Three signs that a person has insecure attachment include the inability to engage in intimacy, struggling to form healthy relationships with others, and unpredictable or inconsistent behavior with loved ones.
Examples of Insecure Attachment Behavior in Children
Actively avoiding parents/caregivers. Frequent bouts of inconsolable crying. Being overly clingy with parents/caregivers. Masking emotions.
Insecure attachment may take the form of avoidant, distant behavior or anxious clinging behavior. When children have insecure attachments with their parents, any number of negative consequences can follow, such as depression, anxiety, a lowered ability to cope with stress, and poor relationships with others.
Insecure children, particularly those with an avoidant classification, tend to exhibit minimal emotional expressiveness overall, and particularly restrain the expression of negative emotions.
Ainsworth (1970) identified three main attachment styles, secure (type B), insecure avoidant (type A), and insecure ambivalent/resistant (type C). She concluded that these attachment styles resulted from early interactions with the mother.
Avoidant, anxious, and disorganized are considered insecure attachment styles. If a child can consistently rely on their parents to fulfill their needs growing up, they're likely to develop a secure attachment style. They'll see relationships as a safe space where they can express their emotions freely.
Definitions. Insecure attachment : An individual relationship can be insecure when it contains elements of mistrust together with anxious or avoidant elements and lacks a secure base. It is considered a dysfunctional relationship.
Insecurity involves an overall sense of uncertainty or anxiety about your worth, abilities, skills, and value as a person, conveying the message that you're at risk or in danger of something or someone. That negative impacts of insecurity could be physical, mental, or emotional.
We first review basic principles of attachment theory and then discuss how two forms of attachment insecurity—anxiety and avoidance—are associated with unique patterns of emotion regulation in response to certain types of threatening/distressing situations.
What causes insecure attachment? Insecure attachment oftentimes stems from childhood and is formed from caregiver-child relationships. Adults who deal with insecure attachment often lacked consistency, support, and reliability during childhood.
1) Proximity Maintenance – The desire to be near the people we are attached to. 2) Safe Haven – Returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety in the face of a fear or threat. 3) Secure Base – The attachment figure acts as a base of security from which the child can explore the surrounding environment.
We can define secure attachment as relationship bonds filled with safety, authenticity, reciprocity, and loving presence. Insecure attachment implies that relationship bonds are entangled with fear and survival states.
Based on these observations, Ainsworth concluded that there were three major styles of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent-insecure attachment, and avoidant-insecure attachment.
The four S's of a secure attachment style refer to feeling safe, seen, soothed, and secure. Making children feel these ways may help them establish healthy bonds in their adulthood. Attachment style theory is a psychological framework originally developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.
Early insecure attachments can negatively impact a child's brain structure and development, which can be displayed in a variety of ways. These problems may show themselves as developmental delays, difficulty with social relationships, struggles with emotional regulation, aggression, low self-esteem, and depression.
A child with a disorganized attachment expresses odd or ambivalent behavior toward the parent, (i.e. first running up to them, then immediately pulling away, perhaps even running away from the parent, curling up in a ball or hitting the parent.)
Infants classified as insecure resistant do not seem to be able to use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore. Their play may be limited and they may seek contact and proximity from the caregiver even before separation occurs.
Attachment trauma is associated with developing insecure attachment styles. Children who have experienced attachment trauma may experience emotional disorders, such as emotional dysregulation, and may struggle with relationships as they get older.
The kind of childhood you had, past traumas, recent experiences of failure or rejection, loneliness, social anxiety, negative beliefs about yourself, perfectionism, or having a critical parent or partner can all contribute to insecurity.
Those with insecure attachment styles, on the other hand, may tend to become needy or clingy in their closest relationships, behave in selfish or manipulative ways when feeling vulnerable, or simply shy away from intimacy altogether.