to fit the mold of who you think a partner wants, and sometimes being controlling or very jealous. Many people find that they get anxious, then angry, when a partner asks for space, and that the anger tends to push the partner further away. That can leave them with the very thing they feared, which seems to confirm that the other person was never really interested.
Underneath it, there's very often a belief that you're unlovable, or not worthy of love.
What causes anxious attachment?
Attachment research, beginning with Mary Ainsworth's work in the 1970s, has linked this pattern to caregivers who were inconsistent in their attunement and affection. Sometimes they were warm and attuned, and other times they were distant, or left you wondering whether they really cared. They might have been sweet one day and angry or resentful the next.
When you can't predict how a parent will feel toward you, or how available they'll be, you learn to watch. A child in that situation becomes very skilled at attuning to a parent, closely and constantly, in order to find some order in the uncertainty. It probably served you well, because scanning your environment helped you find ways to get at least some of your needs met. But it's a muscle that has grown too big and out of balance with your other muscles.
There's often an unconscious wish in it too: to turn someone unpredictable into someone predictable. In adult relationships that can mean trying to turn a partner into the person who finally gives you what you didn't get as a child, which is security. The stakes feel enormous, because it can seem like this one person could be the source of all the healing. The intensity of that wish tends to come out as anxiety and, sometimes, anger. It also tends to come at the expense of learning to provide yourself with security, validation and self-love.
What triggers anxious attachment?
The alarm tends to go off when a partner seems less available than you'd like: a slower reply than usual, less contact, a distracted tone, or a partner asking for space. Early dates can set it off too, because it's still unclear where you stand. Sometimes the trigger is hard to point to at all, and a partner's focused or neutral expression is enough to read as anger or judgment. In my experience, these moments feel so intense because of what they touch, which is the old uncertainty of not knowing whether the person you depend on is really there for you.
Reaching, checking and protest: the body's alarm for disconnection
The alarm often shows up in the body first: tension, jumpiness, a racing heart, and difficulty focusing on anything except the person you want security from. You check whether someone likes you. You might ask whether they still love you, or need reassurance again and again. You might get angry if you feel rejected, or if a partner isn't giving you the contact, communication or availability you want. Sometimes you pull away in protest, because it's another way to get their attention and get them to chase you, so that you feel wanted.
Some people feel flooded to the point where the anxious or angry part of them seems to take over. I tend to see that as a child part of you taking over, one who is desperate to get unmet needs met.
Why reassurance only works for a little while
Reassurance often does help, but only temporarily. Then the insecurity comes back and you ask again. In my experience that's because the need underneath isn't really for the answer. It comes from a child part of you who couldn't rely on anything and had to work very hard to find something to rely on, which turned out to be their own ability to scan other people to figure out whether they were loved. A partner saying "I love you" reaches the part of you that is listening to the words. It doesn't always reach the part that learned, long ago, that warmth could disappear.
How to heal anxious attachment
The way I work with this is by helping clients develop a relationship with that child part. We start by recognizing that this part has been deprived, and has been living in constant fear and anticipation of rejection. Many clients feel anger toward this part at first, because it leads them to act in ways they'd rather not. Sometimes they tell me they hate it. I might say something like, "I hear that you hate this part of you because it leads you to constantly ask for reassurance, but I feel compassion for what this part of you went through, and how uncertain they were about whether they were worthy. There's something sad about imagining you as a child never really knowing for certain whether you were loved."
Something can shift in moments like that. Clients begin to feel sadness and grief for the child who was left uncertain, and once compassion comes in, there's room for change. We also grieve what never was.
Over time, the work is to understand these patterns more deeply, both outside the room and inside it. You begin to notice the anxious part rather than being taken over by it, to build a self-worth that doesn't depend on someone else's validation. You begin to find an authenticity that doesn't rely on shape-shifting in order to feel loved. (Winnicott wrote about this in 1960 as the "false self", a self built around what others seem to need. Something like it often lives in people who change themselves for each partner.)
The anxious part may not go away entirely. What can change is the relationship to it, a bit like living with a roommate in your home rather than trying to evict them. When we shame a part of ourselves, it often finds a way of forcing itself onto the scene.
Therapist for anxious attachment style: what therapy looks like
If you're looking for a therapist for anxious attachment, it may help to know that the pattern usually shows up in the room too. It sometimes takes a while, because it takes time to feel a therapeutic attachment. You don't need to bring any of this up, and I don't expect you to. We can just notice it together as it comes. In the beginning I may be seen as a problem solver or a giver of wisdom more than someone in a real relationship with you. As the attachment deepens, the dynamics that come up outside the room often start to appear with me. A client might worry whether I'm mad at them, or read my focused expression as anger or judgment. They might try to get me to like them by complimenting me or reassuring me, and then feel disappointed if I don't give the exact reassurance they wanted.
This can be one of the first places where these fears can be safely spoken out loud. I hold them with curiosity and without judgment. Early on I may offer reassurance, but as in other relationships, it may not be enough. Over time, learning to sit with the anxiety, with someone who isn't judging it, makes it possible to tolerate it in other relationships too.
Can anxious attachment change?
I find it can. Not by getting rid of the anxious part, but through experiences in which it's met with compassion rather than shame, and in which the fear is felt and held, first in therapy and then in other relationships. People often come to feel that they're lovable without having to keep earning it. This change is often referred to as "earned security."
How to love someone with anxious attachment
If you're the partner of someone with anxious attachment, the first thing I'd want you to know is that "needy" is an inherently shaming word. It describes someone negatively, and when people use it on themselves (or to describe a partner), it tends to reinforce shame. Needy never exists in isolation. It comes from somewhere, often a place of pain and confusion.
You can meet some of these needs by offering reassurance, and it's also important to set boundaries and limits. If you're going out with friends on your own, or taking time for yourself, it can help to say, kindly and clearly, that you still love them. That helps an anxious partner experience that they can still be loved despite separation, which builds tolerance for the attachment anxiety. We don't want to shame them. Couples therapy can also help both of you understand the cycle together.
When it may be something else
Anxiety in relationships doesn't always mean anxious attachment. Generalized anxiety, trauma, or other attachment patterns, including disorganized attachment (where there's a strong pull toward closeness and a fear of it at the same time), can look similar, and they often overlap. Constant rumination about a partner can also be part of a broader pattern, which I write about in how to stop ruminating. And if you recognize yourself more in pulling away from closeness than reaching for it, you may want to read about avoidant attachment. A good evaluation can help sort out what's driving what.
Therapy for anxious attachment in Manhattan and online
I work with anxious attachment in person in Manhattan and online across New York and Florida. You can read more about how I think about these patterns on my relationships and attachment page. If you'd like to talk, you can reach out for a free consultation.
Sources
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Winnicott, D. W. (1960). Ego distortion in terms of true and false self. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (1965). International Universities Press.
