You Can Change Avoidant Attachment Style: Seven Straightforward Steps
(I wrote this for "The Good Men Project, June 1o, 2024.)
With these straightforward steps, you can create the intimacy you want and deserve.
June 10, 2024 by Dr. Tara Alexander
Wish for Connection
You may think of yourself as a “free-spirit,” “lone-wolf,” or even tough when other people are wimpy and needy. Confident and self-reliant on the outside, some of these characteristics could create feelings of isolation and loneliness.1,3
If you want to be “close but not close” in relationships, you may have an Avoidant Attachment Style. In the past 50 years, attachment theory research has found that people with Avoidant Attachment style do crave meaningful connections.1,3,4
You are not trapped in your identity as the “free-spirit” or “lone-wolf” while secretly feeling lonely. You can change your attachment style to get the deeper connections that you want.
A Pattern of Relating
Attachment styles develop because of complex factors such as genetic predisposition, environment, including caretaker bonding or life trauma, and romantic experiences3.
Sometimes the literature uses negative labels for people with Avoidant Attachment styles. Instead, think of it as a pattern of relating that was once useful, but now is not. Since 25 — 30% of people reported a change in their attachment style,3 you can also unlearn old patterns.
Description of Attachment Styles
Securely Attached people, considered the healthiest attachment style, form close and warm attachments, de-escalate conflict, and problem solve. About 50% of the adult population is Securely Attached3.
Anxiously Attached people also want close attachments but are fearful of being abandoned. Those in this group compromise their own needs and may escalate situations to verify that they are loved. They are sensitive to rejection, real or imagined. About 25% of the adult population is Anxiously Attached.3
Avoidantly Attached people are different from the other two groups in that you do not seek attachment. Sometimes divided into two groups: Dismissive Avoidant, who shut down their feelings, and Fearful Avoidant, who want closeness but is afraid. You are vigilant about getting trapped into any situation that will restrict your freedom.4
When the Avoidantly Attached person has friends or a partner wanting more closeness, you may feel suffocated and create “deactivating strategies.” These are ways to make space, such as suddenly getting busy, ghosting the other person, or dreaming about a different relationship.3 There is always a wall that sometimes even you can’t break through.
“I Am Totally Fine Without You” (But I Am Not)
Humans have evolved to live in tribes as a survival mechanism. However, when resources were scarce, there was an evolutionary advantage for a small percentage to be wired to strike out on their own. In our highly connected modern times, this wiring is not an advantage. 3
You may appear fine as a loner on the outside, but research has shown repeatedly that you actually wish for closeness, just like the other two styles.3 In one study, people with Avoidant Attachment Style moods’ went higher than average after hearing that they would have a successful relationship in the future.1
Another study showed that although adults with Avoidant Attachment style repress their emotions, but during normal life stressors, they are less likely to seek support from their partner and therefore as just as unhappy and the Anxiously Attached adults.4.
If you are identifying with the Avoidant Attachment Style category, you can change. The steps are not an “insta-fix,” but a bridge to the loving relationships you want.
Seven straightforward steps:
1. Review childhood messages about being independent.1 Parents sometimes drill messages into their children to be independent and “always stand on your own two feet.” Worse, such messages might have been reinforced with “never rely on other people,” or “Don’t be needy.”
These messages are wrong. Humans go through three broad stages of development. As babies, we are dependent. Through later childhood and teen years, we learn independence. As we adults, we learn at work and through families to become interdependent.
Human independence is a myth. We all need each other. Interdependence is the highest level of mental health. Childhood messages about extreme independence playing in the background like Muzak could be the logjam for Avoidant Attachment Style.
2. Name Your Emotions. Avoidant Attachment style distains emotion and weakness. 1,3,4 Emotions can be messy, so better to hide in the treehouse of logic. However, those who clamp down on their emotions are the ones losing it when they get a parking ticket.
Get in touch with your emotions the way you open a shaken two-liter of soda: Twist the top off, a tiny bit and tighten back. Then, a bit more. Admit how you are really feeling. Even if you start with “Mad, Glad, Sad,” a controlled release is the best way to go.
When you are ready to expand your emotional vocabulary, download “The Feelings Wheel” by Dr. Gloria Wilcox and learn a word a day.
3. Learn to Calm Yourself (Emotional Regulation)3. Once you are in touch with your emotions, don’t let them run away with you like a wild horse.
Create a list of at least three things for calming yourself (emotional regulation). More active activities are usually better than passive one. You may have to try an activity a few times.
Here are examples of ways to move emotion through your body: Walking, washing the car, playing with your dog, take a cool shower, cleaning, talking to a friend, food prep, dancing, weeding the garden, throwing rocks into an empty lot, punching a heavy bag.
4. Start making authentic connections, slowly. In the past, you have felt relief when you pushed people away. Break old patterns in small steps, like a spiral, moving inward. You are trying to be close to people without bailing.
It is understandable if you need to take space, or, if the process is uneven. Get “comfortable with discomfort.” Notice your emotions, name them, use your calming list. Don’t stuff or get overwhelmed by emotions. If you continue to bail on people to get relief, find a good therapist.
5. List your deactivating strategies3. Once you understand your deactivating strategies, you are in the driver’s seat.
Create two lists. The first list is ways you move away from people, such as ghosting, nitpicking or fantasizing about an ex. The second is your redirection list, what you want to do you catch yourself deactivating, such as creating a gratitude list or working through the problem.
Bonus: Tell two safe people who don’t know each other about the two lists, the deactivating strategies list and the redirection list. When they see you using deactivating strategies, they should remind you about your redirection list.
6. Work on your assertiveness. Assertiveness is defining yourself, what you want and don’t want, and taking responsibility for your feelings. Assertiveness is believing you are worthy of respect2. Whole courses are taught on assertiveness.
Assertiveness is a set of skills that can be learned. No one is perfectly assertive across the board. People with Avoidant Attachment styles use deactivating strategies instead of being honest if something is on their mind3. Learning to be more authentic and vulnerable is part of overcoming Avoidant Attachment style.
7. Improve your conflict resolution skills. Whole classes are also taught in conflict resolution. Conflict resolution is resolving problems together. It pulls together all the above skills. It is easy to walk away from conflict and create emotional walls. Conflict resolution skills create intimacy.
People have different conflict resolution styles. To get traction in creating closeness with others, you will need to get in touch with your emotions, keep your emotions in check (emotional regulation), know how to connect with people, learn to assert yourself, and ultimately, work towards interdependence.
Why Do This Work? While you may look confident and self-reliant, research shows that if you have Avoidant Attachment Style, you do crave meaningful connections with the people in your life. The good news is you can change your attachment style.
With these straightforward steps, you can create the intimacy you want and deserve. Connecting with others is what makes us human. It will be worth the work.
References:
1. Caravello, M and Gabriel, S. (2006). No Man Is an Island: The Need to Belong and Dismissing Avoidant Attachment Style. Society for Psychology and Social Personality, 32(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205285451
Gazipura, A. (2017). Not Nice. OR: B.C. Allen Publishing and Tonic Books.
Levine, A. and Heller, R. (2011). Attached. The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep — Love. NY: Penguin Random House.
Simpson, J. and Rholes, W. (2017). Adult Attachment, Stress, and Romantic Relationships. Curr Opin Psychol, 13, p.19–24.10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
About Dr. Tara Alexander
Dr. Tara Alexander, ACC, is life coach and licensed mental health therapist with over 30 years experience. She works with people to improve real-world assertiveness and conflict resolution skills. For more hands-on skills that are not boring, check out her website at ConquerConflict.com.
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