There are different types of attachment and these have a significant impact on our way of relating to others. Often, they are conditioned by the bonds between parents and children in childhood, this being the stage in which we develop certain ways of feeling and behaving when we interact with others, both in family environments, as well as in friendship and romantic relationships. Of course, a traumatic experience in adulthood can also condition our attachment.
The psychologist Mary Ainsworth and the psychiatrist John Bowlby developed the theory of attachment, pointing out that there are four types of attachment: secure, avoidant, anxious and disorganized. While the first is the result of positive parenting, where parents have supported and validated the child’s emotions to give him security, the other three are types of insecure attachment. In them, insecurity, fear of rejection and lack of confidence are prevailing.
Do you constantly live in fear that your partner will leave you or lose your friendship with someone important to you? Do you feel nervous when they take a long time to reply to a message? Do you constantly ask them where they are or what they are doing? If so, you probably belong to the group of people with ambivalent anxious attachment.
The psychologist Iratxe López explains in her blog that ambivalent anxious attachment is one in which the person has a need for constant contact. Its origin is attributed to parents who are “inconsistent in caring for the baby”, so that when the baby had a need, sometimes they met it, other times not or they did it too late. “These behaviors of the parents cause the child to perceive the caregivers as unpredictable. All this makes the child seek her approval and live in constant fear of abandonment, ”says the psychologist.
In this way, the little one learns that the best way to get the attention of his father figures is to attract attention. In addition, they will not want to separate from them for fear of abandonment.
In adulthood, ambivalent anxious attachment translates into great emotional dependency, with a tendency to exaggerate emotions and needs. People with this type of attachment are very sensitive and feel a persistent sense of abandonment.
